Latest / Best of Business / Sarah Carney: Microsoft's national chief technology officer on the company's plan to digitally upskill 200,000 Kiwis

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Sarah Carney: Microsoft's national chief technology officer on the company's plan to digitally upskill 200,000 Kiwis · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B Follow
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  Speaker 2: There is a claim that AI could unlock up to
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and two billion dollars worth of economic value
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  Speaker 2: every year from New Zealand in the next twelve years.
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  Speaker 2: This is according to Microsoft, which has just had its
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  Speaker 2: global CEO in Auckland, and Microsoft is also promising to
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  Speaker 2: upscale two hundred thousand kiwis in AI before twenty twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 2: Sarah Kharney is the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Australia
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Sarah, Hello, had that Thanks having me along.
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  Speaker 2: So explain to me how AI is going to do this?
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  Speaker 2: How are we going to get one hundred and two
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  Speaker 2: billion dollars out of it?
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  Speaker 3: Look, there are so many opportunities, but based on our
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  Speaker 3: piece of research that was done just last year, New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand has two really specific opportunities in this moment. The
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  Speaker 3: first is unlocked through Data Center's nice stable geopolitical environment
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  Speaker 3: here land available and great renewable resources. But the one
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  Speaker 3: I want to focus on is applications. Every time I
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  Speaker 3: spend time with Kirk Compennies, the innovation is insane, and
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  Speaker 3: applications is how you get to that one hundred million
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  Speaker 3: dollar number? Like that is the opportunity here right now,
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  Speaker 3: and so skilling is how you unlock that, teach people
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  Speaker 3: how to use the tools and then set them.
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  Speaker 2: Free, is it? I mean, is that basically because we
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  Speaker 2: free up enough time for those people to do other
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  Speaker 2: tasks with their time, that then earns one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: two billion dollars.
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  Speaker 3: Part of it is that, but part of it is
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  Speaker 3: the innovation that you can create. So at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: we're also buried in those tasks that we can't find
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  Speaker 3: the next innovation, the next application, the next unicorn that
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  Speaker 3: should be coming out of New Zealand, and so by
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  Speaker 3: freeing up some of that time, you can do that.
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  Speaker 3: But part of it is also people have great ideas
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  Speaker 3: and they don't know how to bring it to life,
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  Speaker 3: and this now bridges that gap for them. So by
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  Speaker 3: putting AI tools into their hands, they can now actually
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  Speaker 3: create that innovation themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So I mean one example obviously is it is
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  Speaker 2: it called Halter, the New Zealand business that uses AI
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  Speaker 2: with accounts? Yep, that's Brilli absolutely Okay, But for take
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  Speaker 2: a workerlike me, Okay, what what actually happens when we
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  Speaker 2: unlock our time? We get the AI to do something
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  Speaker 2: that maybe takes a three hour task down to one hour,
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  Speaker 2: what do we actually spend the remaining two hours on?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, this is the perfect question we should be talking about,
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  Speaker 3: because unless you're being really clear on what you're going
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  Speaker 3: to spend that time on, what do we do? We
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  Speaker 3: waste it on more email, more admin, And so it's
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  Speaker 3: really important that we're actually thinking actively about what we
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  Speaker 3: do with that time so that you don't fall back
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  Speaker 3: into those administrative tasks and just add more admin to
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  Speaker 3: your day that you can then lift. So what are
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  Speaker 3: the higher value things you could be doing? We all
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  Speaker 3: sit in our jobs wishing we had time to do
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  Speaker 3: other things. This is now that moment, So it's how
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  Speaker 3: do you make sure you're creating that list of other
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  Speaker 3: things that we've always wanted to do? More strategic activities
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  Speaker 3: giving back to the community, Like lots of organizations are
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  Speaker 3: being beautiful about how they do this. In fact, one
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  Speaker 3: company in Australia's given their work as a nine day
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  Speaker 3: working fortnight because now they're so efficient they get a
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  Speaker 3: day off every fortnight. Who doesn't want.
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  Speaker 2: That quite right now. And the other thing that is
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  Speaker 2: obviously is that businesses are using it. I mean, it's
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  Speaker 2: replacing humans, right, And so the one thing that's been
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  Speaker 2: expressed to me is that the concern that middle managers
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  Speaker 2: have now is that they're getting the AI to do
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  Speaker 2: the work that an entry level like a graduate would do.
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  Speaker 2: And the problem now is that when they need to
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  Speaker 2: promote somebody up into the middle level, there isn't anybody
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  Speaker 2: because AI has been doing it.
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  Speaker 3: How do we get around that, I would charge the
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  Speaker 3: notion that AI is now doing jobs that humans are doing.
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  Speaker 3: So I think we have this weird need to keep
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  Speaker 3: hold of all of our tasks. Let's say our tasks
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  Speaker 3: are made up of ten things that we do. For
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  Speaker 3: some reason, we have this incredible need to hold on
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  Speaker 3: to all ten and so if we do give away
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  Speaker 3: four of them to the AI, we suddenly think that
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  Speaker 3: AI can take all of our job, and it can't.
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  Speaker 3: So that's the first piece of it. And I think
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  Speaker 3: what we actually need to address is most organizations I
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  Speaker 3: talk to are hiring more or at least the same
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  Speaker 3: number of graduates as they always have, but they now
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  Speaker 3: have different expectations. So instead of coming in like you think,
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  Speaker 3: as a you and your lawyer, what do you do.
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  Speaker 3: You troll through pages and pages of documents. You do
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  Speaker 3: mergers and acquisitions. So instead of doing that, now they're
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  Speaker 3: interrogating that information. Now they're lifting their skills to a
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  Speaker 3: different level. So I see tends to be acceleration to
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  Speaker 3: the next level of skills and capability as opposed to
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  Speaker 3: losing that graduate intake.
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  Speaker 2: Sarah, do you think that we need government regulation?
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  Speaker 3: We like the approach that the government is taking putting
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  Speaker 3: in place guardrails to make.
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  Speaker 2: Which is to say no because the government's not doing
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  Speaker 2: anything in the regulations well, which personally I love it.
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  Speaker 2: I hate rules for the sake of rules, But can
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  Speaker 2: you mount an argument for why we should have some
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  Speaker 2: rules here.
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  Speaker 3: I think I'm a big fan of guardrails. I think
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  Speaker 3: we absolutely want to make sure this is being done
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  Speaker 3: responsibly and human centered. So that's why I think. You know,
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  Speaker 3: the governments I see globally doing this really well are
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  Speaker 3: putting in place guardrails as opposed to stringent regulations that
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  Speaker 3: make it more onerous. You think about how many small
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  Speaker 3: businesses we have in the country. You put in place
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  Speaker 3: stringent regulation that makes it really hard for them to
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  Speaker 3: act actually then innovate, so guardrails and looking at how
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  Speaker 3: we make sure it is being done really responsibly and
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  Speaker 3: in line with the way the government wants us to
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  Speaker 3: move forward. I'm all on board with that. Now.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think we should be worried about mythos Ai?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely not. Absolutely amazing innovation that we see coming out
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  Speaker 3: from some of our partners.
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  Speaker 2: But then why have they stopped rolling it out the
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  Speaker 2: full gamnet?
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  Speaker 3: They have it in testing with a number of different companies.
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  Speaker 3: Microsoft is one of those companies that they have it
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  Speaker 3: in testing with because they're taking a very responsible approach
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  Speaker 3: to how they release that product.
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  Speaker 2: Sarah, thank you for talking to Sorroid, appreciated that. Sarah Khaney,
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  Speaker 2: chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Australia New Zealand.
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