Ep 47 - Ignite Preview

With Zoe Wilson heading off to Ignite and Microsoft 365 choosing the day of recording to have a bit of a wobble, Kevin McDonnell is joined by Sara Fennah to look ahead to Microsoft Ignite and attempt to work out what Microsoft might have in store for us.We pick through sessions covering Agent 365, Security and Compliance, Microsoft IQ, AI FinOps, local AI, Copilot extensibility and more, with just a little slightly irresponsible speculation about what those deliberately vague descriptions might really mean. Plus, Sara shares her practical advice for anyone attending Ignite in person: comfy shoes, sensible planning and, most importantly, talk to people!If near London, register now for Fly with Copilot: London on 7th Dec.Get over to Amsterdam for ESPC 2026 and don't forget your Christmas Ugly Sweaters.Join Garry in Leeds on 24th Nov with M365 North's Ignite Recap.SessionsProject Perception Roadmap: New Capabilities, Use Cases & What’s NextPrioritize and remediate your riskiest agents with Project PerceptionFind and fix code vulnerabilities faster with Codename MDASHMXC: Deploying Agents You Can TrustThe next evolution of AI FinOps: From cost to valuePlugins for Copilot: build once, govern once, use everywhereObservability at every layer for every roleManage and Secure your AI Agents at Enterprise Scale with Agent 365Inside Look at Agent 365: Lessons from Microsoft’s Office of the CISOAgentify your business processes: the next era of business applications (the Jeff Teper session)Apps and agents: Business process transformation in Copilot StudioAutomate the Follow-Through with AutopilotAgentic productivity with new Copilot capabilities in OneNoteMicrosoft Contact Center Intelligence: modernize without rip and replaceBuild your IQ using your unique enterprise context with Microsoft IQFull list here

After a longer-than-planned break, Kevin McDonnell and Garry Trinder are back to catch up on the latest developments across the Copilot and extensibility landscape. The conversation starts with reflections on recent community events including Scottish Summit and Microsoft’s Fly with Copilot tour before diving into a packed set of Microsoft announcements.The main focus is the evolution of the new unified Copilot experience, bringing together Home, Code and Autopilot into a single destination. Kevin and Garry explore what this means for users, developers and administrators, discussing the convergence of Copilot experiences, how Copilot Code relates to GitHub Copilot, and why governance is becoming a key part of the AI story.They also take a deep dive into Hybrid Intelligence, local and cloud model execution, managed execution containers, and the growing importance of balancing performance, privacy and cost. The discussion continues into Agent 365 updates, new cost management capabilities, spending policies, plugin registries, skills, MCP servers and what the future of Copilot extensibility might look like as Microsoft shifts towards a plugin-centric model.Finally, with Microsoft Ignite approaching fast, Kevin and Garry share thoughts on what to watch for, highlight a number of upcoming community events, and explain why the next few months could be some of the most significant yet for the Microsoft Copilot ecosystem. Along the way there are the usual detours into SharePoint, governance, dancing injuries, and perhaps a few more renames than anyone expected.LinksFly with Copilot - Global AI CommunityIntroducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot - The Official Microsoft BlogSatya post on Infinite SaaS Factory - Post | LinkedInBuilding Windows for hybrid intelligence | Windows Experience BlogProject HydraFusion: Frontier quality via multi-model orchestration - The GitHub BlogWhat's new in Agent 365 - September 2026 | Microsoft Community HubIntroducing the plugin registry - one place to discover and govern plugins for Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft Community Hubhttps://powerplatformconf.com/https://ignite.microsoft.com/ESPC26 | Conference | 30th Nov- 03rd Dec 2026 | Amsterdam - ESPC 

