Sii Poland and Microsoft showcase practical AI applications at Polish universities

Sii Poland, in partnership with Microsoft, organized AI Discovery Cards workshops for representatives of SGH Warsaw School of Economics, the Medical University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University, and Cracow University of Technology. The meeting combined practical examples of Microsoft Copilot in action with workshop-based work on marketing and legal processes at universities.

AI Discovery Cards is a Microsoft workshop methodology that helps teams map real processes, identify problems, 
and translate AI capabilities into specific, prioritized use-cases. 

The university as a complex organization 

When we talk about artificial intelligence in higher education, we most often think of teaching, research, and students’ work. In practice, however, universities are far more complex organizations. Before a student enters a lecture hall or a researcher publishes their findings, hundreds of people are working in the background across administration, marketing, finance, and legal services. 

The need to support these processes with AI is becoming less and less contested; the key question is where AI can genuinely improve work and what the right starting point is. 

During the event, one table brought together people who know the real processes of universities, Microsoft specialists showing practical uses of Copilot, and Sii experts helping translate participants’ observations into scenarios that could be developed further. 

Copilot in everyday work: lessons from the Customer Zero approach 

Before participants moved on to mapping their own processes, Microsoft experts introduced the Customer Zero approach. Instead of presenting sterile technology demos, they shared how Microsoft uses solutions such as Copilot internally. 

Examples from finance, marketing, and legal services showed how AI assistants support specific tasks inside an organization. This marks an important shift in perspective: artificial intelligence as a tool that already helps reduce the time needed to review contracts or accelerate the creation of marketing materials. 

Workshop: from problem to scenario 

The second, workshop-based part of the day, led by Sii Poland experts, was built entirely around the AI Discovery Cards methodology. Participants were divided into functional groups – marketing and legal – and began not by choosing a tool, but by analyzing processes. Where do delays occur? Which tasks are repetitive? Where is fast access to information missing? Which decisions require better context? 

“The point is not to add AI to every process. The point is to find the places where technology solves a real problem – shortening work time, organizing knowledge, or relieving people of repetitive tasks” – says Łukasz Biegański, AI Strategist at Sii Poland. 

The work followed a clear analytical structure: 

• Problem diagnosis: teams mapped current processes, identifying the places where work is most time-consuming, repetitive, or prone to delays. 
• AI scenario design: based on the identified problems, participants described situations in which AI solutions could support information analysis, work with documents, content creation, or decision-making. 
• Value and feasibility assessment: ideas were compared in terms of their potential value for the organization and the realism of implementation – both technologically and organizationally. 

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Where inspiration ends and implementation begins 

For an idea developed during a workshop to become a working tool, the organization must address the quality and siloed nature of its data, security architecture, integration with existing systems, and – often the most difficult part – adoption by employees themselves. 

“Coming up with an AI use case is only the beginning. Even the best-described use case eventually meets reality, and the next crucial step is implementation” – says Piotr Ćwikliński, PhD, Data & AI Expert at Sii Poland.

The role of a technology partner such as Sii is to connect these two worlds: agile mapping of business needs, as in an AI Discovery Cards session, with strong engineering and implementation capabilities. 

Practical effects of AI Discovery Cards

The workshops concluded with each university developing concise shortlists of implementation scenarios with assigned action plans.  

The greatest value of the meeting, however, was not the list of ideas itself, but the fact that the conversation did not stop at the level of general inspiration. From the very beginning, it focused on specific processes, real constraints, and scenarios that can be further developed into practical implementations based on Sii’s experience and proven practices.