Ep 21 - Agents, AI Models and more pre-Ignite updates

Send us a textWith Zoe stuffed full of deep pan pizza and Kevin trying to recover from the remote FOMO, we discuss the key takeaways from Microsoft Ignite 2024  focusing on the latest Copilot updates, the role of agents, integration and alignment at Microsoft, security updates, and more. We explore the significance of the Prompt Gallery and the evolution of Copilot Studio, emphasising the importance of collaboration and automation in modern workplaces.Key Takeaways:Security has become a major focus for Microsoft.The Ignite conference had a significant turnout with over 20,000 attendees.Agents are a popular topic, with many mentions during the conference.Integration between Microsoft products is improving, making workflows smoother.The Copilot Prompt Gallery allows for better user engagement and prompt sharing.The evolution of Copilot Studio is enabling deeper connection between low code and code first.There are new features that enhance governance capabilities.The keynote atmosphere was noted to be less energetic compared to previous years.Key linksMicrosoft Ignite 2024 Book of NewsAgents - From no code (Introducing Microsoft Copilot actions, new agents, and tools to empower IT) to low code to code first - Azure AI Agent Service: Revolutionizing AI Agent Development and Deployment Document tuning - Copilot Studio is enhancing its platform with knowledge improvements, Azure AI integration, and moreAlignment within MS is allowing AI Adoption at scaleRedefine development: AI-first innovation with agents and Microsoft Copilot in Power PlatformAzure AI Agent Service: Revolutionizing AI Agent Development and DeploymentThe next wave of Azure innovation: Azure AI Foundry, intelligent data, and morePurview DLP Accelerate AI adoption with next-gen security and governance capabilities Windows Copilot Runtime for devs https://aka.ms/AAti5u5Microsoft Places Introducing the AI-Powered Workplace: Technology solutions for flexible workCopilot Lab = Copilot Prompt Gallery https://aka.ms/AAthyfgCopilot Analytics aligned - Copilot Control System https://aka.ms/AAti5rhSAM included in license Introdu

Send us a textIn this episode of Copilot Connection, hosts Zoe and Kevin discuss the latest developments in the Copilot space, share insights from recent events like Scottish Summit and anticipate upcoming announcements from Ignite. They explore the significance of agents in the AI landscape, the challenges of governance, and the evolution of AI models. Hopefully, they managed to dodge any NDA content this close to Ignite...TakeawaysExcitement builds ahead of the Ignite conference.Bluesky offers a refreshing social media experience.The Copilot Fireside Chat will provide live insights post-Ignite.Anticipation for new agent announcements is high.Governance is a critical consideration for AI agents.New AI models are being tailored for specific industries.Understanding the hype cycle is essential for AI adoption.Strategic implementation is key to realizing AI's potential.(Auto generated by Riverside.FM)Useful links:We’re on Bluesky! Copilot Connection Scottish Summit 2024 Closing Keynote With Dona SarkarBuilding a Centre For Enablement for your Copilot Strategy - Kevin & SimonCopilot Fireside ChatAGENTSEarth copilotMicrosoft Viva community call (November 2024): New Employee Experience Announcements at Ignite 2024 | Microsoft Community HubDescription of agents https://www.linkedin.com/posts/abramj_the-agentic-scope-of-work-ugcPost-7259233983639519234-0Rbh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_iosADAPTED MODELSAdapted AI models  Is Microsoft building their own model?COPILOT UPDATES Web page summary is backMulti tenant orgs  Reflecting on a year of copilotGartner Hype Cycle

Send us a textIn this episode of the Copilot Connection, hosts Zoe Wilson  and Kevin McDonnell discuss the latest updates in the Microsoft Copilot ecosystem, including a new feature called Copilot Labs (not Lab...), insights from the upcoming Microsoft Ignite conference, and the importance of AI integration in business. They also touch on the significance of empowering neurodivergent employees and the community's engagement in upcoming events. They also have a new AI generated summary - what do you think?LinksIntroducing Copilot VisionMeet the new CopilotIgnite sessionsSession catalog at https://ignite.microsoft.com where you can search for codes.Build and extend agents with Microsoft Copilot studio  | LAB433Code-first development workshop for Copilot agents  | LAB441Extending M365 Copilot with Copilot agents: Best practices  | BRK170Part 1:2 Declarative Agents: Build Agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot  | LAB445Reinventing business processes with autonomous agents  | BRK169Smarter workflows with ServiceNow Now Assist and Copilot integration  | ODFP974 Ground Microsoft 365 Copilot in your business knowledge  | BRK275Microsoft 365 Copilot advantages: How does it compare with other AI solutions  | BRK276SharePoint content management reimagined with Copilot  | BRK279 Unlock smart collaboration with Microsoft Teams  | BRK280   Revolutionizing Employee Experience with AI  | BRK283  The Future of Power Platform: Intelligent Apps  | BRK171 From Copilot to code-first: the power of Microsoft Fabric and AI  | THR618Bring on-device ML to enterprise apps with Windows Copilot Library  | BRK303Copilot+ PCs: Your new superpower  | THR650Mastering custom plugins in Microsoft Security Copilot  | THR653 Build real-time collab experiences with Fluid and Copilot  | LAB440 Empowering neurodivergent employees with Copilot  | BRK297

