Microsoft Has An AI Solution That May Actually Improve Your Life

If you’re among the millions of people who’d like to spend less time responding to emails and more time thinking creatively, this solution may be for you. 

In a post-pandemic era where much of the working world is still remote for at least some portion of their workweek, one might assume that employees are getting some of their time back. Hours that would ordinarily be spent driving to and from work, making small talk in the break room, or dealing with day-to-day inconveniences are instead spent solving problems and thinking about bigger issues. 

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But that isn’t the case. A full 83% of people spend 1/3 or more of their weeks in meetings. Golden Steps estimates that employees spend 31 hours per month in meetings, and 50% of that time is considered wasted.

Staring at screens feels soul-sucking for some employees. They create mental blocks and inhibit creativity. Albert Einstein didn’t have to worry about answering emails when he came up with his Theory of Relativity. Plato wasn’t distracted by Instagram DMs when he was working on the Allegory of the Cave. Maybe even Dr. Seuss — who wrote over 60 books during his lifetime — wouldn’t have been as creative had he been worrying about his Slack messages between 8 am and 6 pm. 

Our world is increasingly busy. We’re inundated with messages and notifications that all want our attention now. Right now. And Microsoft  (MSFT) – Get Free Report wants to develop a solution for that (it’s not escaping to the woods, sorry Thoreau). 

Microsoft Wants to Solve Our Distraction Issues

“The pace of work has increased exponentially — along with the crush of data, information, and always-on communications,” says Microsoft in its 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report. “People are struggling to shoulder the weight of it all, while business leaders feel pressure to increase productivity amid economic uncertainty. We spend more and more of our days separating the signal from the noise — at the expense of creativity. And the tax on individual productivity is compounding, undermining organizational productivity and global GDP.”

This digital noise is what Microsoft is calling “digital debt.”

The solution to cutting through all this noise, it says, is artificial intelligence. More specifically, using AI to filter through it all and help us determine what’s urgent, what’s important, and what can wait. 

Rather than replacing our jobs, as many fear, Microsoft says AI will mainly be used to increase employee productivity, which could:

• Help employees with necessary but repetitive tasks. 
• Increase employee wellbeing.
• Eliminate employee time spent on low-value activities.
• Enhance employees’ capabilities.
• Accelerate employees’ pace of work.

Microsoft estimates that by 2030, AI could be like our work best friend. We’d take our issues to it, and it would actually help us get better. 

Getting better, in Microsoft’s eyes, means saving time, working smarter, ending information overload, eliminating busywork, making information easier to find, and helping us humans spend time doing what we do best: being creative.