Artificial Intelligence at Student Consultant: Part 2

12

October

2023

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In part one my blogs, I introduced the AI chatbot that streamlined consultant onboarding at Student Consultant. Today, we delve deeper into the AI landscape, with a focus on Microsoft 365 Copilot, a game-changer for our consultancy which we cannot wait for.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a virtual assistant for people working in Microsoft 365 applications and services, as well as Windows. The tool, which is going to be released in 3 weeks (Walker, 2023), after being announced by Microsoft on March 16, 2023, builds on OpenAI’s sophisticated GPT-4 large language models (LLMs) and uses Microsoft Graph to transform user text input into content for Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams (Wikipedia, 2023). You can click the following link for a short introduction on Copilot: https://youtu.be/S7xTBa93TX8.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will make sure that we never again begin from scratch. It provides the initial creative spark and provides a first draft for consultants and expansion by consultants. It can produce ideas, suggestions, and content to advance my work on a certain subject or project. Spataro (2023) claims that Word’s Copilot feature kick-starts the writing process by providing rough draughts that you can edit and modify. It keeps you in charge by allowing you to decide how it will go or give input. In addition, Copilot streamlines content generation for PowerPoint presentations by combining relevant data from previous documents or powerpoints. Data analysis and visualisation are going to be simple tasks in Excel, creating code and equations by just explaining what you want to see happen.

Every consultant, including student consultants, aims to concentrate on the most essential tasks. By performing repetitive and routine chores, Copilot streamlines work and frees up time for high-impact jobs. Outlook manages email effectively by summarising threads and recommending fast responses. By summarising talks, highlighting significant ideas, and recommending action items in real time, it transforms meetings in Teams. Beyond increasing output, Copilot improves abilities. Using natural language, it streamlines access to Microsoft 365’s extensive features. Our ability to use technology effectively will increase as a result of this transition (Spataro, 2023).

The opportunities are endless when Student Consultant adopts Microsoft 365 Copilot. It promises to profoundly alter how AI interacts with us and how we work with AI. While there may be a learning curve, those who embrace this new way of working quickly gain a competitive edge.

References

Spataro, J. (2023, March 16). Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – your copilot for work. Retrieved from The Official Microsoft Blog website: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/

Walker, A. (2023, October 4). Microsoft 365 Copilot: Confirmed release date and what we know so far. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from Android Authority website: https://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-365-copilot-release-date-3355464/

Wikipedia. (2023, April 1). Microsoft 365 Copilot. Retrieved from Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_365_Copilot

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The Silver Bullet That the Software Industry Has Been Waiting For

5

October

2022

5/5 (2)

Hardware is one of the fastest improving sectors in the technology industry. Over time, our computers are decreasing in price while their speed is increasing exponentially. This idea is otherwise referred to as Moore’s law. However, where technological hardware has seen six orders of magnitude price-performance gain in 30 years, software improvements are lacking behind (DBA lecture 1, 2022). It is not that software improvement is slow, but rather that hardware improvements happen relatively very fast. Fred Brooks (1987) emphasises that there is no silver bullet for software development that promises to deliver price-performance gains even slightly comparable to those seen in the hardware industry. Brooks writes that

“there is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.”

However, that silver bullet might have arrived after all with the arrival of a new software development technique. GitHub Copilot is an extension to your coding environment that serves as an AI pair programmer. There are two primary ways in which it supports software developers. Firstly, it makes suggestions on how to finish code whilst it is being written. An example is displayed in image 1. When a software developer starts typing a function to generate random numbers (the line of code marked in colour), Copilot will recognise what the developer is doing and do suggestions on how to finish the code (the line of code marked in light grey).

Image 1

Its second primary function is to generate code based on a request by a software developer. Image 2 shows the request of the developer (the line of code marked in light grey), and the suggestions done by Copilot that have been accepted by the developer (the line of code marked in colour).

Image 2

Copilot’s two primary functions can help to drastically improve the productivity of software development. Processes that require simple and repetitive coding will be done in the blink of an eye as Copilot will be able to do such coding for software developers on request. However, there is more. Whereas the examples that I just discussed are simple, more complex possibilities lie on the horizon. Imagine software developers being able to request entire software projects, and that Copilot offers them the relevant code. As software projects tend to vary it is not likely that Copilot will be able to deliver the exact code that the developers will need. Rather, the code offered by Copilot then functions as the foundations upon which the developers can build their software projects. Having the foundations of a software project quickly upon request can likely prove to be the order of magnitude improvement that the software industry has been waiting for. In that sense, Copilot promises to be software development’s silver bullet!

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