FEDTECH: What will Copilot offer?
PAYNE: Copilot is a collection of augmented capabilities that we are bringing to the entire Microsoft product suite. You’ll see things like Microsoft 365 Copilot, Security Copilot, Copilot for Dynamics 365, Copilot for the Power Platform and so on.
Copilot runs alongside in the applications that you’re already accustomed to using, providing assistive capabilities to your normal workflow in order to drive out those mundane or routine tasks. That may mean summarizing a document in Word or helping you create new content based on research or enterprise data. It may mean automatically building a PowerPoint presentation or reasoning over a large cybersecurity data set to understand if you have any threats or risks.
These are all the kinds of things that the Copilots will do as those products roll out into the government environments. We are targeting summer of this calendar year to bring those capabilities to our government community cloud for the majority of the federal government.
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FEDTECH: What should agencies be doing now to adjust for an AI-supported future?
PAYNE: First, if you’re not working in the cloud yet, that’s the jumping-off point to gain access to all of these great tools, platforms and capabilities. Cloud is really the best place for AI. The efficiency, the security, the compliance — it’s all baked in.
Then there’s the culture piece. In government agencies, there’s an incredible amount of excitement about what the technology can do, but there’s also some level of trepidation. You need to go through a series of experiments and proofs of concept to get familiar with the technology but, more important, to understand how it impacts your organization and your mission.
There’s a cultural change that has to take place. Understand what the necessary changes are, and put programs and practices in place to make sure that you’re ready for that. That is a critically important piece of broader AI transformation.
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