- Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini are touted as AI-powered productivity tools.
- But AI guru Ethan Mollick has a more cynical view of the product.
- Copilot automates intermediate management, and Gemini makes monitoring easier, he told the Journal.
Last year, Microsoft and Google unveiled and promoted their own AI-powered productivity tools. As a product that has the potential to revolutionize the way people work.
But one leading AI expert thinks otherwise.
Ethan Mollick, a management professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed by numerous companies, including the White House, JPMorgan and Google, for his insight into artificial intelligence.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mollick said Microsoft's Copilot and Google Gemini are just tools to make life easier for employers and managers, and not in a good way.
He called Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot, which is integrated into the company's suite of productivity software, including Teams, Outlook and Office, “dangerous” because it “automates middle management in the worst possible way.”
The magazine does not elaborate on Mollick's points, but Microsoft touts Copilot as a way for managers to communicate with employees by generating work updates and summarizing meeting points. ing.
He told the Journal that Google Gemini's ability to analyze video could give employers the ability to monitor white-collar workers in the same way that Amazon tracks its employees.
Microsoft and Google did not respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
In fact, Microsoft and Google say their respective AI models will transform the workplace.
Microsoft wrote in a blog post that Copilot turns “everyone into a manager,” empowering employees to write emails with the right tone or analyze datasets.
Google Cloud partners also wrote in a February blog that Gemini for Google Workspace is a “game-changing tool” for email creation, project planning, and data management.
The companies' investments in AI and the integration of their models into existing productivity tools seem to be paying off so far. In their latest quarterly earnings reports, Microsoft and Google's parent company Alphabet reported profits of $21.9 billion and $23.7 billion, respectively.
Leaders at both companies say AI is improving performance.
“Microsoft Copilot and the Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation to drive better business outcomes across every role and industry,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a press release.
The magazine said that while Mollick may be cynical about AI as a productivity tool, he has a generally positive view of AI overall and calls himself a “rational optimist.” He says he thinks so.
“There's no single large-scale, general-purpose technology that doesn't have strengths or weaknesses. Part of my message is that we now have agency to condemn certain things as bad.” he told WSJ. “And we need to do that.”
Mollick did not respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours.