Send us a textIt's our birthday today! We've managed to pull together some fantastic guests including Loryan Strant, Caroline Kallin and Tom Morgan to help us celebrate by sharing their thoughts on Copilot Wave 2 so hear what we thought and then a few interviews that we have been able to do.Great summary post from Sara Fennah on all the useful links for Copilot Wave 2 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarafennah_did-the-deluge-of-announcements-in-the-wave-activity-7241481645957029888-gyfa?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Send us a textAs the days in the UK get shorter, the grass looks brown and tired and the kids looked bored and ready for school, it's time to recap some of the news that has crept out while many were distracted with holidays. There's certainly been a few things coming through as momentum builds towards the second conference season of year. Zoe and Kevin cover some worrying news on hacking Copilot, some positive news on accessing models and some great events coming up.Related links:Nominate your favourite community folks at the UK Technology Community Awards - https://www.ukcommunityawards.co.uk/Sign up for Scottish Summit and plan in for the Connecting the Copilots panel with Chris Huntingford, Dona Sarkar, Jose Lazaro Pinos , Sara Fennah and us - https://www.scottishsummit.comZoe is co-hosting a webinar for Syskit with Luke Evans on Copilot for M365 after one year https://www.syskit.com/company/events/copilot-for-microsoft-365-after-one-year/New speaker workshop with Sara Fennah, Luke Evans and us - http://www.communitydays.org/event/2024-09-06/microsoft-community-new-speakers-day  - if you're in the UK and doing interesting things with Copilot that you'd like to share Check out the brand new Copilot for M365 MVPs! - Search | MVP Communities (microsoft.com)Hacking CopilotMicrosoft’s AI Copilot can be weaponized as an ‘automated phishing machine,’ but the problem is bigger than one company | Fortunehttps://www.perspectives.plus/p/copilot-bigger-security-threat-than-chatgpthttps://labs.zenity.ioModels in Github - Introducing GitHub Models: A new generation of AI engineers building on GitHub - The GitHub BlogWhat’s new in Copilot | July 2024 - Microsoft Community HubOneNote in Copilot supports Inked Notes - https://insider.microsoft365.com/blog/onenote-copilot-now-supports-inked-notes?ocid=usoc_TWITTER_M365_spl100006091250593Updates to Microsoft Copilot to bring enterprise data protection to more organizations - Microsoft Community Hub

Send us a textAfter a slightly quieter time on the podcast, Kevin and Zoe are back and we pick some of the Month of Copilot sessions to share some interesting ideas from them that will interest you.Check out the rest of the Month of Copilot sessions in the Copilot Connection - YouTube.Kevin mentioned Commsverse and Experts Live UK so check out the links for more info.Finally, if you want to try out the super hero prompt that Zoe mentioned, copy the prompt below and let us know what it finds!Look at the emails and Teams meetings that I have sent in the last 6 months. Use these messages to distill a personal brand voice document that I can use to inform copilot of my personal voice and style.Based on the above analysis, what superhero represents my style of work best? What would my super powers be? Can you format that as a dossier for superheroes -- listing my real name, and most similar existing superhero, and include the rest of the information formatted and edited in dossier style?

