Hello, and welcome.

I'm thrilled to have you here for AI in Action,

unlock productivity at work.
My name is Bobby Russell,
and I'm a technical trainer here at Microsoft.
I'm here to guide you through this fast paced interactive
session where you'll discover practical ways AI can simplify
your work, reduce errors, and free up time so you can
focus on what truly matters.
And the best part?
You don't need to be an AI expert to benefit from this.
Before we dive in, let's take a moment to set ourselves up for success.
Here are a few quick reminders to get the most out of this session.
Number one, join the Guinness World Records
Challenge.
If you haven't registered yet,
take a moment now so you don't miss out on this exciting
record breaking attempt.
You'll be asked to provide an email where we'll send your
badge after the session.
How to earn your badge?
Well, attend the session and complete a simple step we'll share at the end.
Next, there'll be a mini interactive
exercise using Microsoft Copilot.
To get ready, let's open Copilot in another browser tab so you're all set
when we get to that part.
And finally, engage with your peers and experts.
Learning is better when you do it together.
Drop your questions and thoughts in the chat as we go.
We have Microsoft AI experts on standby ready to help.
Great.
Now we're set up.
Let's talk about what we'll be covering today.
In this session, we'll take a journey together to unlock your AI mindset and
explore how AI can support your work.
We'll meet your AI work buddy and understand how AI fits
into daily tasks.
We'll explore how AI can solve real life work problems and
discover your own AI Kickstarter task.
You'll get started with basic prompts with a mini interactive exercise.
And finally, you'll plan small,
easy actions for simple next steps to work smarter with your AI.
By the end, our goal is for you to feel excited,
confident, and ready to apply AI to your workflow and
enhance your productivity.
Let's start with a quick icebreaker.
In the chat, type two things.
First, where are you joining from?
And second, type in the chat window an
adjective that describes how you feel about your AI today.
I'll give you a few seconds to share.
What adjectives are you seeing from your peers?
In past sessions, we've seen a mix of emotions.
Some people are excited, curious,
skeptical, cautious, or even unsure where to start.
And my friends, this is completely natural.
AI is a big topic and everyone's journey looks different,
whether you're new to AI or already experimenting with it in your work.
Now let's try something different.
Imagine you magically gained two extra hours every week.
No strings attached.
What will you do with that extra time?
Drop your answers in the chat,
and let's get a little more insight into everyone.
Great answers.
If I had two extra hours every week,
I'd spend more time with family,
work on my passion projects such as cabinetry or other
woodworking projects,
maybe go for a walk or simply breathe between meetings.
Well, here's the good news.
AI can help make that happen.
By offloading repetitive tasks and working smarter,
not harder, you can create more time for what truly matters.
So our simple goal for today is to
help you find one simple way AI can create an opportunity
for you and your work.
Let's call this our AI Kickstarter,
a practical, easy way to put AI to work for
you right now.
Maybe it's something that helps you.
You know, maybe automating a repetitive task,
summarizing information faster,
or writing emails more efficiently.
And the best part?
You don't need to be an AI expert to start.
Are you ready to explore what's possible? Well, let's dive in.
Now that we've set the stage for our AI journey,
let's talk about something even more exciting.
How AI can actually help you in your day to day work.
We've all heard the buzz about AI.
But what does it actually mean for you?
How can I fit into your workflow,
simplify tasks, and help you work smarter, not harder?
To answer that, let's start with a simple question.
What is AI and how does it work?
At its core, AI is designed to assist and amplify human productivity.
But in recent years, one particular type of AI has been
making headlines, that being generative AI.
So what is generative AI?
Well, generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that
focuses on creating new, unique content based on input you provide.
Let's break this down.
Generative AI is powered by large language models or LLMs.
These are AI models trained on massive amounts of data to
understand and generate human like language.
It works through something called prompting.
You provide AI with an input, like a question or a request,
and it generates a response based on that.
The final thing to know is it creates new content.
