Sarah Carney: Microsoft's national chief technology officer on the company's plan to digitally upskill 200,000 Kiwis

Microsoft has today announced it will double its existing AI and digital skilling commitment in New Zealand, with a plan to train up over 200,000 Kiwis by 2028.

The company has observed this training will help many businesses, with survey data showing 59 percent of Kiwi business leaders say productivity must increase.

Microsoft's national chief technology officer, Sarah Carney, says upskilling will help unlock more opportunities for New Zealand's future.  

"Skilling is how you unlock that. Teach people how to use the tools and set them free." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there is a claim that AI could unlock up
to one hundred and two billion dollars worth of economic
value every year from New Zealand in the next twelve years.
This is according to Microsoft, which has just had its
global CEO in Auckland, and Microsoft is also promising to
upscale two hundred thousand kiwis in AI before twenty twenty eight. Now.
Sarah Karney is the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Australia

(00:22):
New Zealand. I Sarah, Hello, had that.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thanks for having me along, So explain to.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Me how AI is going to do this? How are
we going to get one hundred and two billion dollars
out of it?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Look, there are so many opportunities, but based on our
piece of research that was done just last year, New
Zealand has two really specific opportunities in this moment. The
first is unlocked through data centers. Nice stable geopolitical environment here,
land available and great renewable resources. But the one I
want to focus on is applications. Every time I spend
time with Kiwi companies, the innovation is insane, and applications

(00:56):
is how you get to that one hundred million dollar number.
Like that is the opportunity here right now. And so
skilling is how you unlock that, teach people how to
use the tools and then set them free.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
I mean, is that basically because we free up enough
time for those people to do other tasks with their time,
that then earns one hundred and two billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Part of it is that, but part of it is
the innovation that you can create. So at the moment,
we're also buried in those tasks that we can't find
the next innovation, the next application, the next unicorn that
should be coming out of New Zealand, and so by
freeing up some of that time, you can do that.
But part of it is also people have great ideas
and they don't know how to bring it to life,
and this now bridges that gap for them. So by

(01:35):
putting AI tools into their hands, they can now actually
create that innovation themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Okay, So I mean one example obviously is it is
it called Halter, the New Zealand business that uses AI
with accounts. Yep, that's brilliant asolutely. Okay, But for take
a workerlike me, Okay, what actually happens when we unlock
our time? We get the AI to do something that
maybe takes a three hour task down to one hour,
what do we actually spend the remaining two hours on?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Okay, this is the perfect question we should be talking
about because unless you're being really clear on what you're
going to spend that time on, what do we do?
We waste it on more email, more admin And so
it's really important that we're actually thinking actively about what
we do with that time so that you don't fall
back into those administrative tasks and just add more admin
to your day that you can then lift. So what

(02:23):
are the higher value things you could be doing? We
all sit in our jobs wishing we had time to
do other things. This is now that moment, So it's
how do you make sure you're creating that list of
other things that we've always wanted to do, more strategic activities,
getting back to the community. Like lots of organizations are
being beautiful about how they do this. In fact, one
company in Australia's given their work as a nine day

(02:44):
working fortnight because now they're so efficient they get a
day off every fortnight. Who doesn't want.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
That quite right now? And the other thing that is
happening obviously is that businesses are using it. I mean
it's replacing humans, right, And so the one thing that's
been expressed to me is that the concern that middle
managers have now is that they're getting the AI to
do the work that an entry level like a graduate
would do. And the problem now is that when they

(03:09):
need to promote somebody up into the middle level, there
isn't anybody because I always been doing it. How do
we get around there?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I would charge the notion that AI is now doing
jobs that humans are doing. So I think we have
this weird need to keep hold of all of our tasks.
Let's say our tasks are made up of ten things
that we do. For some reason, we have this incredible
need to hold on to all ten and so if
we do give away four of them to the AI,
we suddenly think that AI can take all of our job,
and it can't. So that's the first piece of it.

(03:38):
And I think what we actually need to address is
most organizations I talk to are hiring more or at
least the same number of graduates as they always have,
but they now have different expectations. So instead of coming
in like you think as a junior lawyer, what do
you do? You troll through pages and pages of documents
you do mergers and acquisitions, So instead of doing that,

(03:58):
now they're interrogating that information. Now they're lifting their skills
to a different level. So I see tends to be
acceleration to the next level of skills and capability as
opposed to losing that graduate intake.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Sarah, do you think that we need government regulation?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
We like the approach that the government is taking putting
in place guardrails to make which is.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
To say no because the government's not doing anything in
the regulations well, which personally I love it. I hate
rules for the sake of rules, but can you mount
an argument for why we should have some rules here.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think I'm a big fan of guardrails. I think
we absolutely want to make sure this is being done
responsibly and human centered. So that's why I think. You know,
the governments I see globally doing this really well are
putting in place guardrails as opposed to stringent regulations that
make it more onerous. You think about how many small
businesses we have in the country. You put in place
stringent regulation that makes it really hard for them to

(04:51):
actually then innovate, So guardrails and looking at how we
make sure it is being done really responsibly and in
line with the way the government wants us to move forward.
I'm all on board with that.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Now, do you think we should be worried about mythos Ai?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Absolutely not. Absolutely amazing innovation that we see coming out
from some of our partners.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
But then why have they stopped rolling it out the
full gamnet?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
They have it in testing with a number of different companies.
Microsoft is one of those companies that they have it
in testing with because they're taking a very responsible approach
to how they release that product.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Sarah, thank you for talking to Storid appreciated that. Sarah Khaney,
chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Australia New Zealand. For more
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