EP 405: Microsoft Ignite AI Updates - Recapping announcements and what they mean

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Microsoft Copilot has been generally available for just over a year. Today though, actually in about 30 minutes, Microsoft is announcing 90 new AI powered features for Copilot. Yes, that is 90, and I did say in 30 minutes, so more on that shortly. But Microsoft is doing more than just announcing dozens of pretty impressive new AI features. Today, on my birthday, no less, Microsoft is announcing what I believe is a monumental step forward in how we work. So reporting live at the Microsoft Ignite Conference in Chicago, this is Jordan Wilson and we're welcome to Everyday AI. All right, y', all, before we get started, first have to give a quick shout out to our partners at Microsoft Worklab. So why should you listen to the Worklab podcast from Microsoft? Because it's the place to find actionable insights to guide your organization's AI transformation. Tune in to learn how to think more creatively about unlocking the full potential of the technology. That's W, O R K L A B no spaces available wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so welcome everyone to Everyday AI. Like I said, my name is Jordan Wilson and this Everyday AI thing is for you. It is your daily livestream, podcast and free daily newsletter helping everyday people not just learn what's happening in the world of AI, but how we can use that information to grow our companies and to grow our career. So if you are joining us on the live stream, you probably notice a little bit different background. So yes, I am actually here in Chicago where I normally am, but live at Microsoft Ignite. This is Microsoft's flagship event and normally we would start the show with the AI news, but we'll have that in the newsletter. So make sure if you haven't already, go to your everydayai.com to sign up for that daily newsletter. So there are more than 10,000 people in attendance today from all over the world for Microsoft's flagship event. This is the one time a year where Microsoft really announces everything that they've been cooking up for us all year. So first, also, thank you to WE Communications and to Microsoft for hosting me here at Ignite and to our livestream audience, everyone tuning in. Actually something really special for you today because in about 28 minutes you will hear from Microsoft at their keynote what they are unveiling. But live stream audience, you're actually going to hear it here first, literally before anyone else. Luckily, we could go live with this news at 7:30am Central Standard Time, which just so happens to be our normal time for our live live stream. So you are literally getting it by tuning in before anyone else in the world. I'm so excited to be able to let you know what's new. So what is new? More than 90 new AI features all across Copilot. I mean everywhere. We're not going to get to all 90 features. All right, I don't have time. I'm going to be watching the keynote live here in once it kicks off. But I'm going to tell you what I think are the most important nine features for everyday people who are in charge of growing their companies. And I think that's what a big chunk of our audience is. Right? Yes, we do have some IT professionals, we have highly technical people, but for the most part everyday AI it is for non technical people. So here are the nine features that are being announced in about 30 minutes that I think are the most important. And this is across Copilot, Copilot devices and the Copilot and AI stack. All right, let's start with the big stuff. Co Pilot Studios Autonomous agents. So a lot of new stuff here. I can't get to all of it. I might be talking a little bit, a little fast today, partially because I'm excited. Partially it's like, hey, I got my home coffee on the road here at the Ignite. All right, so uh, let's talk about the new out of the box purpose built agents from Microsoft. All right, so I'm going to go through very quickly here. So we have now the automation of tasks. So autonomous agents in copilot Studio are designed to automate routine tasks, reducing manual intervention and increasing efficiency. Then we have event triggered actions. So these agents can be programmed to perform actions based on specific triggers or events, allowing for proactive responses in business processes. Also custom models so users can integrate their own AI models with these agents to create tailored solutions for whatever your organizational needs are very adaptable. So these autonomous agents are extremely adaptable, meaning they can evolve with your business needs, learning from interactions and improving over time. All right, another new feature because if you tune into everyday AI, you heard us talk about autonomous agents about three weeks ago when Microsoft Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was on the AI tour in London. But some very new things here as well. So now users can upload images for analysis in the autonomous agents tapping into OpenAI's GPT4O model. So this enhances data context in areas like customer service and sales. That feature is in preview and then also voice enabled agents. Yes, voice enabled agents. And y', all, we're talking about no code, low code, autonomous agents. Yes. That can go step by step, perform multi step actions autonomously with or without human intervention. Wild that this is being released today. It is currently available in private preview. So this limited release allows users to. Sorry, allows select users to test and explore the new capabilities before they are widely available. So that is number one out of 90, y'. All. I wish I had three hours to go over all these, but I think y' all would get a little tired of that. All right, number two new feature here, SharePoint agents. So SharePoint agents allow employees to quickly gain insights and make informed decisions based on specific SharePoint content. I don't think people are going to be giving this enough attention. I think people are going to be sleeping on SharePoint agents. Let me just boil it down for you. So you know all this hype around Google and Notebook LM and why I think it's very popular is because it is a grounded, state of the art model. So that means if you're, you know, talking to, as an example, Notebook LM from Google, right? Oh, how dare I talk about something else. But you get such great results because it doesn't tap into its internal knowledge base. It only taps into the documents that you upload. So that is ess eventually a huge feature and functionality that I don't think people are going to be talking about enough with SharePoint