It can write, design, summarize,
and generate content in ways that mimic human creativity.
And a great example of this would be Microsoft Copilot.
Microsoft Copilot is one of the AI powered productivity tools
available today.
It integrates into your existing workflow and acts as
your intelligent assistant.
Here are some real world examples of how AI is being
used right now to improve productivity.
In drafting professional emails in seconds,
Instead of spending time crafting emails,
AI can suggest polished responses, saving you effort.
By generating high quality images for branding, marketing,
or product design, AI can create visuals
instantly, replacing hours of manual work.
It can assist in translating and localizing content in minutes.
Expanding your business or reaching global audiences can
be easier with AI.
And finally, creating AI powered customer
service agents.
AI chat bots and virtual assistants are improving
customer interactions and automating repetitive inquiries.
These are just a few ways AI is already transforming work,
and we're just scratching the surface.
But let's take a step back and ask,
why should we care about AI right now?
First of all, the reality is work is moving faster than ever.
Think about your own workday.
Through information overload,
we're constantly bombarded with emails,
documents, and reports.
Through nonstop communication, we have meetings,
online messages, endless notifications.
It never stops.
Also through productivity demands, teams are stretched
thin, and leaders are looking for ways to do more with less.
With all of this happening,
the pressure to stay efficient is greater than ever.
Organizations that adopt AI early will gain a competitive
edge and build future ready skills.
And we're already seeing real world impacts.
According to Microsoft's work trend index,
AI is helping professionals across different roles from
knowledge workers to IT and business teams be more
productive, reduce manual tasks, and stay
ahead in their work.
Learning to use AI effectively today equips you with the
skills needed to thrive in your roles in workplaces of the future.
Second, AI isn't catching up.
It's accelerating.
The AI tools available today are already impressive,
but the advancements we'll see in the next few years will
completely reshape how we work.
As the old saying goes, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Organizations that embrace AI now unlock creativity,
efficiency, and productivity,
staying ahead in a world where AI will only get smarter and more powerful.
Now imagine having a virtual assistant that understands your
work and can instantly answer your specific questions based
on your role and context.
This is where AI agents come into play.
Also known as virtual assistants,
these smart software tools assist with tasks based on your needs.
AI agents can be built using your knowledge base,
allowing them to provide answers without the need to
search through multiple documents.
For example, with Copilot agent,
users can now create basic AI agents without coding,
enabling automation and efficiency in their roles.
Those who experiment early will adopt more easily as AI
continues to advance.
The more you experiment with AI now,
the easier it will be to integrate new capabilities as they evolve.
Now, we're all excited about the
future of AI.
Let's focus on something more practical.
How AI can help us today?
Here are some everyday tasks where AI can be a game changer.
It can help us generate meeting summaries and notes.
No more scrambling to write everything down.
AI can extract key points for you.
How about translating languages and recapping meetings?
Keeping teams aligned across different regions has never been easier.
It allows you to transform text into different formats.
Whether you need to reformat a report or tailor content for
different audiences, AI can do it in seconds.
It can assist with brainstorming and creative ideas.
AI can help you generate fresh ideas, refine your work,
and even act as a creative partner.
A final example to consider would be providing coaching and
workflow suggestions.
Need help structuring an email, summarizing a document?
AI can guide you step by step.
If you think of AI as your smart work buddy,
you'll start to see how it can assist you every single day.
It's not about replacing the way you work.
It's about enhancing your abilities,
reducing busy work, and freeing you up to focus on what truly matters.
Now that we've explored how AI can assist you in your daily
tasks, let's take a moment to look at the bigger picture.
We've talked about the potential of AI,
but how are organizations actually using AI to drive real impact?
To answer that, we'll explore some real world case examples
on how businesses are using AI to solve challenges,
improve productivity, and create real value.
Across industries, AI is changing the way
companies operate, helping them move faster, work smarter,
and innovate more effectively.
Here are three key ways AI is driving transformation today.
First, it's boosting productivity with
AI enabled workflows.