Send us a textIn this episode of the Copilot Connection, Kevin McDonnell is joined by Garry Trinder, a developer advocate at Microsoft focused on Microsoft 365 and Copilot. With Microsoft Build taking place this week, they recap the Copilot related news that came out with a special focus on extensions and custom copilots. Plenty of chat about why you should extend, the different ways to extend and when to extend or go custom.  Plus find out how many times Copilot was mentioned in the first day keynotes thanks to Vlad Catrinescu.Useful links:M365 Conf sessions - some online now including the age of copilots -Introducing the Community News Desk with essential content from Microsoft 365 Community ConferenceVlad Catrinescu comedy recap Microsoft Build 2024 Keynote Recap in under 5 minutes!Book of News - https://news.microsoft.com/build-2024-book-of-news/GPT-4o demo by Seth Juarez - Conversational website: Satya Nadella at Microsoft Build 2024Copilot+PC - Introducing Copilot+ PCs - The Official Microsoft BlogVS Code for Education - https://vscodeedu.comNote that you need a Copilot license to use this with Copilot Studio - Use graph connections with knowledge sources - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learnhttps://aka.ms/extendcopilotm365/decideUseful Build sessions:BRK 150: Developers guide to customizing Copilot - slides available too BRK 151: Developer deep dive on building plugins for Microsoft CopilotBRK203: Building a copilot: Azure AI Studio or Copilot Studio

Send us a textWith all the announcements made last week at the M365 Conf in Orlando, Zoe and Kevin take a dive into the roadmap to see what is coming up in the short to medium term. With a lot of key updates around Excel, cross application capabilities and graph grounded chat in other applications, take a listen to find out what you can expect in the world of Copilot over the next few months.Key links:Month of CopilotMay Copilot be with youDona teases Project Copilot College M365 Conf announcementsWhat’s New in Copilot | April 2024 - Microsoft Community HubWhat’s New in Microsoft Teams | April 2024 - Microsoft Community HubAnnouncing SharePoint advanced management innovations for the AI and Copilot era - Microsoft Community HubMicrosoft 365 Roadmap - See What's Coming | Microsoft 365 - Copilot Rolling Out itemsMicrosoft 365 Roadmap - See What's Coming | Microsoft 365 - Copilot In Development items

Send us a textIs your tenant ready for Copilot? Do you know what needs to be done to be ready? This week, Kevin was joined by Michal Pisarek, CEO and Janitor at Orchestry, who has been involved in governance in Microsoft 365 for many years. We talk about Copilot Readiness and three key areas for governance:- Understand the environment- Review oversharing- Sort out your sensitivity labelsZoe and Kevin also cover a few bits of the latest news, including some Drama Llama action with Whats App, some impressive custom copilot creation from Microsoft Research and a plea from Kevin to provide ideas and feedback to Microsoft.Don't forget that we are holding a Month of Copilot in June and still looking for people to share sessions. Submit your sessions at Month of Copilots: Call for Speakers.Useful links:Project VASA - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/vasa-1/ Lllama 3 launched - Meta steps up AI battle with OpenAI and Google with release of Llama 3 | Meta | The GuardianComparison of recent models - https://x.com/rschu/status/1781007659493212215Meta AI in WhatsApp - How to chat with Meta AI in a group | WhatsApp Help CenterPrivacy and Meta AI - https://www.facebook.com/privacy/guide/genai?entry_point=whatsapp_genaiFeedback portal has Copilot for Sales and for Service - Community (microsoft.com)For more news, subscribe to your newsletter on LinkedIn at LinkedIn

Send us a textWith Copilot for Security released on 1 April, we thought we should bring some real experience of trying it out from one of the top MVPs in Security. Ru Campbell (Twitter, LinkedIn) joined us to talk about:- What is Copilot Security?- What is it used for and by who?- How has his experience with it been compared with the marketing?This was a great chat that cut through into the reality of using Copilot for Security to help with right of bang and left of bang (listen to find out what that means!) as well as how the product will evolve over time.Useful links:Ru's tweet threads on his initial experience with Copilot for Securityhttps://x.com/rucam365/status/1778703094630523065https://x.com/rucam365/status/1775181041474711702Ru's book on Mastering Microsoft 365 Defender (co-authored with Viktor Hedberg) - Mastering Microsoft 365 Defender: Implement Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Identity, Cloud Apps, and Office 365 and respond to threatsCopilot for Security group on LinkedIn - LinkedInNews and other updates:Sorry, there's a lot of Kevin stuff this week!Sign up for Month of Copilot and register to speak tooMVP Summit interviewsKevin chats with Peter Rising on CopilotsThink Copilot with Kevin McDonnell - Kevin talks with Garry Trinder and Waldek Mastrkarz in the build up to the Global Copilot SummitKevin's Meeting Automator - a way to create meetings with transcripts for demoing Copilot for Microsoft 365Announcing new Microsoft AI Hub in London - The Official Microsoft BlogMicrosoft Copilot Dashboard now generally available - Microsoft Community HubExtensibility options for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft LearnGoogle Workspace adds AI features to help with meetings and improve data security | VentureBeatZoom announces Zoom WorkplaceTemp codepygiTO7rYkcTtHKJdX94