Earlier this month, a few of the Compass365 team members attended the AI+IM Global Summit in Atlanta. If you are familiar with AIIM (Association of Intelligent Information Management), you know that the organization is a well-established (1944!) nonprofit that provides resources, training and community support to business and technology leaders who are managing information. This year the primary focus was on AI in Information Management – a topic on everybody’s minds these days.
The conference was fast moving, informative and provided attendees an opportunity to engage with others through a Cohort format that grouped folks together by industry. While still digesting all of the good learning provided, we wanted to share our Key Takeaways from the conference.
AI is Everywhere and Not Going Anywhere
AI is making waves across industries, and while companies are eager to dive in, there’s a bit of nervousness too. It’s like the new kid on the block that everyone wants to be friends with but isn’t quite sure how to approach. For instance, in SharePoint, AI-powered agents can assist with onboarding, streamline complex tasks, and answer questions, making it easier for users to adapt to new technologies, but knowing how and where to start is holding many organizations back.
Most Organizations are in the Early Stages of AI Adoption
Organizational Readiness for AI
Many organizations are still in the early stages of AI adoption. Assessment, planning, migration, and cleanup are necessary steps. A clear strategy, training, governance, and policies are also needed. In SharePoint, this means creating a roadmap for AI integration, training employees, and establishing governance policies and also means organizing both structured and unstructured data and ensuring it’s accessible and reliable. This is with what we are seeing within our client base. We are helping our clients to create roadmaps, strategically move content into SharePoint and/or reorganize and secure the content they have for maximum use.
Data Readiness for AI
Even when there is strong support for implementing AI, most organizations’ data is not where it needs to be to leverage the tools. Data readiness – clean, secure, trusted, and accessible data is the backbone of any AI program. Most issues arise from messy, siloed, and unreliable data. Both structured and unstructured data need to be organized and reviewed. Still hosting content in File Shares? By moving it into SharePoint, AI can enhance autofill features, extracting key details from documents and organizing metadata using natural language prompts.
Planning is Key to a Successful Implementation
Strategic Roadmap
Mapping AI use cases to your strategic roadmap is essential. Consider the value, feasibility, and cost to ensure you’re making smart investments. For example, integrating Copilot into your workflow can help automate routine tasks and provide data-driven insights, if process automation is one of your company’s strategic goals.
Cross-Functional Deployment
Deploying AI should be a team effort. A cross-functional approach helps identify the most valuable use cases and consider various benefits and risks. It’s not just an IT project; it’s a company-wide initiative. In Teams, this means involving different departments to ensure AI tools like Copilot are used effectively across the organization.
Practical Applications
AI can automate workflows, enhance business processes, support Information Management and Governance, improve decision-making, and boost efficiency for information workers with tools like transcripts and summaries in Teams. Copilot can assist in drafting emails, creating complex documents, and providing data-driven insights.
AI Types and Purposes
Two Types of AI – Generative AI vs. Agentic AI
Generative AI creates new content like text, images, and music, while Agentic AI makes decisions and takes actions autonomously. Think of Generative AI as the creative artist and Agentic AI as the autonomous decision-maker. In SharePoint, Generative AI can help design visually engaging intranet sites, while Agentic AI can automate workflows and decision-making processes – think Agents and Bots.
Two Primary Purposes of AI Solutions
AI generally falls into two categories: those that boost efficiency in work processes and those that provide market differentiation through insights. Think of it as the difference between a super-efficient assistant and a strategic advisor. In Teams, AI can automate meeting summaries and transcripts, enhancing productivity, while Microsoft 365 Copilot can provide strategic insights by analyzing data and generating reports.
Everyone is Facing Challenges
Getting started on the AI journey can be daunting. Unstructured data, lack of expertise, and leadership commitment are common hurdles. AI magnifies both good and bad practices, so it’s essential to establish trust in the results. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Starting with something simple but useful like Microsoft Teams transcription and meeting summaries gives the business an opportunity to get comfortable with the tools. Providing training, assistance with prompting, building out use case and validating results can help overcome these challenges.
In summary, if you find yourself at the very early stages of your AI journey, you are not alone. The vast majority of attendees of the AI+IM Global Summit, other than the Presenters, attended the conference to learn more about what AI can do for their organization, what challenges people are facing and how to get started. As Microsoft Solution Partners, we can help you improve your readiness for Copilot and other AI tools by ensuring that your unstructured content (documents, video files, etc.) is in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online, well structured, validated and secured. Reach out to us at contactus@compass365.com to start the discussion!
Compass365, a Microsoft Solution Partner, delivers SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and Power Platform solutions that help IT and Business leaders improve the way their organizations operate and their employees work.
