We had the opportunity to speak with Rodney Hobbs, Chief Technology Officer at Rapid Circle, to understand his motivation behind creating an AI Centre of Excellence in Australia. Here is a recap of our Q&A session with Rodney.

Q: What inspired Rapid Circle to launch the Copilot AI Centre of Excellence, and how does it align with the company’s broader goals for AI innovation?

A: Rapid Circle’s CoE is an initiative inspired by our ambition to accelerate AI transformation in  Australia and New Zealand – commonly regarded as early technology adopters. At the same time, it represents our investment into our continued expansion down under, bolstering our presence and capability across the Microsoft portfolio. Our CoE is dedicated to developing, adopting, and optimising AI-driven solutions, and that puts us in a strong position as the go-to technology partner for enabling business outcomes for our customers. 

Q: How does this investment support Rapid Circle’s competitive differentiation in an increasingly competitive space for partners with AI solutions?

A: Our investment in the Copilot AI CoE is a strategic move to support our competitive differentiation in an increasingly crowded AI solutions space. By serving as an innovation hub, the CoE enables us to experiment with and develop leading-edge AI solutions and offerings, showcasing our expertise and demonstrating the transformative potential of AI. This highlights our capabilities and commitment to driving business transformation and delivering exceptional value to our customers by targeting specific challenges or objectives those organisations have, across a multitude of industries including government, higher education, energy and utilities, healthcare, construction, and manufacturing.

Q: How does Rapid Circle’s partnership with Microsoft enhance the capabilities of the Copilot AI CoE, and what unique benefits does this collaboration bring to customers?

A: Partnering with Microsoft has significantly enhanced the capabilities of our Copilot AI CoE. Leveraging Microsoft’s Copilot technologies allows us to create intelligent applications that boost productivity and drive business value for our customers. This collaboration enables us to offer tailored and efficient AI solutions, providing our customers with the tools and support they need to achieve rapid and sustainable results. We are uniquely positioned with our change and adoption model and proven experience in governance to assist customer as they start or continue to navigate their AI journeys.

Q: How do the training programs offered by the CoE help customers build their AI expertise, and what kind of feedback have you received from participants so far?

A: We go well beyond just training as all data shows that many AI programmes lack traction if you are not appropriately approaching change and adoption. The CoE will be instrumental in helping our customers build their AI expertise. Expanding on our successful current offerings, we provide training and enablement programs such as workshops, hands-on labs, and certification programs. These cover a range of topics from AI fundamentals to advanced techniques and best practices. Feedback from our customer s  has been overwhelmingly positive, with many appreciating the opportunity to upskill their teams and leverage AI effectively.

Q: Are there specific industries or business sectors that will benefit from your investments into Copilot AI CoE the most? What unique challenges or opportunities are you addressing for these industries?

A: Our CoE isn’t tied a specific industry – it aims to benefit a variety of organisations by addressing their unique challenges and opportunities. We are however seeing strong appetite in education, utilities, healthcare, local government and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The most common use cases we are addressing at these stages span core business processes, such as human resources (HR), customer operations, and IT services.

Through real-world examples of successful AI implementations, we demonstrate how AI can transform business processes, improve decision-making, streamline operations, and enhance user experiences. This approach inspires customers from different industries to embark on their own AI journeys, achieving significant improvements in efficiency and innovation.

Q: What are the next steps for the Copilot AI CoE, and how does Rapid Circle plan to evolve its offerings to stay ahead in the rapidly changing AI landscape?

A: The most important part of the CoE is partnering with our customer wherever they maybe on their journey and being able to drive the velocity of value that these new technologies can enable in their businesses and for their customers. We have already built a number of standardised Copilot offerings, and will continue to add more. Underscored by our unique change and adoption model and expertise in data governance and security, we are geared up to work with early adopters to customise these standardised solutions to specific customer challenges.

We will also hold a formal opening of the CoE in February 2025, during which we will showcase how we are driving innovation with our change and adoption framework, including a deep dive into our Copilot Accelerator designed to fast-track the deployment and adoption of AI solutions, and our Copilot Agents that can access data and take actions.