Unlock AI Summit hosted by MTN Converged Solutions – Damian Nelson on the power of Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft’s Damian Nelson recently spoke at the Unlock AI Summit – hosted by MTN Converged Solutions.

Nelson is a Microsoft Partnership Telco and AI specialist for AI Use cases.

He began his career in distribution, before moving into system integration, and finally, the vendor ecosystem.

Nelson has been with Microsoft for nearly 12 years, and has extensive experience across the company’s most popular solutions.

He is a results-oriented professional with a proven analytical mindset, critical thinking capabilities, and development skills.

Conference presentation

At the Unlock AI Summit, Nelson explained why Microsoft Copilot is a valuable AI-powered tool for South African businesses.

He highlighted that Microsoft has an advantage in the realm of AI thanks to its diverse range of offerings that support this technology.

These include tools like Copilot and OpenAI, but also extend to secondary tools for AI – like Microsoft’s data security solutions, robust cloud infrastructure, and developer tools like Visual Studio and Copilot Studio.

Nelson then focused specifically on the power of Copilot.

He highlighted that it can unlock value and opportunities across your entire workforce, and that there are a host of extensions that take the functionality of Copilot to new heights.

Nelson also outlined the two ways to build your AI solutions with Microsoft solutions.

You can either treat AI as a managed service by embracing the functionality of Copilot and Copilot Studio, or take full control of your AI tools and customise them to suit your needs by leveraging Azure AI and integrations into GitHub and Visual Studio.

Nelson concluded his presentation by making the business case for investing in AI, highlighting four key statistics:

1. 75% of knowledge workers are already using AI at work – with this percentage doubling in the past six months.
2. On average, Copilot users save 30 minutes a day – or 10 hours per month.
3. 65% of organisations are already using and deriving business value from GenAI as of 2024.
4. Currently, businesses are seeing a $3.5 return on investment for every $1 they invest into AI.