Creospark appoints Chief Innovation Officer to drive AI transformation

Creospark is excited to announce the appointment of Eric Overfield as our Chief Innovation Officer (CIO). In this pivotal role, Eric will lead our AI strategy and ensure that we remain at the forefront of AI innovation and assist our clients in the ever-changing digital landscape.

We sat down with our new CIO to discuss what this role means for the future of Creospark.

Hi Eric, congratulations on your new appointment as Creospark’s Chief Innovation Officer. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you’ve come to your current position?

Thank you. I am thrilled to be taking on this exciting new role at Creospark. I received my degree in computer science, but I was always interested in entrepreneurship. That’s why I decided to take the leap to start PixelMill —a business focusing on Microsoft technologies. It evolved from SharePoint services into Microsoft 365 and Azure. In 2022, I merged my company with Creospark. Since then, much of my focus has been on keeping us at the forefront of technology to deliver the best solutions to our clients.

Why do you think now is the right time to introduce a CIO role in Creospark?

AI —in particular generative AI —took the world by storm in 2023. Though it has been around for a long time, the technological gains we saw last year alone were significant. We quickly realized at Creospark that generative AI will fundamentally change how we and our clients work with data. To keep our clients on the best possible trajectory, we needed to ensure someone on our team was focused on this technology development beyond general technology evolution.

What is your vision for driving innovation within Creospark?

As the CIO, my vision is to amplify our AI-first approach, transforming our organization into an even more dynamic hub of creativity and forward-thinking. We understand change is constant in our industry and have already built a mindset that embraces this change by encouraging experimentation and collaboration. I will be doubling down on our efforts to lead the charge on how AI can best meet the upcoming needs of our client’s digital solutions.

How do you stay informed about emerging technologies and industry trends?

This is twofold. First, I stay engaged in the global communities related to AI and data. This means doing a lot of reading and experimenting myself, which I enjoy. In an attempt to stay ahead of what is next, I’ve been digging into academic papers that underline the latest innovations — in a way, I feel as if I’d gone back to my student days. Being a life-long learner is really the only way to stay informed in this constantly changing field.

Second, as Creospark is a Microsoft Solutions Partner, we’re interested in learning more about Microsoft’s approach to AI and data, in particular. This directly relates to what our clients can use now or in the future. Being a Microsoft Regional Director and holding a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status allows me to “be in the room” and gain exposure to the new ideas and strategies being explored. Closely interacting with the inner Microsoft community means that I can provide direct feedback from the field to the Microsoft product teams that deliver the products our clients use or will use day in and day out.

Can you discuss some of the initiatives you’re working on or goals for the next year?

My recent efforts have been to explore what is possible with Microsoft Copilot and Copilot plugins, as well as how best to use Microsoft Fabric to unlock data.

Copilot is very powerful out of the box, yet I see even greater opportunity with extending Copilots with our own data. This is where Copilot Studio plugins enter the picture. There is quite a bit of work being done by Microsoft on this front, and we want to be sure our clients can use the latest enhancements as quickly as possible.

Microsoft Fabric, on the other hand, brings together almost all of Microsoft’s approaches to data and big data. Understanding and unlocking data is key to every organization.

Lastly, as powerful as Copilot and GPT are for everyone, they still rely on a user prompt—generally a text-based input. I don’t see that lasting much longer. I believe that user-provided prompts will soon be a small minority of use cases for generative AI. Throughout 2024 and beyond, I am investing heavily in how we will all use generative AI in the near future.

Thank you for your time, Eric, and again, congratulations on your new role!

With Eric Overfield’s visionary leadership advancing our AI initiatives, this year promises to be a transformative and exciting journey for Creospark and our clients. Our dedication to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI knows no limits, and we’re looking forward to diving into innovation like never before.