After some much-needed rest after the long weekend of traveling we had, we started this morning feeling refreshed with a site visit to Microsoft HQ in South County, Dublin. We went on a tour of the facility and then finished our tour with an incredibly interesting presentation on the development of AI, and how Microsoft plans to adapt to the ever-growing world of AI that we live in today. After this, we stopped back in downtown Dublin to grab a quick lunch and then head right to Thinkhouse, a marketing agency right in Dublin, to listen to a presentation on the standards that the company prides itself on and some of the cool projects that they have been working on the past few years. It was a packed day with a lot of information coming in, but I personally feel that the information we covered today was the most interesting out of all the site visits thus far.
As we have all seen throughout the past year, AI has been the talk of the town and is clearly here to stay. During the visits today we heard two different points of view from Microsoft and Thinkhouse. Microsoft seems to be diving headfirst into AI and GPT, whereas Thinkhouse seems to have a more conservative approach to the world of AI.
During the presentation by two of the workers at Microsoft, there has been massive development in their products Azure AI and Microsoft Copilot. Azure AI seemed to be a more business-professional version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT which includes more security and responses tailored to business development. When we began discussing Microsoft Copilot, I was astounded. This program is tailored to making all of Microsoft Office a much smoother process. From what we heard, this program can help you interact with colleagues and plan events with a click of a button. It can set agendas, organize key points during a video conference, as well as give you a description of what you missed during a call if you joined late. The part that excites me the most about this new AI is that it can pull out data from Excel sheets depending on what you ask it, and it will edit the data to answer your question. From what it seems, this AI is meant to eliminate all of the busy work that can take up a majority of your time which leaves you more time for the important aspects of your job that AI can’t help you with.
Thinkhouse had a different approach to AI considering they aren’t a software company like Microsoft that would thrive from these kinds of new technology. The employees that gave the presentation today were certainly interested in AI and using it in the company for certain projects, but they weren’t interested in having AI take over Thinkhouse. The company prides itself on providing the best content it can, and it realized that using AI would be the cheap and easy way out which would not make for the best product. They made a great point at the end of the presentation, they said that AI isn’t going to be taking over their jobs, but a person who knows how to use AI will. I thought this was an awesome take since humans are always going to be able to make higher required-thought decisions, but if you know how to utilize AI and you are good with decision-making, you can be a massive asset to not only a marketing agency but any company.
Before today, I thought I had a decent grasp of the development of AI and what was next to come. I had a good understanding of the GPT generator, but I thought that was all there really was to offer. I now realize this is just the tip of the iceberg. Companies are working relentlessly to take GPT 4 even higher, and I think we will see a lot of unbelievable developments before the end of this year at the rate things have been going.
Company culture also was a main role in all of the site visits that we have had this far on the trip. The important thing that I now understand because of these visits is that culture can vary from company to company so it is very important to weigh what you value against what the company you are looking to work with values in order to have the best possible experience during the time you spend at said company. There are many variables that go into the company culture. Some of these variables could be leadership, communication, engagement, values, and learning & development. Out of the five companies we have been to throughout the trip, I personally feel that the company with the best culture was Google. From what we saw during the Google visit, the employees are all valued and empowered in a way that can’t compare with any other company. The work environment and benefits that you receive as a Googler create a sense of value and commitment that seems to make every employee genuinely enjoy the time they spend at work which is a large factor when considering employment in my eyes. There is also a focus on diversity and inclusion which can have a direct correlation to innovation and creativity in the workplace due to the different backgrounds and viewpoints. Overall, Google gave me the impression of having the best company culture which I would love to be a part of later down the line if the opportunity presented itself.
