How Microsoft Philippines is shaping AI adoption

COMPANIES should not only embrace artificial intelligence (AI) but also ensure they have the right strategies and frameworks in place to use it effectively and ethically, according to Peter Maquera, chief executive officer of Microsoft Philippines.

This approach is crucial for achieving significant business impacts like faster revenue growth, higher productivity, and cost reduction, Mr. Maquera told Editor-in-Chief Cathy Rose A. Garcia during an episode of BusinessWorld One-on-One online interview series themed “The Reinvention of Business.”

“People will use it anyway because it’s already there. What we’re talking about is, how do you use it responsibly? How can you be more intentional about transforming your organization?” he said.

Mr. Maquera said the fastest AI adoption has been in the banking, financial, insurance, and telecommunications industries.

This is due to these sectors’ customers dealing with a lot of content, where language models have the most impact.

Microsoft employs two approaches to transform banking and financial companies. The first is starting with internal use cases like human resource policies, which are low-risk and help organizations become comfortable with the technology.

The second approach involves more complex uses, such as customer service for external customers. This includes chatbots, sales augmentation, or customer service augmentation.

“What we’re doing a lot right now, especially with our product called Copilot. The big idea is to give you a genius copilot, but you’re still the pilot. If you’re involved in sales, you’re a copilot. We might be recommending to you what would be appropriate for that customer so that it’s a much more engaging conversation with your customer,” he said.

Citing the recent Work Trend Index 2024 report by Microsoft and Linked-In, Mr. Maquera noted that employees are already using AI without waiting for their companies to develop an AI strategy.

The report found that 86% of knowledge workers in the Philippines use generative AI at work, higher than the 83% regional and 75% global averages.

Additionally, 83% of Filipinos are practicing “Bring Your Own AI” in the workplace.

Mr. Maquera also said that half of the company leaders are not confident in their AI strategies.

“What happens is you have the employees using it anyway, and you don’t have the framework and the guardrails in the company to practice AI responsibly,” he said, which makes the company susceptible to data loss, privacy breaches, and more.

“When you think about what you need to have in place to have AI in your organization, you need to understand how AI impacts your business strategy and your return on investment. Because companies won’t do AI just to do AI,” he said.

Mr. Maquera cited the cost of deploying AI and modernizing technology as a reason some companies hesitate to use AI.

“It is fairly complex, and if you have a lot of legacy technology, it might cost you to modernize, or you might not have the right skill sets in your organization to develop that strategy. I think all those need to be in place for you to intentionally benefit from AI,” he said. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante