Episode 432: AI-Era Consulting Billing for Microsoft Cloud Delivery

Welcome to Episode 437 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Nick Burling, Chief Product Officer at Nasuni, joins Ben and Scott to talk about getting unstructured file data ready for AI. Nick digs into why 70 to 80 percent of enterprise data sits in file shares and object storage, how that data tends to end up ungoverned and risky to point AI at, and Nasuni’s PSYCHIC framework for making it proprietary, secure, current, indexed, hybrid, and continuous. The conversation covers Nasuni’s AI Activate, the MCP based service that enforces permissions before a query ever runs, and the recent DryvIQ acquisition, which adds content classification, redaction, and policy enforcement on top of that index. They also get into where this overlaps with Purview and Copilot’s own indexing, how DriveIQ reads and respects Microsoft’s existing sensitivity labels, and why 97 percent of orgs are piloting AI agents while only 43 percent call those projects successful. Nick closes with practical advice for anyone evaluating a platform like this: pick one high value use case, define success metrics up front, and keep the initial scope small. Discosure: This is a sponsor interview with Nasuni who is a sponsor of the podcast. Show Notes Nasuni Nasuni Research Finds 97% of Enterprises Are Adopting AI Agents, Yet Most Projects Fail to Meet Objectives Nasuni Acquires DryvIQ, Enabling Organizations to Classify, Secure, and Activate Unstructured Data to Unlock AI Business Value Expanding Purview DLP and Information Protection to Foreign Platforms Nasuni Resources Nasuni News AI Program Success Related episodes: Episode 431: Agent Governance Is the New App Governance Episode 429: Getting started with LLM Wikis About our guest Nick Burling is Chief Product Officer at Nasuni, where he leads the company’s product strategy at the intersection of enterprise data management, cloud infrastructure, and AI. He is responsible for shaping Nasuni’s vision for how organizations manage, protect, and activate unstructured data for enterprise teams and AI at scale. This includes expanding the company’s capabilities for continuous cost optimization and protection, while empowering compounding workforce productivity through AI-optimized unstructured data. An accomplished product executive and entrepreneur, Nick brings deep experience translating technology innovation and market shifts into clear strategic advantage. His career spans leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft and IBM, as well as early-stage ventures he has guided from launch through successful exit. At Nasuni, he leads the teams defining how enterprises will manage and act on unstructured data in an AI-driven world. Nick Burling’s Forbes Technology Council profile. About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 436 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott dive into Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance. Almost nobody runs one Microsoft Entra tenant. Mergers, divestitures, dev and test environments, regional partitioning, that one AI proof-of-concept somebody spun up on a credit card. Organizations accumulate tenants the way they accumulate SharePoint sites. The difference is that nobody ever built an inventory of the tenants, and central IT frequently cannot name them, let alone say whether they are configured safely. Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance, now generally available, is Microsoft’s first-party answer. It is genuinely four products under one blade: it finds the tenants you did not know about, gives you a least-privilege way to administer them without local accounts, monitors their configuration for drift against a JSON baseline, and gates the creation of new ones so the next tenant is governed from birth. Show Notes Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance is now generally available What is Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance? Deploy Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance end to end Related tenants in Tenant Governance Licensing for Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 435 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott take a lap around what’s new in Power BI, starting with the two MCP servers now in preview, one local and one remote, that can clean up your data model, write DAX for you, and turn a messy pile of tables into an actual usable semantic model. Ben shares how it helped him tame a 44 table QuickBooks Online mess, and why he had way better luck with it than with Copilot in Power BI. From there they get into PBIP, the newer Power BI project file format that breaks a report into files you can actually put in Git and collaborate on like real developers, branches, rollbacks, and all. It has been in preview since 2023 and still lacks solid guidance from Microsoft on wiring up CI/CD, but Ben and Scott dig into why it is worth adopting anyway, even if you are working solo. Show Notes Overview of the Power BI MCP servers (Preview) Power BI Desktop projects Git integration Power BI Modeling MCP Server Episode 90 – Power BI and Data Democratization with Alexander Arvidsson Episode 287 – Power BI Field Parameters and Microsoft Entra Optimize your semantic model for Copilot in Power BI Power BI Desktop projects (PREVIEW) Power BI Desktop projects Git integration Power BI projects, Git, and Team Collaboration About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 434 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. Microsoft announced Project Perception on 2026-07-27 with a lot of “workforce of AI agents” language. In this episode, Ben and Scott discuss what Perception really is, what it needs from your tenant, what it costs, and what happens the first time an agent asks you to approve something. Six agents. Seven playbooks. Every one manually triggered. Each