[Kevin 00:07]
So, Zoe and I recorded a whole load of mini-interviews at the MVP Summit, and we thought rather than build those into a few larger episodes we'd release those to you in short little snippets like this. So enjoy a set of our interviews live from Seattle with various people from Microsoft and MVPs.
[Zoe 00:30]
Hi, this is Zoe and we're at MVP Summit in Seattle and I'm joined by Chris. Would you like to introduce yourself, Chris?
[Chris 00:36]
Sure. Hi, my name's Chris Lloyd-Jones. I'm the Head of Architecture and Strategy in Avanade's office of the CTO. A fancy way of meaning that I'm trying to figure out what the new technologies are and what that does for our business.
[Zoe 00:48]
Brilliant. And you're also an MVP.
[Chris 00:50]
That's right. I'm an MVP in AI, which is one of the reasons why I'm really excited to be here in Redmond.
[Zoe 00:55]
Perfect. Okay, so first question, hopefully nice and easy for you. What does CoPilot mean to you?
[Chris 01:01]
So I'm going to try not to get too philosophical. For me, CoPilot is just any kind of assistant, AI or otherwise, that's helping me to make my life and my job easier.
[Zoe 01:12]
And can you talk to me about a way that you've used CoPilot that you feel has added value or benefit to the way that you work?
[Chris 01:18]
Sure. So the first CoPilot that I worked with was GitHub CoPilot. So it's been around a long time now, it's like, you know, the lesser known child, or the less favourite one these days. But, when I first started using GitHub Copilot and I started typing and I could write a comment and saw what I wanted to do, kind of flow from my fingers, it was just incredible. And that kind of stuck with me, and every time I'm programming now, it's like I'm in a flow state. I'm hooked. So, yeah, it's my Copilot drug of choice.
[Zoe 01:47]
Brilliant. So I was chatting to Kevin the other day about GitHub Copilot, And he was telling me that he had an instance where it wasn't working. And he realized that programming is actually really hard because you become so reliant on it.
[Chris 02:00]
Yeah, no, I think that's totally true. So we have clients at our company, for example, who might have really strict security requirements. So they can't use Copilot. And actually, if a developer has been using Copilot for some time, it's really hard to go back. I know for me, boilerplate code, if I'm having to, you know, set up a package, a blob storage, something else, I don't want to write it.
[Zoe 02:21]
You just want github to do?
[Chris 02:23]
It for you. Precisely, yeah.
[Zoe 02:25]
Brilliant, okay so next question, when we think about copilots, is there anything that you're particularly worried about?
[Chris 02:33]
Yeah, I mean although I said I mainly use Github copilot, I think my concern is broader. I think a lot of people have this view that you can kind of install and turn on a copilot and start using it and it will just start working. I mean, co-pilots are incredible. Some of them might give you impact from day one, but if you're not thinking about the governance, the data quality for whatever you're doing, then I feel like the adoption is going to fall flat. The usage is going to be awful. You ask it a question, you get outdated data because no one's told it what the right data source is. Yeah, adoption, at least things won't fall flat because people aren't thinking about all the bits you need to bolt on around the install.
[Zoe 03:10]
Yeah, I think it's a really important point. One of the things I often talk about this needs to build that copilot muscle and to start to force those habits to develop where you actually turn to it and if you're turning to it and it's not giving you what you need then you you won't build the habits you won't build that copilot muscle.
[Chris 03:27]
Yeah I can totally see that so when I've been using M365 copilot for example at first it wasn't part of my daily flow I had to figure out the applications I would use it within the applications I would start asking questions and it really took time to build that kind of second nature so You're right, I totally agree. Yeah.
[Zoe 03:46]
So, last question for you. If you had a magic wand, what would you like to see next in the world of co-pilots?
[Chris 03:53]
Oh, that's really difficult. That's really difficult, you put me on the spot now. If I had a magic wand and I could see anything in the world of co-pilots, I would really like the idea to kind of have a copilot anywhere across applications and something that, you know, I could point it at a new app that it hadn't seen before. Maybe it could read the user interface and guess perhaps how it works. Not an app-specific copilot, but something to help me get to grips with something new.
[Zoe 04:18]
So, an agent that follows you around. I think that's something Satu's talked.
[Chris 04:21]
About, isn't it? Yeah, an e-butler. That's what I want, an e-butler. Yeah, that.
[Zoe 04:26]
Was actually in the AppCenture Tech Vision Report. They talked about this concept of these digital butlers that would help you, follow you around, and help you with all of these tasks.
[Chris 04:34]
Yeah, imagine that ambient computing, just seeing it, you walk past the screen, it's just like, go this way. Yeah, it'd be super cool.
[Zoe 04:39]
Yeah, brilliant. Well, thanks for joining me, Chris. Thank you.
[Chris 04:43]
Of the week. Thank you very much. Cheers.