Making AI a reality for everyone at Oxford
Professor Anne Trefethen announces the University’s strategic partnership with Microsoft and how we are piloting Microsoft and OpenAI technology to strengthen the underpinnings for Oxford’s digital transformation journey
AI is changing our world, with many Oxford colleagues leading the way. Professor Anne Trefethen announces the University’s strategic partnership with Microsoft and how we are piloting Microsoft and OpenAI technology to strengthen the underpinnings for Oxford’s digital transformation journey. She shares how staff and students can reimagine their work with training, support and guidance from our new AI and Machine Learning Support Competency Centre.
Key messages:
- Professor Anne Trefethen announces the University’s strategic partnership with Microsoft and how we are piloting Microsoft and OpenAI technology to strengthen the underpinnings for Oxford’s digital transformation journey
- How staff can reimagine their work with training, support and guidance from the new AI and Machine Learning Support Competency Centre
- How staff and students can benefit from AI and these new collaborations now and in the future
The University is beginning to see green shoots of changes in how it governs, invests in and continuously develops digital services. The new MyOxford student app currently being piloted is the first ‘product’ we're developing with the continuous improvement approach.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. The technology underpinnings for our digital transformation are changing rapidly and we have a huge amount happening in AI, with many colleagues leading the way. Earlier this month, to help staff and students to learn and adopt these technologies, we introduced a new AI and Machine Learning Support Competency Centre. The potential of AI appears at times to be frighteningly boundless. Sometimes, it seems difficult just to keep up with the fast-developing capabilities. We are not alone in trying to understand how to best integrate the new toolsets into our daily work and experimenting with them to innovate – and we cannot do this alone.
I’m very happy to say that we are working with both Microsoft and OpenAI to pilot their enterprise offerings. A cohort of over 500 colleagues in a breadth of roles from across the institution have been provided licences for ChatGPT Enterprise and Microsoft Copilot to help explore how these premium tools can significantly simplify things and improve productivity.
Last week, the University also agreed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to better understand how we might use these technologies safely to take forward new ways of research and education, and improve our fundamental digital infrastructure including identity, data and cybersecurity.
Microsoft are embedding the technologies in all their platforms and are also providing a suite of different AI models to allow us to build our own ‘copilots’ to help deliver in new ways and to experiment with different AI models from various providers. Embedded in Microsoft 365, the technology will provide the capability for a speaker to share their presentation simultaneously in any language and no longer will we need to handcraft Excel spreadsheets, but with a prompt Microsoft Copilot will provide the analysis. These tools should benefit us all – administrators, researchers, educators and students alike.
Our relationship with Microsoft has had its difficulties in the past, and the recent problems with OneDrive capacity has, I know, caused concern and confusion, but I hope with this partnership, we will not have such surprises in the future, and we will be able not only to bring in new tools and technologies but make more of what we have already invested in.
As many of you will be aware, Microsoft and OpenAI are partners, and the Microsoft copilots build on the Open AI technology. I’m delighted that alongside our partnership with Microsoft we are also able to work directly with the OpenAI product to experiment and learn how it might be used effectively and enable new innovations. As we develop the new AI and Machine Learning Support Competency Centre, it will provide guidance on the use of technologies, share best practice – for example, guides on how to write prompts – and the like. Watch out for updates on the Digital Transformation webpages.
Thank you to those of you already engaging with the AI pilots; I look forward to hearing about your experiences. If you’d like to discuss the possibilities for you and your team, please contact the team by emailing AIMLSupportCentre@it.ox.ac.uk.
