Beyond the hype: AI and the digital workplace

Searches for AI technologies are high, with companies everywhere believing that AI-powered tools are the difference-makers. AI is everywhere, from your video streaming service to your car navigation, but what is true AI, automation, or mere hype?

Unily has partnered with Sam Marshall, from ClearBox Consulting and Microsoft AI experts, including Michael Wignall, the Azure Business Group Director, and Andrew Bentley, Director ISV & AI, to look beyond the hype and showcase successful AI-powered technologies and solutions in the digital workplace today. The centerpiece of this guide is an approach that you can use to develop your own digital workplace AI strategy.

This guide will:

• Define AI and precisely what people mean when searching for AI-powered tools
• Investigate the development of AI by looking at the early and mid to present-day history of AI
• Dispel popular myths surrounding AI by grounding them in the current state of AI development
• Showcase popular AI-powered digital workplace tools currently available on the market
• Offer Unily’s top focus areas for the digital workplace
• Highlight the importance of ethics in advancing AI technologies
• Propose a new way of looking at working relationships between AI and humans going forward
• Put forward five easy steps that you can follow to develop your own digital workplace AI strategy

Who will benefit from reading this guide?

This guide is for anyone looking to adopt AI technologies in their digital workplace while seeking to discover real-world solutions and applications. Examples include digital transformation managers, internal communicators, IT managers, and developers, as well as business leaders and strategists.

Contributors

Will Saville Co-Founder, Unily

Will founded Unily with Richard Paterson in 2005 to help organizations get the most from collaboration technologies like SharePoint and Yammer. He has since turned it into a global business that makes the next generation of digital workplaces for an enviable client list of FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 companies. Will was formerly Chief Technology Officer at Saville Consulting, a talent analytics specialist, which was acquired by Willis Towers Watson in 2015.

Richard Paterson Co-Founder, Unily

Rich joined forces with Will Saville to launch Unily in 2005 to specialize in Microsoft SharePoint consultancy. Having built its DXP platform, Unily is now a serious challenger brand in the fast-growth global digital workplaces sector. Before this, Rich was a software architect for Saville Consulting and SHL Group.

Sam Hassani Chief Technology Officer, Unily

Sam Hassani began his career at Microsoft, where he was a keynote speaker at conferences around the globe, including Microsoft Tech-ed and Ignite. In 2013 he joined Unily as a Principal Consultant before moving into the role of Head of Platform and Operations and then in 2018 to his current role as Chief Technology Officer. Today, Sam is responsible for Unily’s technology strategy to support product growth and focuses on technical delivery, operations, and support to ensure scalability of the platform supporting the desired business growth objectives.

Sam Marshall Owner, ClearBox Consulting

Sam Marshall is the owner of ClearBox Consulting and has specialized in intranets and the digital workplace for over 19 years, working with companies such as Unilever, Vodafone, TUI Travel, Diageo, Sony, and GSK. His current activities focus on intranet and digital workplace strategy and the business side of Office 365. He is the lead author of the annual ‘SharePoint Intranets in-a-box report,’ the most comprehensive review of these add-on tools. Sam is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences and has been named a ‘Contributor of the year’ for his CMSWire column five years in a row. In 2015 Sam was given the Intranet Now award for ‘remarkable contribution to the intranet community.’ He has an MSc in Artificial Intelligence, an MA in Psychology, and more bicycles than shoes.

Michael Wignall Azure Business Group Director, Microsoft

Michael is the Microsoft Azure Business Group Director and is the lead public advocate within the UK on all aspects of Azure technology strategy. He runs a team of technology and industry-focused specialists who act as a catalyst for digital transformation. Previously at Microsoft, he was Government Industry Manager responsible for solutions and partners, and before that ran the public sector team for Microsoft Dynamics. Before joining Microsoft, Michael worked as a CTO in the telecoms/tech start-up space after emigrating from Australia, where he was a high- voltage systems engineer. Michael has a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Business Management from the University of Queensland and a Master of Science from Liverpool John Moore’s University.

Andrew Bentley Director, ISV & AI, Microsoft

Andrew is leading the ISV ecosystem at Microsoft and building a new generation of AI partners. He is a father of 3 boys and a long-suffering Everton fan. His role in the ISV & AI Recruit team is to help ISV partners be successful and also look to build out a new ecosystem of AI partners. Andrew believes his team has the best roles in the company as they work with innovative partners and help them grow their business while working to harness the power of AI for their joint customers.