Organizations are using AI to increase speed, scalability, and efficiency,
allowing teams to tackle complex problems faster.
Second, it's optimizing workflows for accuracy and efficiency.
AI is helping businesses automate repetitive processes,
reduce human error, and freeing up employees to focus on
higher value work.
And finally, it's creating business breakthroughs and enhancing
customer experiences.
AI is enabling businesses to personalize interactions,
improve response times, and add more value to customers.
Let's take a closer look at one example.
One great example of AI impact comes from Finastra,
a global financial services company.
Before AI,
their marketing team had long content creation timelines,
sometimes taking up to six months to develop campaign materials.
With so many layers of review and approvals,
the process needed some improvements.
They needed a way to speed up content creation while
maintaining quality and inclusivity.
But after leveraging AI by integrating Microsoft Copilot,
the team was able to generate and optimize content faster.
Copilot helped them create high quality drafts within minutes
instead of weeks.
It ensured inclusivity in messaging.
AI insisted in refining content to align with diverse audiences.
And they were able to streamline the review process,
reducing the back and forth between teams.
The outcomes?
Time to market was reduced by seventy five percent,
meaning they could launch campaigns much faster.
The team had more time to focus on strategy and creativity
rather than getting stuck in repetitive tasks.
And this is just one case example.
Companies across industries are discovering new ways to
leverage AI to increase efficiency and drive results.
Now that we've explored real world applications of AI,
let's bring the folks back to you.
So how can I help you work smarter and drive impact in your role?
To get started, let's revisit some common AI use cases that
can be applied across different industries and professions.
Take a moment to scan through these examples on your screen.
It can assist in generating meeting summaries and notes.
AI can automatically capture key points, action items,
and next steps, so you never have to scramble for notes.
It can make drafting professional emails a lot easier.
Instead of spending time writing from scratch,
AI can generate polished, structured responses in seconds.
How about brainstorming and generating ideas?
AI can help spark creativity and provide different angles
for your projects.
Another use case in creating strategy documents and reports.
AI can help structure content, summarize research,
and format documents efficiently.
And one last example would be developing checklists and project plans.
AI can help you organize workflows and ensure no
critical steps are messed.
Take a few minutes to go through these examples and think.
Which of these tasks could AI help you with?
To help you find inspiration,
let's take a look at some short videos featuring Microsoft
colleagues sharing how they use AI in their own roles.
These short videos will give you a glimpse into how
professionals across many different functions are
integrating AI into their work.
As you watch, think about how AI might help you in a similar way.
You'll see four videos.
The first video will deal with drafting emails with AI.
How AI can speed up email creation while keeping messages
professional and on point.
The second video will deal with creating a strategic document,
and it'll show how AI helps structure and refine strategy
documents efficiently.
The third video you'll see will deal with brainstorming new initiatives.
How can we use AI to spark creativity and expand possibilities?
And the final video you'll see will deal with developing a
checklist for your role and show how AI assist in
organizing tasks and workflows.
Enjoy the videos.
Picture this.
You're about to launch a big campaign,
and you need the perfect email to grab everyone's attention.
What if I told you there's an AI that can help you craft that
email in seconds?
Hi.
My name is Kiana Darling,
and I'm a marketing professional here at Microsoft.
And my New Year's resolution is to improve my email efficiency
with my leadership team.
Drafting emails can be very timely to me.
So I'm using Microsoft's AI Copilot to assist me in
drafting the perfect email for my campaign.
Come and check this out.
So I'm pulling up my Copilot app, and I'm typing in,
can you help me draft an email for my leadership team
highlighting my new campaign?
And in seconds, it populated an email draft for me to use.
All you have to do is go to the App Store,
select the free Copilot app, accept some permissions,
input your name, choose your sound, and you're great to go.
Thanks for watching.
Check out the caption for a link to learn more,
and let me know in the comments how you'll be using Copilot.
I have to draft the strategy document today,
and it's gonna take off today.
Just use Copilot.
