In April 2020, we announced that Microsoft had joined the ODI’s Commercial Partnership Programme.
The objective of the partnership is to advance the cause of open, trustworthy data sharing and collaboration and to help address the looming ‘data divide’ such that any organisation of any size can more easily collaborate around data and realise its benefits.
The partnership is part of Microsoft’s wider Industry Data for Society Partnership, a collaboration committed to making private sector data more open and accessible to address societal challenges.
As part of the fourth year of our partnership with Microsoft, we are exploring the potential of conversational generative AI models to bridge the data divide, by helping non-technical users of data to discover datasets and unlock their value, through descriptive and exploratory data analysis techniques.
This programme of work will feature:
- A landscape review of current AI tools which can support data publishing and use.
- A data prompting workshop held in February to explore the potential of these tools to support non-technical users with data discovery, analysis and visualisation.
- Further work to address the questions raised in our research on generative AI tools.
Bridging the data divide with Generative AI
We are thrilled to see this collection of companies coming together to collaborate around new ways of leveraging open data infrastructure to drive impact to society. The benefits and opportunities are clear and within reach, and the IDSP is an important vehicle to help us, and others like us, achieve our ambitions to use data for societal impact. It is an exciting time to be working with like-minded organisations in the private sector. The opportunities to improve people’s lives are in front of us, and we have the tools to unlock them together. The ODI is thrilled for the next year of collaboration with the IDSP.
