Microsoft has used artificial intelligence to begin what may be the biggest customer cash grab the world has witnessed. And New Zealand was used as a guinea pig for the manoeuvre’s set up.
The cash cow being creamed is Microsoft’s Word program — the King Kong of everyday software. Word is used for that most basic human communication — writing — by 1.2 billion of the seven billion people on the planet. Word owns about 90% of word processing and covers more than 100 languages. If this was 1850, Microsoft’s position would be the equivalent of being the world master of pen, ink and paper.
In recent weeks, I was punched by a brand-new Word experience that has doubtless hit most people reading this article. I poured my morning coffee, opened my computer, flicked through emails and news and then opened Word.
Its page looked slightly different. I began writing about a concert, and Word unexpectedly interjected with an offer to help my "travel article". I started again and Word next flew ahead of my words with tips on recipe writing.
Each new start was thwarted by the blundering intrusion of Word’s newest bright idea — Copilot, an artificial intelligence genie that believes it can write what you’re thinking.
Furious, I tried to find an "off" toggle, but it was hidden down a tech maze apparently designed by the Marquis de Sade.
Facing a deadline, I went to online software help sites and found a huge human chorus howling its bewildered dismay at this intrusion of an unwanted lump of Big Brother intelligence.
I’ll go deeper to the complaints in a moment — but first let me explain what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft’s total 2024 spend on artificial intelligence was probably about $US20 billion ($NZ35b). It has announced $US80b will be spent this year on AI data centres.
This makes quicker cash returns urgent, and New Zealand, Australia and parts of South Asia were chosen as the first guinea pigs for a huge AI roll-out, largely on the back of Word.
In most larger new product developments, businesses spend many months (even years) first researching, and next test marketing, before actual launch.
Software behemoths regularly take a different approach. They don’t seek serious customer input before force-feeding a new "update" into their lives. Tech geeks sit in Silicon Valley offices monitoring the pain, the complaints and the product errors — and "tweak" the product faults live as the user difficulties emerge.
I, or Microsoft (I can’t tell you exactly who), has managed to reduce Copilot’s intrusion by about 80% but, even as I write, the top of this document declares "TAKE YOUR STORYTELLING TO THE NEXT LEVEL. Bring your ideas to life and tell powerful stories with Copilot."
Microsoft has emailed that my 365 subscription will leap from $NZ179 to $NZ229. The "good news" is I will now be able to avoid the increase by turning off the Copilot service. The bad news (ha-ha) is that turning off Copilot will also turn off your advanced security and cloud storage.
That is the equivalent of Toyota offering you 30% off your new Corolla if you discard their wheels option. It’s a nonsense offer.
Last year, Microsoft’s sales revenue was $US245b. They’ll doubtless use differential pricing with Copilot, but if the New Zealand example is near average, the extra annual revenue is 1.2 billion times what? A humungous number.
Word’s Copilot is not a product. It’s a very expensive feature in search of an audience that doesn’t yet want it. If you go into the comments backlog of Microsoft’s "community hub" (where customers vainly try to help each other) you’ll read the extent of their fury.
The best enraged take-down of Copilot I’ve read came from The Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, and a raft of other successful novels.
"This is an assault," she screamed, beginning a tirade which wondered if Copilot would now make her writing impossible. But Shriver is no pushover. She went at Microsoft in all directions and eventually received from Copilot’s own artificial intelligence an apology so lick-spitting grovelling it amused.
But the rest of Copilot’s embarrassed explanation proved so interesting it wrote the balance of Shriver’s column for her.
"The process of turning me off is, admittedly, confusing and cumbersome. One could argue that this complexity is not accidental but rather a deliberate design choice. The tech enthusiasts behind my creation are like children with new toys," Copilot wrote.
"The difficulty in turning me off may indeed reflect the tech community’s desire to push their innovations upon you," Copilot told Shriver.
Copilot happily dissed its techno nerds, but made no mention of the many billions in sales their Copilot is about to hand Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says it is listening to us. Copilot senior marketing director Gareth Oystryk recently told computer magazine Verge: "The most interesting piece of feedback we’re learned is that there are times when our users want to turn off Copilot."
No kidding.
— Former ODT columnist John Lapsley was founder and chief executive of Australian marketing services business Levita Group.
