The holy grail in consumer software is the Everything or Universal App – one App to rule it all. One App that provides answers and services to all of your digital needs. For China WeChat is that App, and for the Western hemisphere Elon Musk was and is still dreaming of creating it. His current attempt is to transform Twitter – apologies X into such an App. Such an undertaking is definitely a major one and who knows if it is met with success or if others will be quicker or the specific use-cases that separated Apps provide will trump the Everything App. I mean, in the case of X – the single question is: Who trusts Elon with their bank details?
In the Enterprise market I do not remember such a conversation or such a drive towards one single App that gets it all done. What does All even mean in the enterprise environment? I think though we are close to find this out.
I had it all wrong
I had it all wrong when I wrote earlier this year about Microsoft being in THE pole position for a new HCM system. Not only that we haven’t seen anything or heard anything in that regard. No, there is no need for them to take such heavy project on. I could actually see them succeeding in the same way I had envisioned without building an HCM system. The reason for this is of course AI, or more specific Microsoft Copilot.
The Microsoft Copilot is still fairly new and not many companies have adapted it, but what I can see is that it brings the foundations and the right approach to be the Everything App for Enterprises. The only App you need to care about, the only App you need to interact with. Why is that so? – the Microsoft Copilot is an open Generative AI model that continues to learn, gets smarter as well as upgraded (GPT 4) on a regular basis. It is an open platform that can not only ingest tons of data but can also seamlessly connect/ integrate with almost any other system.
Just imagine the Microsoft Copilot in your M365 environment where it is always available to you, in every Microsoft application – and just imagine that it is not only connected to the Microsoft Graph (which basically knows everything about you), does not only know how to interact and support you with your PowerPoint, Excel or Outlook work, but also with any of the other work you need to get done. Imagine it is connected with your HR Knowledge Base, your HCM and Talent Management System? Imagine it has learned about the way your company operates, its written rules. With all that knowledge and capability it can be the only interaction layer for you – it can help you get anything done, it can be the best assistant, personalized to you and your company, able to interact with any underlying technology your company is using.
The Microsoft Copilot could become the Everything App for your Enterprise in a way that wasn’t possible just a year ago. It can help you interact with any task or system either chat-based or (and this is important as not every interaction makes sense via chat or can be operated via chat) via a visual interface. The trick is that the MS Copilot is not only a search box or empty chat bar – but it has the full surface of the M365 Apps available – so for example in MS Teams can provide any rendering or visual to help transact/ get done what you want to get done. That is very powerful and I wonder if Microsoft had this idea all along. I wouldn’t be too surprised.
When you test-drive or utilize the Copilot already, I am sure you can see where I am going with this. If not, I suggest you have a look also at OpenAIs Developer Conference Keynote earlier this month. Some of the applications and ideas are very visible there already. It is mind-blowing and only the beginning.
Another Gen AI problem that I was just referencing in my recent post can also be solved with Copilot as the Everything App – the cost problem. If the MS Copilot is truly your Everything App, the additional costs it brings can be quickly absorbed across the company. Suddenly there is no longer only a more abstract cost-efficiency (Copilot can prepare the first draft of your next PowerPoint deck) but you can stop investing in any other technology to overlay or abstract your back-end systems and you can also build the business case across multiple functions like HR, Finance, IT and others to pay back the invest and license fees.
Will we be there tomorrow? No – but suddenly the Everything App has some appeal and could turn reality, exciting reality.
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