In early 2009, I saw a wave that every other business started implementing content/document management, as before that there were no proper systems for storing unstructured data. In no time, SharePoint or IBM solution was everywhere and businesses storing large documents in the old file systems wanted to move to managed document systems.
Initially, document owners wanted to structure their folders and store some metadata with files to make navigation easier. However, as time went on and data grew, the structured folders became yet another problem—things got messier. These document management systems had to keep evolving, adding features like enterprise search to manage the chaos. For example, I remember being one of the early adopters of Gmail back in 2004/2005. Now, 20 years later, my Gmail storage is at 97% capacity. Up until 2020, Gmail’s search function was incredible, and I stopped bothering with organizing or deleting emails. But as my email count grew, a new problem emerged—the search function no longer worked as well.
So, what happens when data grows beyond traditional system capabilities? How does this relate to the topic at hand? The key point here is the importance of the journey. Businesses constantly learn and adapt to find solutions to their next set of challenges. Take, for example, a law firm that resisted digital transformation, sticking to its old ways of working. Eventually, they had to make a rushed and expensive decision to migrate data, as their competitors were quicker and more effective in responding to client needs.
When considering AI in the context of business growth, the first question is: how can AI help identify more customers, retain them, or respond to them quickly and accurately? Here, the customer serves as the primary prompt or context for AI. One thing we’ve learned is that if we build the right prompt and context, AI delivers more accurate responses. Every business needs the right CRM platform. Some companies have excelled at this, building CRMs that sync all unstructured data (such as emails and files) and structured data in a way that’s contextualized with customer information. Now, these businesses need to integrate AI as a service to utilize this context and provide precise information.
As I am writing this blog, I can imagine someone on the Microsoft AI team is already testing how D365 Copilot on an Account screen can read all emails and files stored on SharePoint and provide responses that help us win more business from that Account.