I'm not sure that'll save the time of that.
Okay.
How about you draft your strategy document today without
Copilot if I'm gonna use Copilot,
and let's see who's done faster.
Like a race? Exactly. Let's go.
Alright. I need to draft a strategy document.
Let me start by asking Copilot.
Please provide me a draft template for an executive
strategy document.
All done.
If you wanna save time in your day,
download Microsoft Copilot for free in your App Store.
Open up your App Store.
Once it downloads, type in your name, choose your voice,
and accept some permissions, and you're ready to go.
Hey. Come closer.
Did you know that Microsoft Copilot can help you generate
ideas for employee well-being?
My name is Guillermo,
and I'm a HR professional here at Microsoft.
Copilot has helped me a lot in develop solutions for employee well-being.
Download the free Copilot app and ask,
what are the five ways I can encourage well-being in our employees?
Nice. Right? Let's try another prompt.
What about wellness program idea?
That's perfect. I'm surely going to use it.
What about you? Let me know in the comments.
Hey. What's wrong?
Oh, writing this onboard checklist for the new hire is taking forever.
You know Copilot can help you with that. Right? Really?
But I don't want all my work to go to waste.
Don't worry about it. You can just take a picture.
Let me show you.
Can you turn this onboarding checklist into our
comprehensive onboarding list?
Include what I have already listed here and producing a table.
Copilot is a really lifesaver,
and it can be your AI companion too.
Download it for free on your App Store today.
I hope these examples spark some new ideas on how AI can
support your work.
Now let's take a moment to reflect on your own AI opportunity.
Take the next few minutes to answer these guiding questions
to help you identify your own AI Kickstarter tasks.
What are one or two tasks in your daily work that feel
repetitive, manual, or frustrating?
Which of these tasks, if automated or streamlined,
would have the biggest impact on your productivity or reduce errors?
And finally, if you freed up time by
automating these tasks, how could you use it for higher value work?
Take a moment to jot down your thoughts.
Once you're done, share one task you have identified in the chat.
What did you identify as your AI Kickstarter?
How did your peers approach theirs?
Did you notice any common themes?
I'm sure there were overlapping tasks,
yet with unique variations based on different roles and context.
That's what makes AI so fascinating.
It's not a one size fits all tool,
but a flexible assistant that adapts to your specific needs
and ways of working.
Now that you've identified your AI kickstarter task,
it's time to take the next step,
which is learning how to communicate effectively with AI.
AI can be an incredible tool,
but the quality of its responses depends on how you ask.
In this section, we'll explore how to write effective prompts and give you
a chance to practice and refine your own AI prompts.
So let's get started.
Writing a good AI prompt is like giving instructions to a smart assistant.
The clearer and more specific you are,
the better results you'll get.
Let's go over four key principles that will help you
craft better prompts for Copilot and other AI tools.
First, be specific about what you want
the AI to do.
Clear goals typically lead to better responses.
Next, add some context to help AI understand what you're asking.
Context makes the response more relevant.
Also, provide examples.
This helps ground the response in the right context.
And lastly, let AI know how you want the response to be formatted.
This sets clear expectations.
To summarize, an effective prompt typically includes a
goal, which is what do you want the AI to do, context,
which is what background information is helpful,
provide examples, which can provide a reference
or sample, and set expectations.
How do you want the response structured?
Now, let's see this in action with a quick live demo.
Let's experiment with different types of prompts to see how AI
responds differently based on how we ask.
I'm about to ask Copilot to help me generate ideas for our
company newsletter.
I'll try two different prompts, option a and option b.
Think of the differences as I interact with CoPilot with these prompts.
So here's my first attempt.
I'm gonna take a request, a basic request here.
And what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this.
And we're gonna paste it into CoPilot. So this is my prompt.
In this prompt, I say,
I need ideas for our company newsletter.
Can you suggest some topics?
And I'll submit the request within here and CoPilot will
generate a response based on my request.
And in here says, absolutely, Bobby.
