Applied AI: Microsoft Offers Training Funds for Copilot AI Customers
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and his deputies have warned that plenty of employees at large enterprises that pay for Microsoft 365 Copilot haven’t been using the AI features very much, as we reported recently.
The most obvious way to change their ways is to make the software, an artificial intelligence add-on to Office apps like Word and Excel, more reliable and useful, which is what Nadella is personally focused on. The other is to teach workers how to use the features, as many of them just aren’t good at it, IT executives say.
To bridge the gap, Microsoft is now offering some large customers money for employee training when they purchase a large number of 365 Copilot seats. That’s what Microsoft did for public sector employees across North Carolina, including at the City of Raleigh, which recently agreed to purchase around 200 seats of 365 Copilot, according to Raleigh Chief Information Officer Mark Wittenburg.
“We wanted to make sure that people are actually using the technology that we’re paying for,” Wittenberg said. “So Microsoft helped cover the cost of that training.”
Wittenberg didn’t say how much money Microsoft put toward the city’s training, but Microsoft has in some cases committed tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for training when customers agree to buy a large number of 365 Copilot seats, according to Adam Mansfield, a consultant at UpperEdge who negotiates deals with Microsoft and other software firms on behalf of large customers.
“Microsoft is offering some level of investment to drive usage for Copilot,” Mansfield said. “For Microsoft, the idea is that if you get customers to start using it and show them the value, the likelihood of them getting more usage and renewing their subscriptions goes up.”
The funding for training can take different forms, Mansfield said, but typically involves Microsoft dedicating a pool of funds that customers can use to hire third-party consultants or Microsoft resellers to train their employees how to use the software effectively. Depending on the size of the customer, the training can take hours or days. Microsoft has historically offered similar training to customers adopting other tools like cybersecurity software, he said.
A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement that it’s “seeing strong adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot” and that the company will frequently “offer resources, including training, to help enable successful customer implementation of new technologies.”
Microsoft needs to convince corporate customers that 365 Copilot is more useful than free or cheaper paid alternatives such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. As we reported, Nadella has privately voiced concerns that Copilot isn’t as good as Gemini at connecting to other applications to carry out complex tasks, for example.
Microsoft isn’t the only AI provider whose customers don’t know how to use the AI. OpenAI has similarly found that ChatGPT users also are pretty bad at using the chatbot to its fullest potential, my colleagues reported.
OpenAI offers a free online “academy” for learning to use AI, but don’t be surprised to see it follow in Microsoft’s footsteps by sweetening the deal for paying corporate customers. Or perhaps it just needs to do a better job showing individual users how to make better use of ChatGPT’s powers, including by making the chatbot look more like Windows and less like MS-DOS!
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