Microsoft on Thursday, February 29, announced its intention to release a version of Copilot, a chatbot based on artificial intelligence, which will be able to perform key tasks for people who work in the sphere of finance.
The mentioned technology giant plans to initially offer a new tool for public previewing. Over time, the company will make public information about the cost of access to this digital product.
Many business software providers, including HubSpot and Salesforce, are currently working to integrate generative artificial intelligence into their existing solutions. It is expected that the use of AI technologies will increase the level of work efficiency.
The integration of generative artificial intelligence into digital products has become a kind of trend after the chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI startup specialists, was presented in 2022. This chatbot has demonstrated impressive abilities, including the generation of texts within the framework of the paradigm of perception and thinking, corresponding to the concept of the functioning of human consciousness. ChatGPT can also create visual content. In this case, the AI uses prompts from consumers.
The average financial company consists of many groups, each of which performs specialized work. Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of Microsoft, during a conversation with media representatives last Wednesday, February 28, said that the goal of the technology giant is that every department has a Copilot.
Microsoft has already developed a virtual assistant for general-purpose industrial use in Office apps. The tech giant has also released Copilots for sales and customer service staff.
The digital assistant for finances will initially run the variances, reconcile the data in Excel, and speed up the process of collecting information in Outlook. The software can use data stored in SAP and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Charles Lamanna said that the digital assistant for finance will be equipped with additional functions by the end of 2024.
Japanese advertising agency Dentsu will use Copilot for financial tasks. This was reported by Charles Lamanna.
Microsoft said its finance department contributed to the development of the new Copilot. Moreover, the mentioned department has already recorded some benefits from using a digital product.
Cory Hrncirik, lead of modern finance in the office of the Microsoft CFO, says that comparing data from different systems is something that every financial team on the planet is actively engaged in. According to him, a couple of thousand people from the financial planning and analysis team spend one to two hours on reconciliation every week, and using Copilot, the corresponding procedure takes no more than 10-20 minutes per week.
The idea of the tech giant is to provide employees with a digital product that reduces the amount of time needed to solve tedious tasks. Copilot also provides additional time for exciting work that is of great benefit to the business. Cory Hrncirik stated that Microsoft financial employees are not required to use this development. If the finance professionals in this company take advantage of automation, they will be able to close their books more quickly.
As we have reported earlier, Microsoft Forms AI Partnership With Startup Semafor.
Serhii Mikhailov
Serhii’s track record of study and work spans six years at the Faculty of Philology and eight years in the media, during which he has developed a deep understanding of various aspects of the industry and honed his writing skills; his areas of expertise include fintech, payments, cryptocurrency, and financial services, and he is constantly keeping a close eye on the latest developments and innovations in these fields, as he believes that they will have a significant impact on the future direction of the economy as a whole.