Microsoft releases new research on how AI will change the way we work in Thailand

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Microsoft has released new Work Trend Index insights for leaders and employees, and announced it is bringing Microsoft 365 Copilot to more customers

Bangkok, 29 May 2023 — Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot, which will bring powerful new generative AI capabilities to apps millions of people use every day like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams and more. The company has now announced it is expanding access to the Microsoft 365 Copilot preview and introducing new features. The company also released new data and insights from its 2023 Work Trend Index report: “Will AI Fix Work?

The 2023 Work Trend Index surveyed 31,000 people across industries in 31 countries – including Thailand and 13 other markets in Asia Pacific[1] – as well as trillions of signals from emails, meetings, and chats across Microsoft 365, plus labor trends on LinkedIn. The data shows that the pace of work has accelerated faster than humans can keep up, and it’s impacting innovation. Next-generation AI will lift the weight of work. Organizations that move first to embrace AI will break the cycle — increasing creativity and productivity for everyone.

“AI represents a whole new way of working, as it moves from autopilot to copilot, freeing us from digital debt and fuelling innovation,” said Supanee Anuwongworavet, Deputy Managing Director – Marketing & Operations, Microsoft Thailand.

“As work evolves with AI, so must we. Employees across Thailand are optimistic about AI, as our Work Trend Index research suggests 86% of people in Thailand would delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads. The most pressing

opportunity and responsibility for every leader is to understand how to leverage AI to remove the drudgery of work, unleash creativity, and build AI aptitude.”

The report shares three key insights for business leaders as they look to understand and responsibly adopt AI for their organizations:

  1. Digital debt is costing us innovation: We’re all carrying digital debt. The volume of data, emails and chats has outpaced our ability to process it all. There is an opportunity to make our existing communications more productive. Every minute spent managing this digital debt is a minute not spent on creative work. 89% of people in Thailand say they don’t have enough time and energy to get their work done, and those people are more likely to say they struggled with being innovative. Of the time spent in Microsoft 365, the average person spends 57% communicating and only 43% creating. And the #1 productivity disruption is inefficient meetings.
  2. There’s a new AI-employee alliance: For employees, the promise of relief outweighs job loss fears and managers are looking to empower employees with AI, not replace. While 66% of respondents in Thailand say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, even more – 86% – would delegate as much work as possible to AI in order to lessen their workloads. 9 in 10 Thai workers would be comfortable using AI not just for administrative tasks but also analytical work and creative aspects of their role. Meanwhile, Thai business leaders are 1.3x more likely to say that AI would be most valuable in their workplace by boosting productivity rather than cutting headcount.
  3. Every employee needs AI aptitude: Every employee, not just AI experts, will need new core competencies such as prompt engineering in their day to day. 90% of leaders in Thailand anticipate employees will need new skills in the AI era. And 86% of Thai workers say currently they don’t have the right capabilities to get their work done. This new, in-demand and AI-centric skillset will have ripple effects across everything from resumes to job postings.

To empower businesses in the AI era, Microsoft has introduced the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program with an initial wave of 600 enterprise customers worldwide in an invitation-only paid preview program. In addition, the following new capabilities will be added to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Viva:

  • Copilot in Whiteboard will make Microsoft Teams meetings and brainstorms more creative and effective. Using natural language, you can ask Copilot to generate ideas, organize ideas into themes, create designs that bring ideas to life, and summarize Whiteboard content.
  • By integrating DALL-E, OpenAI’s image generator, into Copilot in PowerPoint, users will be able to ask Copilot to create custom images to support their content.
  • Copilot in Outlook will offer coaching tips and suggestions on clarity, sentiment and tone to help users write more effective emails and communicate more confidently.
  • Copilot in OneNote will use prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information to help customers find what they need easily.
  • Copilot in Viva Learning will use a natural language chat interface to help users create a personalized learning journey including designing upskilling paths, discovering relevant learning resources and scheduling time for assigned trainings.

To help every customer get AI-ready, Microsoft is also introducing the Semantic Index for Copilot, a new capability we’re starting to roll out to all Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 customers.

In addition to those capabilities, Microsoft recently unveiled exciting new AI-powered features and additions for Copilot offerings at Build 2023.

  • Bing Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot and other AI copilot services are embracing the same open standard for plugins as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. For instance, Microsoft 365 Copilot can now work with three main types of plug-ins: Teams message extensions, Power Platform connectors, and ChatGPT plugins. Moreover, users can select from a wide range of third-party plug-ins, including offerings from Atlassian, Adobe and more.
  • Windows Copilot will make Windows the first PC platform to provide centralized AI assistance for customers. The Windows Copilot will be always available to act as your personal assistant – helping you take action, customize your settings, and seamlessly connect across your favorite apps. Bing and ChatGPT plugins are also fully supported in Windows Copilot.
  • Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end, unified data analytics platform that will help organizations unlock the potential of their data and lay the foundation for the era of AI, while Azure AI Studio enables developers to quickly ground conversational AI models on their own data and create richer experiences and insights.

To learn more, visit the Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft 365 Blog, the new Work Trend Index, and the Microsoft Build 2023 newsroom.

[1] Asia Pacific markets in the study include Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.