Beyond chat and images: How AI is changing the way we collaborate

“Pretty soon, it will no longer be one person to one AI. It will be about AI and teams of people coming together to do tasks more intelligently and effectively.”
Pete Daderko, Senior Director for Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint Product Marketing
Microsoft 

During his time at Microsoft, Pete Daderko has seen a dramatic evolution in the way people collaborate. When the pandemic started, fewer than 20 million people were using Teams. Five years later, that number has reached 320 million and counting.  

“It’s second nature now to use video conferencing tools. We don’t even think about it anymore,” says Daderko, Microsoft’s Senior Director for Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint Product Marketing. “The consumer-level familiarity with this technology, going back to when everybody was using Teams or other video tools to stay in touch with family and friends, created really strong tailwinds for enterprise adoption.” 

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to take that growth even farther, with Daderko expecting it to bring all-new collaboration capabilities not just to individual users but to entire groups of people across an enterprise. 

“The way the general population thinks about AI is rooted in a single predominant use case and a single modality. That’s going to change significantly over the next six to 12 months.” 

De-siloed approach to AI 

Although there’s a lot of hype around AI at the moment, Daderko believes most companies still have a narrow view of what it can bring to the table. 

“The way the general population thinks about AI is rooted in a single predominant use case, which is text summarization of emails and meetings, and a single modality, which is a chatbot,” he says. “That’s likely going to evolve over the next six to 12 months.” 

Already, Microsoft has launched AI solutions based on audio, video and images, in addition to chat. He also says a broad range of “hero scenarios” are emerging that go beyond simple text summarization. For example, companies are increasingly exploring AI as a tool for conducting deep research or assisting with creative work. But what Daderko sees as the most important shift will be the arrival of collaborative AI.  

“Pretty soon, it will no longer be one person to one AI,” he says, describing today’s “siloed” AI experience. “A lot of what we will see in the future is AI serving a team in the same way it serves an individual today. It will be about AI and teams of people coming together to do tasks more intelligently and effectively.”  

What might this collaborative AI look like? Consider a typical Microsoft Teams meeting. Leading up to the meeting, the AI creates and distributes the preparation notes, so everybody has the same context going in. It might even proactively suggest people to add to the meeting who should have been invited (based on their past history with the project or subject matter) but weren’t initially identified by the organizers.  

During the meeting, the AI provides a shared set of notes that are updated in real time as the meeting progresses – but can also be edited by attendees to ensure the most accurate record of what happened and what was agreed upon. Following the meeting, in addition to providing the standard summary, the AI tracks the progress of the commitments made, either through a linked project management tool or by sending automated follow-up emails.  

Supporting more types of workers and workstyles 

As AI advances, Daderko believes it will also bring benefits to staff who manage enterprise communications and collaboration tools. With telephony systems, for instance, IT admins have typically had to be deeply familiar with processes like setting up SIP trunking and assigning phone numbers. AI can help simplify the management experience, allowing IT admins to handle highly complex telephony stacks on their own, without as much specialized knowledge.  

“AI will break down a lot of processes, ultimately making things easier to manage and necessitating less familiarity or manual effort for a lot of routine tasks,” says Daderko, noting that this will be especially important for small businesses. AI will allow one person to take on many different roles and responsibilities, even if they’re not an expert. 

“AI will lift all boats. Whether you’re a world-leading expert or somebody with less experience.”  

What’s required to capitalize on the AI opportunity 

If enterprises want to get the most out of AI for collaboration, there are three pillars that first need to be addressed, says Daderko: 

• • • Data readiness: Data needs to be curated in way that will allow AI to use it most effectively. To start, he recommends consolidating all communications and collaboration tools (and their data) within a single platform. This will ensure the AI can make the right connections and isn’t missing any important context when doing its reasoning. 
    • Security posture: Proper data security is essential. For example, hiding files by “burying” them so humans can’t find them won’t keep an AI from accessing and using them. Companies need to fully understand who is creating and managing files and document libraries, then educate users on how to tag new files so they can be properly stored and protected. 
    • User preparation: If the people who will be using the AI aren’t familiar with the tools and use cases, Daderko says companies are likely to be disappointed with the return on investment. Proper change management can help ease employee concerns and increase adoption. 

Addressing all three pillars requires a focus on AI governance. Daderko says companies need to establish guidance for how AI can be used, but it can’t be too restrictive. Otherwise, they risk stifling how employees explore AI. In turn, they’ll lose out on unexpected use cases and more AI champions within the organization – as well as more opportunities to see a strong return on investment. 

He also believes the decisions made about technology are foundational to AI success. While companies could try to manage many different point solutions on their own, Daderko advises choosing a reliable technology vendor who can handle any integrations between AI tools and collaboration platforms.  

“Leading organizations will work hand in hand with their technology partners to design the AI experience to their liking. Companies must be involved in the decisions about how the AI is designed.” 

A trusted partner for your long-term evolution 

Daderko believes companies like Microsoft and Bell can be the kind of reliable partners enterprises need to adopt AI for team collaboration because “we drink our own champagne.” Put simply, not only do Bell and Microsoft sell AI solutions, but they also use those same solutions in their own operations.  

“You have to be using the technology to find the pitfalls and identify the best use cases,” he says. “It’s what allows us to communicate and share those learnings with other organizations.” 

With that insight, the right partner can help organizations better understand the use cases available to them both now and over a long-term roadmap – all based on how they want to enhance communications and collaboration going forward. 

Our thought leadership blog gathers perspectives from industry leaders at Bell and other companies. Explore views  on AI, security, business transformation and more. Visit our collaboration and Data and AI services pages to learn more about how we can help with your transformation.