The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

79 that an organisation has access to and visualise it in the form of interactive dashboards. Microsoft AI can help those who are not data scientists to prepare data, build machine learning models and find insights quickly. Media companies can also make use of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, a real-time customer data platform. Customer Insights brings together transactional, behavioural and demographic data to create a profile of an organisation’s customers. By analysing customer interactions with prebuilt AI models, customer needs can be predicted to make informed deci- sions and personalise customer engagement across channels. Organisations can also connect Customer Insights with Power Bi to model and visualise the knowledge they have gained about their customers. “Microsoft technology is helping our custom- ers make sense of the deluge of data during this digital transformation,” says Cooper. “We’re helping organisations automatically and system- atically take all these data sources and rational- ise them to personalise the fan experience, while enhancing it with other technologies such as augmented or virtual reality.” One example of how Microsoft technology has been used to help deliver fan experiences is in the NBA’s use of Microsoft Teams’ Together Mode. Together Mode uses AI segmentation technol- ogy to bring people together into a shared back- ground, allowing them to focus more easily on each other’s faces and body language. The NBA outfitted each of its team’s courts with 17-foot- tall LED screens that wrap around three sides of the arena, serving as virtual ‘stands’ populated by more than 300 fans using Together Mode. Participants could then view both their fellow fans and a live feed of the game within Teams. “Microsoft technology is helping our customers make sense of the deluge of data during this digital transformation” The NBA used Microsoft Teams’ together mode to bring fans back into the stadium COMMUN I CAT I ONS & MED I A