Organisations that use artificial intelligence (AI), have a growth mindset and an innovative culture should drive development of modern hybrid workplaces, according to Microsoft Thailand.
These values are reflected at the company's new office at One Bangkok, which is designed to foster a modern work environment that prioritises employee well-being, data-driven decision-making, and a growth mindset.
Microsoft Thailand plans to sign a contract in March to select a data centre in Thailand to host its existing cloud service here, which is currently provided by its data centres in Singapore.
"For five decades globally and 32 years in Thailand, Microsoft has been a trusted partner to individuals and organisations, driving innovation that transforms the way people work," said Dhanawat Suthumpun, managing director of Microsoft Thailand.
From the PC era to the cloud and now the age of AI, the company's mission remains to empower people and organisations to achieve more by co-creating with all stakeholders, he added.
Mr Dhanawat said organisations this year will no longer be adopting AI on a trial basis, but will executing real use cases.
"In unfavourable economic circumstances, AI helps save costs, improve productivity, and more importantly find new opportunities for businesses," he said.
AI can also foster communication within organisations, said Mr Dhanawat.
"Apart from generative AI, we see the embrace of agentic AI, where AI does specific tasks autonomously for assisting people, just like an AI assistant," he said.
For banks, AI can help with the workloads of relationship managers, widening their care group from wealth clients with a minimum of 50 million baht to wealth clients with a minimum of 20 million baht, said Mr Dhanawat.
According to IDC, for each dollar invested in AI, the return on investment (ROI) is 3.7 times. At AI frontrunner firms, they may gain an ROI of more than 10 times.
Mr Dhanawat said the company's new office is designed to foster a modern work environment.
"Our data driven insights in the past year found 20-30% of employees work at the office under the hybrid work policy and some of them provide support at customers' sites in mission critical applications."
The new office space is half the size of the previous one and supports sustainability by reducing energy consumption and supporting employee wellness. This includes the provision of lighting systems designed to reduce eye strain, desks that can be adjusted in terms of height, and rooms specifically allocated for employees who wish to make or receive a private call.
The office design adopts the concept of inclusivity. Accessibility features include hearing loops for individuals with hearing impairments, card readers for wheelchair users, and automatic doors for easy access.
As a modern workplace, the office offers seamless communication and collaboration through solutions such as Microsoft Teams and Copilot solutions, along with integrated technology such as AI-powered whiteboard cameras in meeting rooms.
"This new office will be an innovative space with the right size and the right vibes and will help attract new talent and retain existing talents with a refreshing environment to foster innovation," Mr Dhanawat noted.
"If we can make our office exciting, employees will return to work from the office more often. We aim to bring 50% of employees back to the office," said Mr Dhanawat.
Vasupon Thankakan, the company's chief operating officer, said AI will soon play a role in bridging the gap between employees based at the office and those working remotely from any location by acting as their assistant.
The system in the conference room will soon be upgraded to support multi-language speech translation so meeting participants who speak different languages can communicate more comfortably. This will include speech translation from English to Chinese or vice versa.
"Agentic AI will be a facilitator in these meetings, taking notes or compiling a summary and follow up tasks," said Mr Vasupon.