Here are some engaging topics tailored for your newsletter,
especially given your focus on productivity and financial analysis.
So in here, we have, you know,
top five Azure tools for financial data analysis.
We have streamlining your workflow tips for automating
repetitive tasks in finance and making meetings matter.
And if you notice for each of these,
there's a very short sentence below it.
So for the first one,
cache for Redis or Event Grid with practical applications.
So this gives you an example of a very basic prompt.
But now what I like to do is I like to do a side by side
comparison and we're gonna go and we're gonna provide a more
detailed prompt in this example.
So our second option, option b here, we're gonna say, okay.
I'm working
with working on our company newsletter.
Can you suggest topics related to productivity tips for
financial analysts?
Each topic should include a compelling headline and a short
summary that highlights its relevance to the audience.
So if you notice here in my first example,
I had a very vague prompt.
I said I need ideas for our company newsletter.
Can you suggest some topics?
And it gave me very generic information.
In my second prompt that I'm about to submit,
you notice here I've added some additional parameters
for Copilot to use to generate a response.
So in here, I'm saying not only suggest topics related to
what we just discussed, just generic topics,
but I wanna look for specific things dealing with productivity.
Also, I want to include compelling headlines and a short summary
that highlights its relevance to the audience.
So you see, I'm adding more information.
I'm adding more information to the prompt to generate
something that's a little bit more specific.
So let's go ahead and submit this request in here and see what we get.
So now, if we do a side by side comparison between the two,
notice here, I did say give me something that's,
a little bit more compelling.
So five time saving Excel tricks every financial analyst
needs to know versus just the top five Azure tools for data analysts.
So you can see here that the the the titles are a lot more
catchy here, more compelling as I requested as part of this.
And in here, I said,
give me a short summary that highlights its relevance to the audience.
And in here, provide a more specific summary based on relevance to the audience.
So the prompt has a very big impact on how Copilot will respond.
So it's always important to be as specific
in your request as possible so that your response gives you a
more fine tuned response based on what it is that you're looking for.
I hope this gives you a great example of the effectiveness of
a very detailed prompt.
So I ask you, which response did you find more useful?
Drop your thoughts in chat.
What was the difference between prompt option A and prompt option B?
The second prompt was more specific including context and
gave AI a clear structure.
This resulted in a more tailored and high quality response.
Now, it's your turn to try.
Now that we've explored the key principles of effective
prompting, it's time to put them into action.
In this mini interactive exercise,
you'll draft and refine your own AI prompt,
test it in Microsoft Copilot,
and evaluate the quality of its responses.
Let's walk through the steps to get started.
Step one.
If you haven't already,
open up Microsoft Copilot in your browser in another tab.
This is where you'll be testing your prompt.
If you're using Microsoft Copilot for the first time,
take a quick moment to get familiar with the interface.
You'll see a chat window where you can enter your prompt.
Step two.
Now think back to the AI Kickstarter task you identified
earlier in this session.
Use this task as the foundation for your prompt.
Now write a prompt for your AI Kickstarter task.
Step three.
Once Copilot generates a response,
take a critical look at the output by asking yourself these
three key questions on the screen.
And in step four, one of the most powerful aspects of AI
is iteration.
Your first prompt might not be perfect and that's okay.
Provide feedback and ask follow-up questions to improve
the output quality.
Try to make more prompts for the remaining time.
Now, let's take a few minutes to complete this exercise.
Now that we've had time to experiment,
let's share your biggest moment with peers in the chat.
The best way to learn the useful tips.
I hope you found the exercise helpful in getting started with
basic prompts for your AI Kickstarter opportunity.
Now let's talk about what comes next.
The small, easy actions you can take to
continue learning and growing on your AI journey.
Like any new skill, building AI skills takes practice.
And the best way to get better is by developing
AI habits that fit into your daily routine.
But before we dive into habit building,
let's take a moment to discuss something equally important,
using AI responsibly.
As AI becomes more integrated into our daily work,
it's critical that we use it ethically, fairly,
and responsibly.