The first episode after a quiet summer, and the thread running through all of it is cost and renames. Kevin opens with a confession: he spun up Cowork to write these very show notes, it ran out of budget overnight, and once he topped the budget up it burned through 2,381 credits, whichhe puts at twenty to thirty quid for maybe a fifth of what he wanted. That story turns out to be the episode in miniature, because Copilot Studio GitHub Harness has gone generally available in August based on a usage-based credit model, and this time the meter runs while you arestill building.Around that we have another rename and a flattened logo, Microsoft's FY26 Q4 results with over thirty million paid Copilot seats, a leaked memo saying the AI app group has to earn the right to exist, a proper argument about whether 43 minutes a day is still how we talkabout value, and a long run through the autumn events season. Plus AI slop, blue rings, and a festival planning app nobody asked for but made all the difference.Links:https://www.howmanyblueringsshouldihave.com/https://amireallyadualawardmvp.com/https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/copilot-studio-blog/more-powerful-agents-and-workflows-for-autonomous-business-processes-introducing/4542969https://microsoft.github.io/mcscatblog/posts/copilot-harness-cost-governance/https://futurework.blog/2026/08/14/microsoft-copilot-app-one-app-new-name-new-icon-new-url/https://robquickenden.blog/2026/08/copilot-unified-app/https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/30/fy26-q4-microsoft-results/https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7490143154260701184-rlGFhttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/maryleenemeric_microsoft-microsoft365-copilotstudio-activity-7485892013830266880-rUJIEvents:https://ainativeworkplace.com/https://www.collabdays.org/2026-bletchleypark/https://www.scottishsummit.comhttps://espc.tech/conference/espc-2026

This week on The Copilot Connection, Kevin and Zoe dive into the growing impact of FinOps and tokenomics in the Copilot era.From insights at Commsverse to real-world concerns, we explore how tools like Copilot and Cowork are shifting organisations from fixed licensing to consumption-driven models - bringing both opportunity and uncertainty.The discussion focuses on balancing cost vs value, the importance of governance and guardrails, and why organisations must carefully pilot AI usage rather than roll it out blindly. They also highlight the challenge of helping users choose the right tool for the right task without driving up unnecessary costs.Useful links:Cowork cost management overview — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/usage-based-billing-manage-copilot-creditsCowork Cost Estimator -https://aka.ms/CustomerCoworkEstimatorCowork Adoption site - https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-gb/copilot/cowork/ai-user/ Cost management demo - https://demos.microsoft.com/app/present/6694#/0/0An unsuspecting bill - https://www.reddit.com/r/copilotstudio/comments/1ueqedl/woke_up_to_a_47k_bill_after_deploying_one_copilot/More on unsuspecting bills - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-sabapathy-71a88145_a-post-on-reddit-this-week-described-someone-share-7475913687963467778-xsXa

In this episode of The Copilot Connection, Kevin McDonnell and Garry Trinder dive deep into the biggest developer-focused announcements coming out of Microsoft Build—and what they actually mean in practice.We unpack a fast-moving couple of weeks in AI, from the shift in how Microsoft shares Build news (goodbye Book of News, hello live blog and CLI tooling), to the hands-on, lab-heavy focus that signals a return to Build’s developer roots. Expect plenty of perspective on what stood out, what worked, and what felt different this year.The conversation then turns to one of the headline releases: Copilot Cowork now generally available. Kevin and Garry explore how Cowork changes the way we interact with Copilot - moving from simple chat to task-driven, cloud-executed workflows with deeper Microsoft 365 integration. They share real-world usage patterns, from daily task triage to cross-device workflows, and discuss the impact of its new consumption-based pricing model (and why “value over tokens” is the mindset shift we all need).From there, they step into the more experimental space with Microsoft Scout—a local, autonomous agent inspired by OpenClaw that introduces concepts like heartbeats, browser automation, and powerful extensibility. The duo compare Scout vs Cowork, weighing up local vs cloud agents, flexibility vs control, and the growing importance of governance as agents gain more autonomy.Useful Linkshttps://build.microsoft.com/Build Live BlogBuild Blog - be yourself at workBuild Next Steps GitHub RepoCowork GAThe Cowork Cookbook (community link)Microsoft ScoutWork IQ GAWork IQ LicensingWindows Platform SecurityProject SolaraSurface Laptop UltraSurface RTX Spark Dev Box

Kevin McDonnell and Zoe Wilson are back, kicking off this episode with a lively wander through Copilot Cowork in preview — from using it on mobile (sometimes unintentionally…) to early thoughts on skills, plugins, stability, and why data residency still matters if you’re experimenting in the real world. Along the way, there are opinions, tangents, and a few “this is cool, but…” moments that will feel very familiar to anyone testing Copilot right now.The conversation then jumps ahead to Microsoft Build, where agents, observability, and the growing obsession with value and ROI take centre stage. Kevin and Zoe unpack why business goals matter more than shiny dashboards, how Agent 365 fits into the picture, and what all this means for teams trying to move from curiosity to confidence with AI — all wrapped up with event shout‑outs, future episode teases, and the usual friendly chaos

