Cognizant of a technological sea change underway in the private and public sectors, and accelerated by COVID-19, Microsoft hosted a virtual summit June 23 on artificial intelligence. Eight guests included five experts from the tech company as well as the research firm CCS Insight, The Kroger Co. and Snohomish County, Wash., which recently used AI to create chatbots to disseminate critical information. Microsoft U.S. Chief Digital Officer Jacky Wright started the event by talking about why AI is becoming so important for large organizations. She said it comes down to the power of data, for two broad purposes: to accumulate and share new knowledge, and to solve problems. She polled an audience of industry officials about the top barriers to their AI adoption strategies, and the No. 1 answer was "defining the AI strategy."

Microsoft Research is a globally distributed playground for people interested in solving fundamental science problems. These projects often focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, and since Microsoft is on a mission to infuse all of its products with more AI smarts, it's no surprise that it's also seeking ways to integrate Microsoft Research's innovations into the rest of the company. Across the board, the company is trying to find ways to become more innovative, especially around its work in AI, and it's putting processes in place to do so. Microsoft is unusually open about this process, too, and actually made it somewhat of a focus this week at Ignite, a yearly conference that typically focuses more on technical IT management topics. At Ignite, Microsoft will for the first time present these projects externally at a dedicated keynote.

Microsoft has launched the AI Business School, an online series of case studies and free instructional videos made to help business executives design and successfully implement an AI strategy within their organization. The Microsoft AI Business School follows the launch of an AI school for developers and AI School last year. AI Business School is born out of three years of conversations with customers implementing AI, as well as lessons learned from AI solutions Microsoft introduced internally, says Mitra Azizirad, Microsoft vice president of AI marketing and productization. Course content will focus on four main areas: strategy, culture, technology basics, and responsible AI. And courses will include tools for evaluating a business' AI maturity level to understand what's required to successfully implement AI, for example.

In recent years, some of the world's fastest growing companies have deployed artificial intelligence to solve specific business problems. In fact, according to new market research from Microsoft on how AI will change leadership, these high-growth companies are more than twice as likely to be actively implementing AI as lower-growth companies. What's more, high-growth companies are further along in their AI deployments, with about half planning to use more AI in the coming year to improve decision making compared to about a third of lower growth companies. Still, less than two in 10 of even high-growth companies are integrating AI across their operations, the research found. "There is a gap between what people want to do and the reality of what is going on in their organizations today, and the reality of whether their organization is ready," said Mitra Azizirad, corporate vice president for AI marketing at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.

The free instructional videos and case studies focus on the less technical aspects of the technology as it applies to top execs attempting to integrate AI, including strategy, company culture and ethical responsibilities, into their operations. They're the latest in a series of instructional materials Microsoft has released as it looks to address a general lack of educational resources and talent in the AI field. The material was inspired by conversations Microsoft has had over the past three years with client executives, whom the company said felt there was a dearth of educational resources on AI that reached beyond the nuts-and-bolts technical level, according to Mitra Azizirad, Microsoft's corporate vp of AI marketing and productization. "[The goal] really was to approach the very distinct business needs that we saw all of our business leaders have been asking about over and over again," Azizirad said. "We wanted to make sure we were meeting the needs of business leaders and really empowering them, no matter where they were on their journey, to drive an AI transformation with a focus on strategy, culture and governance."

Microsoft today introduced the AI Business School, a series of case studies and free instructional videos made to help business executives design and successfully implement an AI strategy within their organization. The Microsoft AI Business School is born out of three years of conversations with customers and follows the launch of an AI school for developers and AI School first introduced last year. The AI Business School follows the lead of similar instructional guides, such as the AI Transformation Playbook from Andrew Ng. Unlike others, AI Business School material draws on three years of conversations with customers implementing AI, as well as lessons learned from AI solutions Microsoft introduced internally, Microsoft vice president of AI marketing and productization Mitra Azizirad told VentureBeat in a phone interview. Course content will focus on four main areas: strategy, culture, technology basics, and responsible AI.