The Six Five team discusses Dynamics 365 Viva Sales going GPT.
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Transcript:
Daniel Newman: What we’re seeing is the evolution. You and I went to Redmond to see Bing, Bing, and the next generation of Bing, Bing search. I’m going to do that a few more times before we’re done. AI, ChatGPT powered search and adding it to the Edge browser. I don’t know about you, are you using it?
Patrick Moorhead: I am, I’m using it. If nothing else a logic check on some things but also really checking out the experience and see how it’s improved. They added that slider bar for do you want it to be creative, do you want it more balanced, do you want it more precise? And I thought I’d want more precise but I left it on more balanced, it’s a lot more fun.
Daniel Newman: Interesting, interesting. I’m using it and I think… I’m starting to understand it and find it increasingly more value. What did you and I say that was going to be most interesting wasn’t really the open internet and the next-generation large language models.? We said, “What’s going to get more interesting is when the data that we create, the proprietary data that we create, through our systems of record that sit in our data warehouses, that is part of our meeting data, that is part of our customer daily interactions that can be then incorporated into and added to the open data of the internet, and then, of course, the social graph that companies like Microsoft have from technology like LinkedIn.” And you start putting all this together and it gets really, really interesting.
Microsoft, I think the evolution is beginning to become clear. This particular announcement was around Dynamics 365, Viva Sales which is customer service, sales, CRM, and it’s about the Copilot. And Microsoft’s going to be very consistent in its explanation that Copilot is all about, this technology is supposed to work alongside you not in place of people. Having said that, it does some pretty important things and it takes it most of the way there. In customer service, it’s going to have advanced chat capabilities to generate emails to customers, summaries of meetings that you have, and even being able to import product pricing, product information, and create proposals instantaneously. It also has marketing capabilities that could help you drive customer insights. You can recommend customer segments to work with and even make suggestions of topics in terms of what should be put in front of customers. This is moving very, very quickly, Pat, and it’s being streamlined.
Copilot was originally part of the GitHub and you’re seeing how this is manifesting throughout Microsoft’s entire ecosystem to create a very streamlined AI builder, and that’s going to allow developers to use low code to incorporate generative AI models across the portfolio. So where does it go from here? My take is we’re going to see ChatGPT incorporated across every part of the Microsoft ecosystem. Not to mention, in the Viva Sales announcements, they also announced that this technology would work inside of Salesforce. And the reason I think that’s really important to mention is, of course, Salesforce came out with their GPT, and we’ll talk more about that. Let’s do it in another podcast. But the point is, the arms race isn’t only about the large language models for the open internet, now we’re seeing an arms race of large language model and generative AI incorporation into these applications. And this is pretty exciting.
So I see this as spanning – you’re going to see more GPT in Azure, you’re going to see more GPT in security tools and modules, you’re going to see more GPT in data and analytics tools that are going to sit at the PAS level, you’re going to see GPT everywhere. The Copilot is going to go everywhere. It’s eventually just going to be the Microsoft Copilot. That’s my take, no proof. What’s really cool here is we’re streamlining workflows, Pat. You and I do 100 meetings a week, wouldn’t it be great at the end of the week, when you’ve done 100 meetings, to just get a quick summary? What you met about? What’s important? What follow up you’ve committed yourself to? Can it actually write that? And by the way, it’d be pretty cool if all of our commentary on shows like this, “Hey, Copilot, write a blog post in my voice that takes the summation of the second segment of this week’s Six Five podcast and turn it into an article for my Forbes column.” Dude, I mean really.
Patrick Moorhead: No, I know. I mean, I’m super excited about that. That does push the lines of, I don’t know, analyst credibility and stuff like that but it sure is exciting. Actually, let me restate that. If it’s based on what we’ve already said and what we’ve already talked about, I do think that’s fair game.
Daniel Newman: Pat, that’s not only credible, incredible.
Patrick Moorhead: No, it totally is. And by the way, getting generative AI into Dynamics 365 is where, for my estimation, the excitement starts. I mean, Analytics have been around I mean forever. I mean, I started work in 1990 and we had Analytics to a structured database, and it did move the ball forward but there was very little automation and intelligence that would just be there. What I’m super excited about as it relates to things like supply chain, things like CRM, things like HRM. Those to me are super exciting as to what this technology can bring. Because it’s operating on a smaller dataset and a private dataset, I believe that what comes back will be more accurate. So you train on a gigantic dataset but you apply the data of your enterprise which is going to be smaller by the way, you bring in multiple data sets to help you make that control.
And with a company like Microsoft too when it comes to things like security, it really does just follow the same lines of how the data is secured in the first place. I know there needs to be that security check box because it’s important. But I also think that enterprise search we saw the same exact thing which was oh my gosh, some stuff came back in my enterprise search that I didn’t know was open to everybody. And we’re going to have little oopsies like that but none of this is new.
Daniel Newman: Absolutely, Pat. And by the way, one thing that is worth mentioning is the pace of innovation is mind-boggling. The speed in which Microsoft is doing this. And, of course, it’s putting pressure on all the competition to move faster, but I’ve never seen a pace coming out of big companies at quite this rate. It’s really interesting to watch.
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