agents. It is only going to be tapping into when you ask it questions. It's only going to be using the information from a specific SharePoint site to answer your queries, which is huge. But it's also kind of wild that here we are, you know, two plus, just about two full years into this generative AI and large language model wave. It's kind of wild to me that this is now just catching on. I see a future, to be honest, where you can toggle this on and off by default, where you only want something to tap into your data versus its training data, or a mix of both. All right, but let's talk about what's new in SharePoint agents. So they do allow employees to quickly gain insights and make informed decisions based on the specific SharePoint content. Users can create their own agents and tailor them to specific files, folders or sites so you can give them personalized behaviors. They can be edited to have personalized names and specific behaviors sharing capabilities. You can share these across emails, teams, your chats, meetings, literally anywhere within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, you can use these SharePoint agents also. They are generally available today. So like I said, kind of like Notebook lm right? Because we're going to be talking about a lot of agentic AI here, actions, all of these things. So SharePoint agents, right? So you're probably familiar, if your company runs on Microsoft, you're probably familiar with SharePoint, right? It's, it's, it's kind of like, you know, if you don't know Microsoft, SharePoint is kind of like where you upload all of your files and you can collaborate things in real time with your company's information only. So having SharePoint agents by default is also amazing. So all SharePoint sites now by default have a SharePoint agent where you can ask questions to. You don't need to configure it, you don't need to build it, it is there and you can ask a question of the SharePoint agent and like I said, only get responses grounded from the information in your SharePoint docs. So like I said, each SharePoint site comes with a ready made SharePoint agent and you can also create one with no code and share them with your colleagues across Microsoft 365 products. Huge. All right. A brand new feature. Because some of these features we've already kind of talked about and we've, you know, you know, some of these are just new updates to existing features, but this is brand new. Love this feature. And for our live stream audience, you might be catching this on the podcast. I'm going to describe Microsoft Copilot365 actions but if you're joining us live, a pretty cool visual here on how this is going to work. But if you want to kiss Repetitive tasks Goodbye, Microsoft 365 copilot actions or Microsoft copilot 365 actions or are going to be your best friend. So they act kind of as pre built shortcuts that simplify the process of delegating tasks to copilot. So they function kind of like just pre written instructions allowing users to bypass writing out detailed prompts each time. So as an example, what Microsoft kind of shared will be sharing later today on their website, it says, you know, message and then there is a kind of a dropdown and you can select your different colleagues and then it'll send a message to them and then there's other dropdowns that you can choose from. Right? So like I said, it's if you've used like a prompt library tool before, but it's kind of like fill in the blanks Right. So this says as an example, message Lydia Bawer and Liz Kane to collect information and then the information is another dropdown and send summary over blank in this one email. Or you could put teams, you could put, you know, different things there and then on a date. So this says, you know, December 20th. Right. So if you have tasks that you do, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, all of these repetitive tasks that you probably have to do, pulling reports together, communicating with your teammates, you can now automate all of these things with this new Microsoft Copilot365 actions. And yes, this might not be something that's talked about in the, in the media today because it's not something super technical. I think sometimes what gets a lot of highlighting here at these conferences because it's generally a lot of people in it, is those more technical things. You know, on our list of nine things, we're not even talking about Azure, which I feel bad about because there's some amazing things with the Azure Foundry and all of those things that we'll share about in the newsletter. But this is, I think a great new feature for non technical people. So you don't have to have a degree in prompt engineering. You don't have to have taken our, you know, free prime prompt polish course three or four times. Right. To now be able to take advantage of what Microsoft 365 copilot offers. Because you do have this kind of easy to use dropdown feature and functionality now with Copilot 365 Action. So it's kind of like a, almost like a simplified version of Zapier, but again, living within your company's data. All right, so like I said, Copilot actions provide customizable templates to guide Copilot in completing common tasks such as gathering information from team members, compiling reports, scheduling emails, and summarizing emails and chats. And these templates can be tailored to, to suit specific needs and workflows. So it is a flexible automation. So these Copilot actions can be set to run automatically on a schedule, used on demand whenever needed. Or also you can build these same things with this little prompt builder. You can do it on demand or triggered by specific events, such as the arrival of a particular email. Yeah. Do you get the same emails every single week or every single month? Well, you can automate a response to those with dynamic data. That's the other thing, y'. All. The great thing about Microsoft 365 Copilot, as opposed to, you know, something like ChatGPT or something like anthropics, Claude, it's. Those things are not working with dynamic Data. Obviously with Microsoft 365 Copilot, it is. So Copilot actions present information in multiple formats, including emails and Word documents, offering adaptability and how information is delivered. So right now this is in private preview status. So they are currently available in private preview, but they should be generally available by the end of this month. So, yeah, give it like a week or two. And if your company does have Microsoft Copilot365 enabled, for all the users, you should have access to Microsoft Copilot365 actions. All right. Yeah. So. So Jessica, I think Jessica here is