This week, Zoe and Kevin dig into Copilot Cowork and Agent 365. Fresh from a week at the Microsoft campus in Seattle, Kevin shares his key takeaways from MVP Summit — including a surprising amount of cross-product collaboration and a hands-on experiment building a conference bingo app entirely using GitHub Copilot's coding agent. Zoe and Kevin then dive into two of the biggest recent announcements: Copilot Cowork, now available in Frontier tenants, which takes Copilot from answering questions to actually taking action on your behalf, from organising your inbox to scheduling your week and creating reusable skills; and Agent 365, Microsoft's control plane for agents, launching on 1 May, which brings observability, governance, and threat protection for all your agents in one place. They also cover the practical steps to enable Cowork in your tenant, the current data residency considerations for European organisations, and the open licensing questions still to be resolved before general availability.Useful links:Lab that Kevin mentioned https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-agent-lab-soc-opskevmcdonk/mvp-summit-bingo: Web app for MVPs to track all those common phrases we hear over the week. Who will get bingo firsthttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/copilot-cowork-a-new-way-of-getting-work-doneGet started with Copilot Cowork (Frontier) | Microsoft LearnMicrosoft Agent 365 documentation | Microsoft Learn

Microsoft helped us make an episode this week but dropping some big Copilot news! In this episode, Zoe and Kevin dig into some of the news related around Copilot Wave 3, talk about what the recent org changes at Microsoft will mean and also highlight some of the upcoming events going on.Useful links:Zoe and Kevin keynote the Copilot Community Conference - Copilot Community Conference 2026Experts Live UKScottish SummitCall for speakers for Scottish Summit still openRajesh Jha retiringCopilot Leadership TeamFrontier SuiteCopilot Wave 3SharePoint at 25Copilot Cowork

In this episode of Copilot Connection, Zoe and Kevin are joined by Diana Wolfe, Head of Research & Strategy at Kyndryl, to explore one of the biggest challenges facing organisations today: the widening gap between AI ambition and AI implementation. Together, they unpack why so many companies struggle to realise value from AI investments, what human‑centred change looks like in an era of agentic AI, and how trust, psychological safety, and redesigned roles shape successful adoption.The conversation covers everything from workflow automation myths and cognitive overload to organisational silos, identity shifts, and the realities of embedding AI into everyday work. Expect thoughtful insights, a few laughs (including designer chickens and the underpants gnomes), and practical guidance on how individuals, leaders, and change practitioners can navigate the next phase of AI‑driven transformation.Tune in to learn why the future of AI isn’t just about technology—it’s about people, systems, and redefining what meaningful work looks like.TakeawaysAI implementation requires a holistic approachThe integration of AI technology presents multifaceted challenges AI adoption is evolving rapidlyHuman systems integration is crucial for responsible AI implementation

Send us a textIn this episode of The Copilot Connection, hosts Zoe Wilson and Kevin McDonnell are joined by Tricia Sinclair (Microsoft MVP and Avanade’s Global Lead for Contact Center & Customer Service) to explore the evolving role of AI in customer service and contact centres. They discuss how new Copilot AI agents like Case Management Agents and Intent Agents can automate processes such as email triage and understanding customer inquiries, and why many organizations are piloting these tools internally before rolling them out to customers. The conversation dives into adoption challenges – from ensuring quality data and training models to navigating consumption-based costs – and highlights governance solutions like the new Agent Hub for monitoring and controlling AI deployments. Tricia also shares insights on integrating these Copilot capabilities across the broader Microsoft ecosystem (with hints at what’s coming next) and emphasizes the bigger picture: using AI to augment, not replace human agents. The episode wraps up with a thoughtful discussion on the ethical and workforce implications of AI in contact centres, including the importance of maintaining human empathy, addressing potential biases, and keeping customer trust front and centre.Key topics covered:Case Management & Intent Agents – Automating case triage and identifying customer intent using AI.Internal vs. External Deployment – Strategies for introducing Copilot agents on internal service desks before customer-facing use.Adoption Challenges & Costs – Data readiness, model training, consumption-based pricing, and ensuring ROI for AI solutions.Agent Hub & Governance – Using Microsoft’s Agent Hub to track, manage, and govern Copilot AI agent usage and performance.Integration with Microsoft Platforms – How Copilot agents tie into the wider Microsoft stack and upcoming cross-platform capabilities.AI’s Impact & Ethics – The balance between AI and human agents, potential job impacts, and the need for fairness, empathy, and transparency in AI-driven customer service.p.s. decided to try Researcher agent looking at previous summaries to generate this summary. Let us know what you think!