agent gets its own Entra Agent ID and a permission grant. There’s a lot to unpack. Show Notes Save $200 at TechCon365 with code Ben200: https://www.techcon365.com/Seattle/ What is Project Perception? How Nationwide stays ahead of attackers with Project Perception Key concepts in Project Perception Agent categories in Project Perception Microsoft Security Copilot Security Compute Units and capacity Work with playbooks in Project Perception Prior podcast context Ep 431: Agent Governance Is the New App Governance Ep 419: Security and AI Ep 416 and Ep 412 Ep 406: Agents of Insight Ep 377: Microsoft Copilot for Security About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 433 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott discuss how Microsoft 365 authentication is moving from “make passwords safer with MFA” to “remove phishable authentication wherever possible.” The practical conversation for IT pros is no longer just whether MFA is enabled. It is which methods are allowed, which users are still on SMS or voice, how passkeys change the user experience, and how to balance security, accessibility, recovery, and support load. Show Notes Passkeys were supposed to replace passwords, but they’re failing for the most predictable reason Microsoft Entra authentication overview Passkeys by default and retirement of Microsoft-provided SMS and voice authentication Plan a phishing-resistant passwordless authentication deployment in Microsoft Entra ID Run a registration campaign to set up a passkey or Microsoft Authenticator Practical Protection: Understanding Entra ID and Passkeys Important Change Coming for Entra ID Passkeys in November 2025 Microsoft to Stop Providing Telephony-Based Authentication Methods for MFA in February 2027 How to enable passkeys (FIDO2) in Microsoft Entra ID About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 432 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott discuss how AI is not eliminating Microsoft 365 and Azure consulting, but it is changing what clients think they are buying. Show Notes Inside Consultants’ Messy Shift From Hourly Billing Episode 431: Agent Governance Is the New App Governance Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness report Microsoft 365 Copilot usage report Microsoft Secure Score About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 431 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott get into why agent governance is quickly becoming one of the most pressing challenges for Microsoft 365 administrators. As agentic workflows become more common across Copilot, Copilot Studio, and third-party platforms, organizations are dealing with a sprawl problem that looks familiar but hits differently. Agents bring their own identity, data access, permissions, lifecycle, and security concerns all at once, and unlike traditional apps, a single user can now have dozens of agents acting on their behalf or autonomously across Teams, SharePoint, Exchange, and beyond. The episode walks through Microsoft Agent 365 as a starting point for building that control plane, including the agent registry, user and permission scoping, and the certification tab where publisher attestation gives some visibility into compliance claims though with notable gaps. Ben and Scott also touch on the Shadow AI preview in the Frontier program, the challenges of graph permission readability in the permissions view, and why the agent lifecycle problem, think what happens when the person who built a custom agent leaves the org, is something administrators need to start thinking about now before consumption billing turns an unmanaged agent into a surprise line item. Show Notes Overview of Microsoft Agent 365 Episode 409 – Preparing for Copilot​- Securing Your Microsoft 365 Data and Beyond​ Episode 425 – Exploring Collaboration and Governance at the MVP Summit with Joy Apple Manage agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center Agent management in Microsoft 365 admin center Shadow AI in Microsoft 365 admin center (Preview) Understand agent details in Microsoft 365 admin center About the sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. TrustedTech is a leading Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Cloud services, Microsoft perpetual licensing, and Microsoft Support Services for medium and enterprise-sized businesses. Their robust team of in-house, U.S.-based Microsoft architects and engineers are certified in all 6/6 Microsoft Solutions Partner Designations in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. M365 Licensing Consultation M365 Tenant Assessment Copilot Readiness Assessment ShareGate is your migration and governance solution for Microsoft 365. ShareGate helps your teams simplify tenant migrations, get Copilot-ready, and take control of Microsoft 365 governance. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 430 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, where Scott and Ben dig into Microsoft Scout, the new desktop AI application announced at Microsoft Build. They walk through the real onboarding experience on both Mac and Windows, the licensing maze and admin controls needed to activate it, and how Scout’s architecture ties together models, automations, and integrations like MCP, GitHub Copilot, and Work IQ. Along the way they cover the model selector and personality options (everything from professional to sarcastic teenager), the automations and heartbeats that run on schedules to update you on industry news, monitor workflows, and manage meetings, and the limitations and workarounds around skills, session management, and local file access. They also sort out where Scout overlaps with and differs from Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, how to rationalize all three for ROI, and what token-based, consumption-based pricing means for enterprise AI strategy. Whether you’re a pilot user or just