In this episode of the AI Agent & Copilot Podcast, Shawn Dorward, COO Innovia Consulting, discusses the evolution of AI, specifically Copilot Cowork,  which shifts from task-based AI to outcome-focused work.

The Podcast is hosted by Dynamic Communities, the home of Summit NA!

Click here for the full video or the audio file from Spotify.

Key Takeaways

• We’re moving from tasks to outcomes. For most of the AI journey so far, we’ve interacted with AI one task at a time: summarize this, write that, analyze this spreadsheet, create this presentation. Copilot Cowork starts changing that model. Instead of assigning an individual task, we can define the outcome we’re trying to achieve and let AI coordinate the multiple pieces of work required to get there. That’s the shift I’ve been talking about in Moving from Prompts to Outcomes with Microsoft Cowork. The unit of work starts becoming the outcome, not the prompt.
• Delegation becomes the new AI skill. We’ve spent years teaching people how to prompt AI. Now we have to teach them how to delegate work to AI. That means clearly defining what we’re trying to accomplish, providing the right context, establishing boundaries, explaining what authority AI has, and ultimately evaluating whether the outcome is good enough. That’s a very different skill than simply learning how to write a better prompt.
• Cowork can coordinate work across the places where work actually lives. Think about how fragmented our work is today. Customer emails are in Outlook. Conversations are in Teams. Documents are in SharePoint. Customer information may be in CRM. Financial and operational data may be in ERP. Then we still have spreadsheets, meeting notes, presentations, and everything else scattered around. Cowork is designed to bring those connected sources together as part of a larger assignment—gathering information, analyzing it, organizing it, and using it to help complete the work. That’s a much bigger idea than asking Copilot a question in one application.
• Work doesn’t necessarily have to wait for us anymore. This may be one of the biggest productivity changes Cowork introduces. While I’m sitting in meetings, talking with customers, solving another problem, or just doing something that requires my attention, AI can continue working on an assignment. That starts to change the relationship between our available time and the amount of work that can move forward. We’ve traditionally assumed work waits until a person has time to do it. That assumption starts to change with Cowork.
• Delegation doesn’t remove accountability. Giving AI more responsibility for executing work doesn’t mean we give up responsibility for the result. Organizations still need to determine what information AI can access, what it is allowed to do, which actions require approval, and where a human needs to review or intervene. The mechanics of the work can increasingly be delegated, but accountability still belongs to people. That’s an important distinction as we move toward the next evolution of AI

Click below to listen to the Spotify audio version

Thanks for reading!

Shawn Dorward

Microsoft MVP, Business Applications

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