by Maddie Underwood, Retention Specialist, Blackbaud
The age of Artificial Intelligence is undoubtedly upon us. This is both an exciting and daunting concept. For one, we are truly living through one of the most significant technological eras of all time. On the other hand, the scope of what AI can do grows larger by the day, bringing a bit of unease to those who are already hesitant to integrate the tech into their daily lives. In Leveraging AI for your Workflow, Microsoft Account Executive Melissa Hortman illustrated how we can use artificial intelligence to propel us forward in the corporate world, all while developing a new skill that can help us thrive in our professional and personal lives.
Speaking to an audience of about fifty young professionals, Hortman started off the session by mentioning the large-scale workforce change that occurred in 2020 due to the onset of COVID. Along with the changes in where we work, how we work has undergone a major metamorphosis. Hortman next shared a few impressive statistics; one of which was incredibly eye-opening. Hortman explained that it took approximately three months for ChatGPT to reach 100 million users. For context, it took Facebook four years to reach this milestone, and seven years for the internet to do the same. This shows the groundbreaking rate at which users are adopting AI.
The cultural shift here has happened previously, as depicted by the stats above, but the voracity and speed at which this is occurring has not been seen before. Something Hortman said that really resonated with the crowd was the following: “AI is not a new tool for work. It’s a new dimension of work, and an extension of ourselves.”
We have the power to make artificial intelligence work for us in a myriad of ways. Copilot, Microsoft’s AI offering, is a major player amongst the throng of automated systems available for use. During the interactive section of the workshop, we navigated to a link filled with prompts that we entered into Copilot, ranging from how to best prepare for a meeting to getting feedback on our resumes. Hortman let us know of several ways to tweak our prompts to receive the most efficient results: being as specific as possible in our queries, asking the tool multiple questions for clarification and always requesting a source. We then spent the remainder of the workshop exploring prompt creation and testing out the many Copilot tips and tricks Hortman had shared with us.
As we move forward into the future and continue to experience innovation in technology, it’s important that we take these changes in stride as to not get left behind in the cyberspace dust. Artificial Intelligence is not leaving anytime soon, so there’s no time like the present to start implementing it into your workflow. Hortman shared that approximately 76% of people are already using AI at work, and 46% of people started using it less than six months ago—another statistic illustrating its rapid adoption.
Perhaps the most striking point of data shared was that 66% of employers would not hire a candidate without AI skills. Knowing this and taking the steps to become proficient in AI could mean the difference between staying stagnant at your current role to blossoming into a whole new realm of professional prowess. Melissa Hortman’s workshop was both an intriguing and intuitive discussion on a pivotal technological topic, and her insight was advantageous for all who attended.
