Microsoft AI Summit 2023 highlights how Malaysian organizations adopt Copilot to create and innovate

As I reflect on the recent Microsoft AI Summit for Malaysia, one thing is certain: we are in the AI era. Today, we see more organizations in Malaysia embracing generative AI. From enabling our customers to build and innovate with Azure OpenAI Service, to delivering a unique Copilot experience that transforms how employees now work – we are optimistic about what AI can do for people, industries, and our wider society.

If you missed Microsoft’s AI Summit, here are three key takeaways I’d like to highlight for Malaysia:

1. Productivity gains are real with Copilot for Microsoft 365

A recent study by the Malaysia Centre4IR and Access Partnership stated that generative AI has the potential to unlock USD113.4 billion of productive capacity for Malaysia, equivalent to 28% of the nation’s GDP in 2022.

Echoing this sentiment at the Summit, we were honored to have YB Datuk Arthur Joseph Kurup , Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Securities (Former Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation) who shared the Government’s aspirations on this front. “The Government of Malaysia identified AI as one of the five foundational technologies that the country needs to build capabilities in."

"It is critical to look beyond the technology. Instead, we must look to the transformational aspects of AI – in changing how we work, innovate, and create – to set Malaysia on the right growth trajectory.” - YB Datuk Arthur Joseph Kurup

New data shows that—across the globe—early users of Copilot for Microsoft 365 experience real productivity gains at work; making them more productive and creative, and saves time. What stood out for us are:

• 70% of Copilot users said that they were more productive and 68% said it improved the quality of their work.
• Overall, users were 29% faster in a series of tasks (searching, writing, and summarizing).
• 77% of users said once they used Copilot, they didn’t want to give it up.

Customers in Malaysia are starting to see the benefits of using the Copilot too. At a panel discussion during the AI Summit, Vrinda Rajkumar , Head of Digital Business in AmBank Group shared how AI has introduced an unprecedented opportunity for transformation across industries, and in her case, the financial services.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are a small or a large company. AI has changed the game." - Vrinda Rajkumar

"For example, we have over 600 policy documents that nobody reads. When somebody has a question, they call the policy writer and ask, ‘Hey, what’s the rule for changing the credit policy?’ The answer is there, but the policy writer must repeat it over and over again. We can automate this process with AI,” she added.

?Joining Vrinda at the panel discussion, Aik-Chong Phuah , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PETRONAS Digital, explained how his organization is utilizing AI to make more informed decisions. “Whether it’s planning our offshore operations, or managing the supply and demand of our products, AI helps to deliver better business insights and enables more timely decision making."

"Rather than spending time to sort out mundane repetitive tasks, we can focus on truly delivering meaningful business impact. This is a big focus for us, especially when we look into how to improve our operations, productivity, and reduce carbon emissions.” - Phuah Aik-Chong

2. Meaningful innovation powered by Microsoft Azure

For more than 30 years now, Microsoft Research has been delivering cutting-edge AI breakthroughs in vision, speech, language, decision making, and custom machine learning. One thing we believe in is that we’re not inventing for the sake of inventing, we are focused on how the AI systems of today can help people solve real-world challenges. These breakthroughs are designed to benefit everyone at every level in every organization.

Doctor2U, Malaysia's healthcare super-app with over millions of users, offering on-demand healthcare services since 2015 – was present to share their experience with AI. Built on Microsoft Azure, Doctor2U leverages Microsoft’s AI and Machine Learning capabilities to harness data insights to deliver more effective treatment plans for patients.

Garvy Beh , Founder and CEO of Doctor2U, called out the GitHub Copilot.

“It helps us speed up development and optimize platform configuration, which ultimately improves our developers’ productivity. For example, it typically takes two hours for a development task, but now we only take 30 minutes to do the same thing.” - Garvy Beh

Another tool that the Doctor2U team is leveraging is the Azure App Insights, which is equipped with AI, big data analytics, and performance monitoring functions. With this, they are able to modernize medical reports by including charts and graphs on top of their values and formatted results. “It makes the reports easier to understand for patients. They can see the trends and patterns of their health data and compare them with the normal ranges. This helps them make better decisions about their health and wellness.”?

Web Bytes (Xilnex), a cloud-based retail management system company that serves over 5,000 chain-store merchants across Southeast Asia, including Marrybrown, Tealive, and Malaysia Airports – shared at the AI Summit how Microsoft Azure is powering their innovations to deliver more value for their customers.

Boon Sheng Ooi , Founder and CEO of WebBytes shared, “We are injecting intelligent operation efficiencies into our solutions, to extend the value of AI to our merchants. We have an API application, where you just need to upload a photo, and you’ll be able to capture all the invoice information."

"A couple of years ago, this would have been impossible because there are so many if-else conditions. For example, you might call it an invoice, a bill, or a receipt. But with the AI technology on Microsoft Azure, there is a natural language processing capability that allows us to extract all relevant information from any document, regardless of its format or terminology.” - Boon Sheng Ooi

3. Microsoft’s commitment to responsible AI

We believe AI is the defining technology of our time, and it will augment human capabilities. However, we also believe that as with any powerful technology, there is a crucial need for responsibility when creating and working with AI.

At Microsoft, we prioritize and encourage responsible AI development and use. Our?responsible AI principles, consist of six core principles – covering fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. They provide extremely important benchmarks for us to follow, as we continue our journey to develop better, more trustworthy AI that positively impacts lives.

As AI advances, we can expect to see a significant shift in the way we work and learn. As designers of the technology, Microsoft is committed to helping organizations unlock the potential of AI in an ethical manner – balancing innovation with responsibility – ensuring that privacy is protected, rights are upheld while still allowing for positive uses of the technology to continue.

The?AI Summit in Malaysia welcomed more than 500 participants, customers, and partners from various industries including energy, financial services, healthcare, and telco.