The Friday Sit-Down: Digital Transformation and Society

This week’s Friday Sit-Down stand-up examines some broader themes about the role of technology in society from some of the people at Microsoft who are helming our efforts in artificial intelligence, business transformation and the cloud’s role in helping society. These conversations took place at our most recent Future Decoded: Microsoft UK’s flagship event that explores the social, economic and technological impact of the digital revolution shaping all of our lives.

It’s Humans and Machines

We start with a conversation with Christopher Bishop, who heads up Microsoft Research Cambridge. Chris dispels some of the myths about artificial intelligence, and discusses the what he anticipates the widespread partnership between people and AI. In the very near future, machine learning will be able to do everything from helping senior business executives process huge amounts of information to automating customer service interactions. The most compelling part of the conversation, to me, was how machine learning is being applied to language recognition and translation.

Watch Chris Bishop’s video on machine learning here

More on Microsoft Research Cambridge

How digital technology is transforming businesses

How will artificial intelligence and other types of digital technology impact businesses? That’s the question that Dr. Nicola Hodson, Vice President of Field Transformation, explores. She talks about the ways business models will be disrupted in the next few years, even giving a word of caution for folks who would consider nicking a dressing gown from a fancy hotel (spoiler alert: it has to do with IoT).

Watch Nicola Hodson discuss digital transformation

Download our report on digital transformation

Tackling larger societal issues with the cloud

It’s exciting to think about the ways digital technology is transforming business. It’s inspiring to think about the way that technology can be used to help society. That’s precisely what Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector and Industry, discussed. In particular, she talks about how the cloud is being used to address UN goals such as reducing extreme poverty, climate change and gender equality. The example I found most poignant was the way we’re utilising Bing data to help track migratory patterns of refugees in order to provide aid.

Watch Toni Townes-Whitley talk about cloud for global good

More on Cloud for Global Good

We’ll be sharing more from Future Decoded in future Friday Sit-Down, but to find out more about the flagship event, please take a look at the Future Decoded homepage

Visit the Future Decoded Homepage