AI-curious, this episode cuts through the hype to show why Scout’s local-first approach is a game-changer for MCP workflows, custom skills, and offline automation, and what it actually takes to adopt Scout as your desktop AI hub. Hosted by Scott and Ben, two industry veterans passionate about AI and automation, it delivers practical, actionable insights for technical leaders, developers, and productivity enthusiasts. Join us as we unravel Scout’s potential to redefine your desktop AI experience, because knowing how to navigate its complexities now can save you time and money tomorrow. Show Notes Introducing Microsoft Scout: Your always-on personal agent Microsoft Scout (Frontier) documentation Announcing the new Work IQ APIs Work IQ: Production‑ready intelligence for every agent Get started with Microsoft Scout Admin access overview for Microsoft Scout Microsoft Scout — Automations, Memory, Heartbeats About the sponsors TrustedTech is a leading Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Cloud services, Microsoft perpetual licensing, and Microsoft Support Services for medium and enterprise-sized businesses. Their robust team of in-house, U.S.-based Microsoft architects and engineers are certified in all 6/6 Microsoft Solutions Partner Designations in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. M365 Licensing Consultation M365 Tenant Assessment Copilot Readiness Assessment ShareGate is your migration and governance solution for Microsoft 365. ShareGate helps your teams simplify tenant migrations, get Copilot-ready, and take control of Microsoft 365 governance. Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 429 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Scott and Ben dig into the concept of LLM wikis, specifically building personal knowledge management vaults using Obsidian, markdown, and AI tooling like Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Copilot Cowork. The core idea comes from a gist by Andrej Karpathy and involves creating a structured folder of markdown clippings that an LLM can reason over to extract entities, concepts, and sources, building a searchable, graph-linked knowledge base over time. Scott walks through how he wired up Obsidian Web Clipper and an RSS Dashboard plugin to feed articles into his vault automatically, then had the LLM help build a Python script to automate the ingest workflow and cut down on token usage. The conversation expands into how Copilot Cowork fits into this workflow as a scheduling harness, with practical examples of using it to pull email from an inbox daily, convert messages to markdown, and generate a prioritized to-do list. Ben shares how he applied the same approach to 428 episodes of podcast transcripts, and both hosts note that token costs can run high fast without some upfront thinking about optimization. Scott closes with a reminder that pulling data into plain markdown sidecars outside of IRM and sensitivity label protections means teams should stay mindful of organizational data policies. Show Notes LLM Wiki GitHub Copilot Wiki: An AI-Powered Second Brain Template Karpathy’s LLM Knowledge Base Wiki for Enterprise Karpathy’s LLM Wiki? No Code with Claude or Github Copilot! sametbrr/llm-wiki-manager About the sponsors TrustedTech is a leading Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Cloud services, Microsoft perpetual licensing, and Microsoft Support Services for medium and enterprise-sized businesses. Their robust team of in-house, U.S.-based Microsoft architects and engineers are certified in all 6/6 Microsoft Solutions Partner Designations in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. M365 Licensing Consultation M365 Tenant Assessment Copilot Readiness Assessment ShareGate is your migration and governance solution for Microsoft 365. ShareGate helps your teams simplify tenant migrations, get Copilot-ready, and take control of Microsoft 365 governance. Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

Welcome to Episode 428 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott unlock the secrets to modernizing your IT management by ditching pesky on-prem GPOs and embracing the future with Intune. They discuss how savvy IT pros are migrating thousands of GPOs into clean, manageable cloud policies. Dive into real-world workflows: from exporting and analyzing legacy GPOs with AI tools, to recreating policies in Entra ID, and finally decommissioning AD. You’ll discover how to think through the migration, avoid common pitfalls like leftover legacy configs, and implement a phased migration that minimizes disruption. Show Notes DiskPrices.com These HDD prices are getting crazy. An increase of 96.4% in 1 month for the same 26TB drive. $279.99 a month ago to $549.99 today. Where are we buying hard drives now? Import and analyze your on-premises GPOs using Group Policy analytics in Microsoft Intune Microsoft Copilot in Intune Policy CSP Use the Intune settings catalog to configure settings Use the Intune properties catalog to get device hardware properties Create a Settings Catalog policy using your imported GPOs in Microsoft Intune About the sponsors ShareGate is your migration and governance solution for Microsoft 365. ShareGate helps your teams simplify tenant migrations, get Copilot-ready, and take control of Microsoft 365 governance. Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. TrustedTech is a leading Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Cloud services, Microsoft perpetual licensing, and Microsoft Support Services for medium and enterprise-sized businesses. Their robust team of in-house, U.S.-based Microsoft architects and engineers are certified in all 6/6 Microsoft Solutions Partner Designations in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. M365 Licensing Consultation M365 Tenant Assessment Copilot Readiness Assessment  Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!