by Joe Lonergan
Be My Eyes is in the news again with their Be My AI feature, this time in a
connection with Microsoft. In the Be My Eyes app people may already be aware
that you can connect with Microsoft in Specialized help and get through to a
human Call Centre agent from the Microsoft helpdesk to help with a technical
query, but this has been taken a step further with Be My Eyes offering GPT 4
support for vision impaired and blind customers.
So, what does this mean?
Microsoft is integrating a digital visual assistant tool in Be My Eyes
called Be My AI into its Microsoft Disability Answer Desk inside the
Specialized help area of the Be My Eyes app, allowing visually impaired
Microsoft users to resolve technical issues or perform tasks like updating
software without needing the assistance of a call centre agent.
To use the Be My AI tool in the Microsoft help desk do the following:
1. Open the Be My Eyes App.
2. Then tap on Get support on the tab along the bottom.
3. Now go to specialized help
4. Tap on technical.
5. Tap on Microsoft
You now have two options, chat with Be my AI or Call Microsoft. Tap on Chat
with Be My AI. You will now hear the following message:
"Welcome to the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk. This is Be My AI from
Microsoft. How can I help you today? We can try some basic troubleshooting
steps.
You can add a picture of your device to show the technical issue and also
describe what you are trying to accomplish. If we can't arrive at a
solution, then you can use the Call Microsoft button to contact the
Microsoft Disability Answer Desk".
Now an option for take picture will pop up.
So, if your laptop has gone silent or something else is wrong you can take a
picture of the screen and send it to Microsoft and be my AI. Then you will
receive a reply letting you know that your Laptop is performing updates or
if that is not the problem, Be My Ai will acknowledge that you sent a
picture and then will ask you how it can help you with this and will ask you
for some more specific information. It can also help with Keystrokes. For
example, I asked it for a keystroke to change the font of a document and it
came back with the following impressive answer:
To access the Font dialog box in Microsoft Word using a keyboard shortcut,
press the "Ctrl" + "D" keys simultaneously. This will open the Font dialog
box where you can change the font, size, and other text attributes. If you
are using a screen reader, it should read out the options for you. Let me
know if you need further assistance.
Microsoft has noted from its short time evaluating this feature that it
takes only 4 minutes on average to solve most issues compared to 12 minutes
when a person calls a human agent. Microsoft also noticed, that only 10
percent chose to talk to a human customer service representative after
interacting with the AI tool.
This feature was released inside the Be My Eyes app on November 15th so most
people will have access to it by now. If you are having issues with your
Windows machine, we advise you to give it a try, you might be surprised by
the accuracy of results from The Be My AI tool.
Vision Ireland Technology News.
