AI is coming for your office productivity suite, too

“We’re getting closer to Star Trek: The Next Generation, where you just say, ‘Computer,’ and you start talking,” he says. “I advise many of our clients, even today, to start using the microphone to have conversations instead of the keyboard. Because as human beings, most of us can talk faster than we can type.”

IT leaders will have to pay close attention to their specific use-case needs when exploring other options for productivity tools, Mariano says. Organizations will have unique needs, and not all new productivity products will fit every situation.

In addition, the big guys aren’t going away, he adds. “One thing I want to make clear is that we don’t think Microsoft is, all of a sudden, going out of business,” he says. “You have so much data in SharePoint OneDrive, and the expectation is that you want to start using Microsoft, Amazon, and Google as that data layer, that anchor that is where all your data stored.”