Introducing AI in a Minute: A Video Series Exploring the Technology Behind Generative AI

AI development is picking up pace. Before we could even finish digesting what Bing and OpenAI's ChatGPT would do to our world, the new breakthroughs on copilots, GPTs, and next-gen assistants rocketed generative AI straight into public discourse—from boardrooms to dinner tables. The recent flood of AI-powered applications is not a proof of AI's potential alone; it piques interest about how things work under the hood. That's why we are pretty excited to share with you "AI in a Minute," a video series that demystifies the most complex generative AI concepts into relatable, easy-to-understand content for any person irrespective of industry or job title.

Generative AI is going to change our world, just like the internet and mobile tech before it did. As a millennial who's never known life without the internet—coming of age with a pink BlackBerry Curve and an iPod in tow—the potential for technology has simply always been there. My aunt, instrumental in my interest in technology, spoke about her early career in web marketing at Sun Microsystems during the Internet's beginnings. From her stories, it was crystal clear that technology was where the action was and would remain. History will tell us likely that generative AI will go down such a trajectory, becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives. Concepts that were earlier restricted to the tech industry, such as cloud computing, storage, and silicon, are now part of our everyday lingo. Business vocabulary continues to increasingly overlap with tech jargon.

The Platform Shift of Our Generation

After nearly two years at Microsoft, working in Azure, I'm finally writing my first blog post. It took me a little while to understand that AI is omnipresent, touching every facet of our lives. AI is no more engineers' or high-degree holders' subject; it is a titanic platform shift for our generation. As we journey into this new frontier together, it's important that all of us find our voice and be a part of the conversation. How technology and culture come together will set our trajectory, and if AI is to truly serve all of us, that means having as many people as possible understand it.

During Microsoft Ignite 2023, the company released more than 100 product announcements, cementing its position as the "Copilot company." One of my friends, a nurse and really not very technical, contacted me about this. Let me add, in social situations, I often mention that I am "the nerd," so I go light on the really deep technology. But my friend, after watching Scott Guthrie's keynote, texted me saying, "this is seriously cool." It's just as clear that interest in AI—what it can do, how it operates, and the future being conceptualized by Microsoft—flows beyond the ranks of techie circles to pique genuine interest among people from all walks of life.

Generative AI: A Step Beyond Traditional AI

One should bear in mind that what everybody is talking about today is not "traditional AI" or "conversational AI," something that has undergone development over the last decades. The trend these days is all about "generative AI": a computer's ability to generate—content-driven and renewing interest in technology and our digital lives. Equipped with supercomputing at their core, enormous data management, and innovations in machine learning, AI can do much more today than converse; it generates meaningful output based on our interactions. That means that, in order to do so, large language models will need to be trained on vast amounts of high-quality data, prompt engineering should make interactions more intuitive, vector search return the most relevant results, and ideally, the generated content advances society. It's complicated, but with "AI in a Minute," we will try to make things a little more accessible and understandable.

Exploring the New AI Frontier, Together

So, what exactly sets generative AI apart? What are these LLMs we keep hearing about? Do you have to be an engineer to really appreciate the possibilities created by prompt engineering? What is, exactly, a prompt? Is vector search just another way of searching, and why should we care? What is responsible AI—the concept or the practice that each of us can have?

Find answers to these questions and more in our "AI in a Minute" series. Let's explore this new frontier of AI together.

Want to dive deeper into AI? Head to Ofoq Consulting's website to discover more about our efforts in shaping the future of technology.