Discussing the Momentum Across Cloud-computing and AI with Jamie McAllister

In today's fast-paced, technology-driven world, keeping up with the latest trends and advancements is crucial for businesses to stay ahead of the curve. Each year, new technologies emerge that promise to revolutionize how we work, communicate and live.

In our segment, Influencer Insights, we invite leading industry professionals to discuss new technological trends and Microsoft Business Solutions.

To learn more about how the future of the Microsoft ecosystem is shaping up with cloud technology and other recent developments, we have with us Jamie McAllister, a Senior Microsoft Cloud Engineer and former 6x SharePoint MVP.

Let Us Quickly Get To Our Expert's Point Of View

Question 1- How do you keep up with the latest updates and developments in the Microsoft ecosystem?

Microsoft is a lot more communicative about their wares these days. It's easy to sign up for news on the latest developments via MS emails, LinkedIn groups, favorite bloggers, and, less so these days, Twitter.

Question 2: What opportunities would you be looking at this year?

When you get to a certain point in a technology career, you're already pre-cringing at the start of the latest hype cycle that will "solve all your problems." Think Ajax, blockchain, etc. This year with the advent of useful Large Language Models and the strong push to make these available to business users, I have to use the cliche "it's different this time."

There is huge potential to positively impact business productivity, software development, education, and beyond. I've been somewhat surprised to see the majority of people assuming this is a typical hype cycle without getting past the headlines.

As someone who's spent years faithfully kicking the tires of the latest (especially Microsoft) Automation and AI technologies, I know these solutions from OpenAI are revolutionary and will keep improving rapidly. The worst thing you could do in business and technology now is ignore this. It needs to be on your radar to mitigate the risks and, hopefully, reap the benefits.

Question 3: How do you see the future of Microsoft evolving, and how do you plan to stay ahead of the curve?

Microsoft, under Nadella, has been the organization we've always wanted it to be. They will continue the momentum across cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and the integration of their various platforms and services.

But, unfortunately, too much is happening to keep on top of it all. So I keep a broad view via the community and MS publicity. Still, I specialize in the technologies most likely useful to my end users in collaboration or automation.

Question 4: How important do you think the Power Platform is for non-technical users?

What I appreciate about Power Platform is the democratization of advanced capabilities into the hands of end users. You don't need a Ph.D. in Data Science to train a model or automate a process. However, there is still a disconnect; most end users are still not comfortable building the solutions they need with Power Platform, and it remains a minority sport.

Efforts continue to make it more useful; the recent release of natural language "Describe it to design it" capabilities in Power Automate is a baby step in the right direction. Once LLMs are wired into these dialogues to explore exactly what the user needs, the adoption growth of Power Platform might surprise us. There are a great deal of solutions needed that have never been written due to cost and complexity. That might be a problem we are finally able to solve.

Question 5: A piece of advice that you'd like to share with our readers?

The last decade in technology has been dizzying with the impressive rate of progress. We might be on the threshold of major business, education, and life productivity boosts. Stay interested! You're going to want some of these technologies sooner rather than later.

On the other hand, some of the capabilities now available in the wild produce serious risks around compliance and security. In particular, there are already AI voice impersonators, spam writers, AI systems to suggest novel attack techniques, and so on. The genie is out of the bottle, the industry is scrambling to catch up, and ignoring the threats will not be an option. As a result, every industry will face some disruption over the next several years.

Get to Know Our Influencer

What is the best event that you attended recently? What were your key takeaways?

I enjoyed attending the Microsoft Ignite Day in Zurich this year. There were a couple of talks by OpenAI folks, and their prominence at a Microsoft event showed how "All In" Redmond is for this technology wave.

What's your success mantra?

"Challenging tradition can unlock the door to innovation and progress." Though I have a second mantra: "Empower end users because they pay the bills."