Microsoft brought one of the first Copilot features to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Product leaders say they have lots of ideas for where else to put enterprise AI technology in future product releases. And while interest in the impact of AI tools remains high, Microsoft cautions against advancing its product roadmap for AI in enterprise business software, including its Dynamics 365 ERP product.
“AI is going to be a big change in how people use it. [Business Central] Mike Morton, vice president of SMB business applications at Microsoft, spoke to the audience at Directions North America 2023 this week. Some of that AI comes in the form of his Business Central-exclusive tools, while others come from him adding generative AI capabilities that help speed up the creation of apps, flows, and bots. derived from the connection with the Power Platform service. His Copilot feature in the Microsoft 365 application could have an even greater impact.
Promoting Safety First Initiatives
Expanding the reach of AI in the context of protected business data requires vendors like Microsoft to demonstrate a commitment to safety and compliance. Morton told the audience at the event that data privacy remains a priority for the Copilot application. For example, Microsoft protects organizational data in ERP from being used to train the broader Large Language Models (LLM) used by the Azure OpenAI service, the engine that powers Copilot.
“Your data is your data. We take the data and help you fine-tune your model. to share with,” Morton said. “And when you’re typing and you [using applications]your data may be leaked or the way you communicate may change [become] part of a model. “
Morton said Microsoft’s commitment to data privacy is reinforced by the fact that customers use a wide range of Microsoft products and services for their IT needs, from data centers and Azure services to productivity and business solutions. claimed to be “We have no intention of sending any data to a third party to run these models. Our ability to control that end-to-end ecosystem allows us to build incredible capabilities, privacy and responsibility. We can use some AI to ensure that data is protected and that users are always in control.”
“There’s always a human involved,” Microsoft Product Manager Mike Borg Cardona explained in another event session, emphasizing that Copilot is not the same as ChatGPT. Copilot uses the Azure OpenAI Service, and the app is designed with additional safeguards to avoid AI hallucinations and other disturbing or inappropriate suggestions. By grounding the model, he added, it can be validated against real data from Business Central to ensure that the output to the application user is relevant and appropriate. Copilot’s post-processing of results from his LLM validates format, accuracy of ERP-related data, and adequacy of proposed content before submitting it for human review.
