Leah Krauss: Responsible AI and Content Design at Microsoft – Episode 31

Leah Krauss New AI products like Microsoft's Copilot can be powerful productivity enhancers, but if designers aren't careful they can inadvertently introduce into the product the bias and other hazards that can come with large language models. As a content designer working on Microsoft's Copilot for Sales product, Leah Krauss helps her colleagues understand and follow the responsible-AI principles that the company has developed. Leah's advocacy helps her design and product teams create a product that balances the need for transparency about the use of AI with the prerogative to keep customers in flow as they use the product. We talked about: her work as a content designer on Copilot for Sales at Microsoft and her advocacy there for responsible AI how she collaborates with her data science team, which had established a relationship with the content team even before Copilot on other products the evolution of their AI product-development process how their design system supports the implementation of responsible AI the six principles that guide responsible AI at Microsoft: fairness reliability and safety privacy and security inclusiveness transparency accountability how she advocates for responsible AI on the Copilot for Sales product team the balance between keeping customers in their flow and being transparent about AI features the concept of the "human in the loop" and how they apply it in the Copilot for Sales product the importance in AI product design of always being aware of edge cases and possible misuses of the product her encouragement to anyone working on AI products to stay curious, ask a lot of questions, and to bear in mind the importance and relevance of our language expertise Leah's bio Leah Krauss is a senior UX content designer at Microsoft. She works on Copilot for Sales, Microsoft's AI software for salespeople, where she also collaborates closely with the data science team. She champions responsible AI to anyone and everyone who'll listen, including inside Microsoft and at various UX conferences. Outside of work, you can usually find her reading, or spending time outside with her family - hiking, exploring cities, and hanging out on the beach. Connect with Leah online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/VItdSUgzkZE Podcast intro transcript This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 31. The introduction of AI tools like Microsoft's Copilot creates new opportunities for content designers. But as with any innovation, the new technology can be a two-edged sword. For every customer workflow that is streamlined there may also be an opportunity for bias or hazard to get into the product. As a content designer and champion for responsible AI, Leah Krauss helps her colleagues at Microsoft understand and apply responsible AI principles in their product design work. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 31 of the Content and AI podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show Leah Krauss. Leah is a senior UX content designer at Microsoft where she works on Copilot, which many of you may have heard of. So welcome Leah. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Leah: Hi Larry. It's so nice to be here. So yeah, as you mentioned, I'm working on Copilot for Sales, which is a flavor of Microsoft Copilot, and that's been really exciting to be in on kind of the ground floor of AI at Microsoft. And responsible AI, which is what we're going to talk about today, is one of my most favorite topics to talk about. I've done some conference talks about it and my coworkers are really tired of hearing me go on about it. I actually serve, no, that's not true. It's only half true. I serve as actually a responsible AI champion, one of the responsible AI champions on my team. So it's sort of my thing and I think it's so exciting t...