As you continue experimenting with your AI,
here are some best practices to ensure that your AI generated
content is fair, trustworthy,
and beneficial to society.
Do things like use clear, specific prompts.
The more precise your request, the more relevant the output.
Always verify accuracy.
Always fact check AI generated content using trusted sources.
Watch for biases and be mindful of gender,
racial, and socioeconomic biases in AI outputs.
Edit AI generated content.
Ensure clarity, fairness, and alignment with your goals.
Respect privacy.
Never input sensitive or personal data into any AI tool.
And finally, be transparent.
Disclose AI generated content in professional or in public use.
Understanding potential AI biases is crucial for ensuring
fair and ethical usage.
Here are a few biases to watch out for when working with
AI.
Gender bias.
AI can perpetuate stereotypes if trained on biased data.
For example, a hiring algorithm may favor
male candidates over female candidates due to historical data biases.
Racial bias.
AI systems can exhibit racial discrimination
if not properly trained.
Facial recognition systems may have higher error rates for
people of color compared to white individuals.
Socioeconomic bias.
AI can sometimes favor individuals from higher income backgrounds.
For example, a credit scoring algorithm might disproportionately
approve wealthier applications over those from lower income neighborhoods.
We have confirmation bias.
AI models learn from existing patterns.
So if the data skewed,
AI might reinforce one-sided perspectives.
If AI is trained mostly on Western media sources,
it might provide answers lacking global perspectives.
By staying aware of potential biases,
you can evaluate AI generated content critically and adjust where needed.
Now that we've covered how to use AI responsibly,
let's talk about how to integrate AI into your daily work.
Building an AI habit doesn't have to be overwhelming.
Start small.
Pick one or two simple actions and stay consistent.
Here are some questions to guide your action plan.
What's one AI habit you can start tomorrow?
What's one AI powered task you want to try daily?
Examples would be things like summarizing emails,
drafting content, or generating meeting notes.
How will you integrate it into your routine?
Examples could be things like using AI to summarize emails
right after checking your inbox.
How will you stay on track with your AI habit?
An example of this would be, you know, setting reminders,
refining prompts, sharing insights with a peer.
Let's take a few minutes to consider this.
Here's what I found really helpful when building AI habits.
Write it on a sticky note and attach it to a monitor as a daily reminder.
Set a calendar reminder.
Schedule five to ten minutes a day for AI exploration.
Pick an accountability buddy.
Find a colleague or connect with someone from this session
to check and to share learnings with.
Remember, your AI journey isn't about perfection.
It's about small,
consistent steps that build your confidence and expertise over time.
Congratulations.
You've completed this AI learning session.
During this session, you've learned how AI can act as your
work buddy to boost productivity.
You've identified your own AI Kickstarter task to get you started.
You've explored real world AI use cases driving business impact.
You've practiced writing and refining AI prompts for better results.
And finally, you've discovered small,
easy actions to integrate AI into your daily workflow.
That's a lot, and it's something to celebrate.
To celebrate your achievement,
make sure to claim your special badge awarded by Guinness World
Records through this AI Skills Fest event. How?
Make sure to follow the steps shown here.
Take a moment to acknowledge your progress.
This is a unique achievement.
Also, remember to share your success.
You should feel proud of yourself achieving this milestone.
Share what you learned in this session on LinkedIn or with
your own social network.
Tag your colleagues and friends who might benefit from AI skills training.
Use the hashtag AI skills fest to connect with
others in their AI journey.
Thank you for joining this session and taking a step
toward building AI skills.
Remember, start small, Build habits one
step at a time.
Stay curious.
Keep testing and refining your AI skills.
Engage with others.
AI is a learning journey best navigated together.
I hope this session has inspired you to continue
exploring AI and finding ways to work smarter, not harder.
Your AI journey is just beginning.
Keep exploring, experimenting,
and sharing your insights with your team.
Congratulations once again,
and thank you for being part of this AI learning experience.