“Let’s stop talking about AI and start talking to AI.” With these words, Alberto Granados, president of Microsoft, began his talk at the latest ‘Esade Desayunos’ held by Esade Alumni in Madrid, entitled “How Artificial Intelligence can accelerate a company’s competitive edge”, in which he shared his company’s vision of the benefits of adopting AI.

His talk, accompanied by a presentation featuring several AI-generated videos including a SuperBowl advertisement and a singing Mona Lisa, was extremely interesting for anyone who understands that AI must immediately become part of the decision taking of all businesses, regardless of their size.

Indeed, Alberto Granados was adamant that this is year two of generative AI: its impact on corporate revenue can already be seen and some 53,000 companies around the world already use Microsoft's Azure OpenAI.

Generative AI in companies’ present-day landscape

The current economic context is one of exponential economic growth. Companies that incorporate advanced generative AI technology into their business strategy will be the leaders of their sectors. Generative AI and other AI technologies could increase job productivity by up to 3.3% per annum.

Granados cited the example of a company with 10,000 users that installed Copilot for Microsoft 365 and went on to achieve average time savings of 2.3 hours/user/week and an ROI (return on investment) of 285%, with a payback of 7 months.

As regards functions, four large areas could benefit from generative AI: human resources, marketing, sales and legal. Granados also pointed out its importance for app developers and the importance of low code-no code tools, such as Microsoft Power Platform, which enable organizations to create and roll out their own solutions and apps in a short space of time, with the inherent cost reductions. Likewise, he mentioned Security as being one of the areas that could benefit the most from the use of AI, in a scenario in which cybercrime is “the world’s third largest economy.”

For AI to achieve real results, human participation is essential. It is not so much how spectacular a technology is, but rather the ability to ask the right questions to get the most out of it, i.e., “talking to AI, rather than about AI.”

In addition, a company’s governance, organization and culture, and the involvement of its management committees in AI implementation strategies will greatly impact its ability to achieve maximum efficiency.

According to Granados, the social and psychological impact of generative AI will radically change creativity. On the one hand, it will revolutionize the well-known brainstorming technique by providing good ideas and making excellence easier to achieve. The time saved on certain tasks can be used for more creative tasks in other areas outside the private sector, such those of scientists and NGOs. However, it is important to consider what can and cannot be entrusted to AI to ensure it is really productive.

The Microsoft president was accompanied at this session of ‘Esade Desayunos’ by Mario Lara, director of Esade Madrid.