The Safest Bet You Can Make on AI
AI is evolving quickly, but building a workforce that knows how to use it is one of the safest bets you can make.
Most organizations are trying to make sense of where the opportunity of AI fits into their universe. Which AI initiative should you lean into, and which should you be more skeptical of... which will successfully shape your strategy for years to come, and which will become a story of regret & ruin? Like most transformational moments, this certainly won't be something that everybody gets right.
Picking the right mega-AI investment is high-stakes stuff, but it's not the only game in town. Honestly, I don't even think it's the game most orgs should be playing. Instead of trying to solve the big problems, start with the smaller ones - the ones that will allow you to use AI as a force multiplier WHILE you work out those bigger plans.
The safest investment you can make right now is building basic, practical AI competency in your workforce.
If you have Microsoft 365, Copilot is an obvious place to start. Not because it is the only AI platform worth learning, or because everyone should bet their AI strategy on Microsoft, but because it already has something most AI tools don't... a seat inside the environment where your people actually work.
Microsoft 365 Copilot isn't just a chatbot sitting beside the enterprise. It can work within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and SharePoint, and ground its responses in the organizational content that a user already has access to. It also gives your users an enterprise AI option for working with organizational data instead of turning to unsanctioned public AI services.
That distinction matters.
Learning how to ask an AI model a good question is useful. Learning how to use AI against the meetings, documents, email, conversations and institutional knowledge that make up your actual workday is something way more tangible. It's also more natural.
And you don't need to design a massive training program from scratch to start building those skills. Microsoft already provides a ton of incredibly useful Copilot training resources, including Copilot Academy in Viva Learning, that organizations can begin putting in front of their workforce today.
And it's free. 🥳
So, this is one of those rare easy wins.
Microsoft has already built the training. Your job is to make sure your users know it exists and encourage them to use it.
Here are a few good places to start:
Nobody knows exactly what the enterprise AI landscape will look like in three years. But the organizations that will be best positioned for it are the ones building practical experience today.