Microsoft’s Latest AI Innovations Are Right Up Marketer’s Alley

Microsoft has launched Dynamics 365 Copilot, an AI assistant for marketing and sales professionals that can assist with customer service, customer categorization, and marketing copywriting. While it avoids controversial “creative” functions such as image and writing generation,

Microsoft aims to provide an industry-leading AI tool for marketers to boost productivity and integrate with other products under one business workflow app. The product still requires human oversight and is meant to be a tool for business development and processes rather than a full automation system. Its name, “Copilot,” implies that it is not intended to replace workers.

Microsoft is expanding beyond marketing with its AI technology, racing with Google to develop AI-powered products across various industries. If Microsoft can gain even a small portion of Google’s digital ad market share, it could amount to a multibillion-dollar opportunity.

While Google currently dominates the digital ad market, Microsoft’s 2022 and 2023 digital ad revenues of $12.23 billion and $13.67 billion, respectively, demonstrate their presence. Microsoft could tap into untapped B2B marketing revenues where Google has less reach, and AI technology is in high demand among marketers looking to automate customer interactions and data integration. As marketing budgets become tighter, AI’s potential to uncover new consumer categories and marketing strategies becomes more attractive.

In our view, Dynamics 365 Copilot is a solution for marketers that advances Microsoft’s AI and digital advertising goals while addressing current issues. If it lives up to its promises, marketers can accomplish more with fewer resources. However, given the series of AI blunders, marketers must exercise caution when using Copilot, particularly in regards to generating copy and consumer categories.

P.S. For the image on this post, I asked the AI image generator Dall-E from open AI to create “a robot copilot in the cockpit of an airplane” and this is what it came up with.  Interesting.