Today was a busy day, as we toured to companies today, Microsoft and Thinkhouse. Microsoft is Microsoft, but Thinkhouse is a marketing agency targeted at the youth (ages 16-35), promoting its marketing through creative media. As Victor Seitl at Microsoft was giving us a presentation about AI, data analysis, and the future usage and expansion of those two fields, it made me wonder about the place that AI had in those companies. Seeing how Microsoft, as a part of their company tour, had an entire presentation, about half a hour, about AI, I knew that they were excited. Victor Seitl especially talked about the new member of the Microsoft suite, Copilot, and how it was amazing how much AI can make our lives easier and better optimize our lives, whether that is shortening paragraphs, scanning through documents, giving a transcript of the entire call when you were late, and so on. Especially with its stake hold in OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent company, it is obvious that Microsoft is ready to propel the field of AI and make it consumer grade as soon as possible. What also impressed me about Microsoft’s take on AI was not only it’s immense excitement about the field as a whole, but the company’s own mission and measures to make sure that AI does not become this monster that everyone fears, taking sentience like some fear or stealing data, rather making sure that there are guidelines in place so that everyone as a whole benefits from the usage of AI. On the other side of the spectrum, when Thinkhouse, a small independent agency was asked the question of how AI impacts their work, they were a little hesitant to answer. They acknowledged the usage and optimization of AI as a whole, but admitted that their creative sector, accounting for half of their work force, had taken a hit. For example, they tried to showcase a sample ad made by a person on their team and one made by AI, and thankfully, they said, the one made by a person won, but that, to me, shows how far AI has impacted their work. There are still issues of copyright and ownership of AI created art, so creative work will still be in demand, but that makes me wonder how different Thinkhouse’s creative sector will change through the next year or five years, and how differently they would change their approach to their youth oriented marketing.

Since we had two company visits back to back, it was a great time to reflect on company culture and how it is built. In my opinion, company culture is based off its CEO or chief administrator. The founders of the company created the company and formed the foundations of how it will run its business and maintain its lifespan. However, since people die and times change, the views of a century old founder will not sustain itself in the current business world. Therefore, it is the role of the current president, CEO, or leading figure to guide the business in a certain path, taking elements of their personality, future goal of the company, and other factors to promote their own unique culture of the company, which will blend together with past and future leader’s visions to eventually create a solid, yet relatively flexible, company culture. Out of every company that we have visited, Google, Guiness Enterprise Center, Docusign, Microsoft, and Thinkhouse, I think that I like Microsoft’s culture the most. The people that took us on the tour were very friendly and open to talk about the company and its specifics, which made a reflection of the company as a whole. Furthermore, with its various amenities, flexible work hours, and year long training period, it really spoke to me that Microsoft cares about its talents and wants to give the best environment for them to perform the best. Finally, as someone who has participated in our local high school’s Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher Program, a program were we fix old desktops/laptops with updated software and deliver to them to underserved areas of Philadelphia, I have always seen Microsoft’s support regarding initiatives such as these to have a sustainable and technologically empowering impact on the world which I admire.