asking. So it's like DIY rag. You're probably asking that maybe about our last one on the list, which was kind of the SharePoint agents. Yes, that's what I would call it. Yeah. If you've used Notebook LLM, which I said, I did say this. I'm going to call myself out. I did say this yesterday. I did say that was probably the product of the year, the AI product of the year for 2024. But who knows, maybe now Microsoft SharePoint agents might have something to say about that. Sneaking in here before the end of the year. All Right, our number four feature that will be announced today in about 15 minutes. We have 15 minutes. We have Copilot agents in teams. A lot of new updates here. Some of these were previewed or teased at the Wave two announcements, which we covered when those came out about last month. So there is a lot of new agent or agentic features in Microsoft Teams. So there is a new facilitator agent. So this works in teams meetings and chats. And it takes real time notes in meetings to enable co authoring and collaboration. And it shares summaries of key information as conversations occur in chats. And that is in preview right now. Then you have the interpreter agent, which I watched a video of, and it's wild, y'. All. So the interpreter agent enables real time interpretation in up to nine languages during team meetings. Yes. So your colleagues. So let's say you have colleagues in Spain or in Spanish speaking countries, you can be speaking English. And on the teams meeting with the new interpreter agent, it will literally change your voice in real time to up to these nine different languages. Mind blown, y'. All. Yeah, Podcast audience. I just literally did the like mind blown emoji with my hand. That's wild. So that allows participants to literally speak and listen in the language of their choice. And. And it can simulate meeting Participants, personal voices. Yeah, it's not some, you know, cheesy dubbing from the 1990s. It literally somehow on the fly makes it sound like you, but in other languages. Again, this is if you do have Microsoft 365 copilot enabled for your teams. Also in teams, we can't even get to a wall. There's in Copilot in Microsoft Teams now you can analyze screen shared content with AI and large language models. My gosh. As well as file summaries. Talk about meetings are getting a lot better with what we have coming from Copilot's agents. All right, real quick, gotta take a quick little timeout. I gotta sip a little coffee. This is a lot here, y'. All. All right, and let me give a quick shout out to our partners again from Microsoft Work Lab. So why should you listen to the Worklab podcast from Microsoft? Well, it explores the questions business leaders are asking. How can they guide their organization's AI adoption journey? How can AI help them maximize value and create new products in business models? How should they help their teams reskill for this new era of work? And why is it important to complete, to be completely transparent about when and how you use AI? So find the answers on Worklab. That's W, O R K L A B, no spaces available wherever you get your podcast. All right, let's get back into our what I think are the nine biggest and most important AI announcements on like unraveling here in about 10 minutes at Microsoft Ignite. All right, so number five, we have some new features in Copilot in PowerPoint. So additional things that were not announced in the wave two announcements. So now you have a the narrative builder based on a file in Microsoft PowerPoint. So essentially you can weave insights together from a single document into a compelling narrative with the narrative builder. So essentially you start with just a reference file. Tell Copilot to make a presentation off of it. And now you also have some new branding features and functionality that'll make it look all just like what you need it. Additionally, there is instant translation into 40 languages. So Copilot in PowerPoint is going to have this on the web beginning in December and for desktop and Mac as Well, starting in January 2025. Yeah, that is wild. Creating an entire PowerPoint just with a document. Right? Maybe you have a long, boring 50 page document. Maybe this is literally what your job is. You take long documents, you put together presentations for people. I mean, who doesn't out there have to spend so much time creating a PowerPoint presentation? Well, now with the new narrative builder based on a file alone and then you can steer it with real time language. Wild. Let's go. All right, Copilot pages. I think people are sleeping on Copilot Pages. I see a ton of projects promise for this feature. So what you have here, some rich artifacts, some new rich artifacts available inside of Copilot Pages. So kind of similarly how inside of, as an example Chat GPT, you can create nice interactive graphs and stats. Now you can do that inside of Copilot Pages. So rich artifacts including code charts, tables, diagrams and math will be added to pages. This will provide multi page support, enabling users to create multiple pages in a single chat session or add content from multiple chat sessions to a single page. Also you will be able to ground. Yeah, grounding is going to be one of the buzzwords of 2025, right? You will be able to ground Copilot chat prompts on page content alone. Also this will be available on mobile and the AI features will be generally available in early 2025. So copilot pages, think of it, you know, you might be collaborating with your colleagues right now inside of Biz Chat. So think of like combining that, you know, Microsoft Copilot Biz Chat, but with a shared document and a collaborative document that you can all add to in real time and see how your coworkers are working on it. That is what's coming in Copilot Pages with the new rich artifacts. All right, our next piece. Here's, here's one that was interesting. So Windows 365 link. So this is a hardware device. It is $349. And the purpose of this, it is essentially like a small piece of hardware, but you do connect to the a cloud PC to use it. So think, you know, if you are an IT leader in your organization, maybe you are in charge of ordering new PCs, I don't know, maybe every year or something like that. And if you want the latest and greatest, the cost can add up, right? So essentially what you can do here with a $349 piece of hardware, you can connect it. It connects straight to a cloud. So you can essentially keep your cloud PC always up to date without having to continually reinvest in the hardware. So then you essentially will be running a cloud PC with a Windows 365 link. So having access to a full Windows desktop hosted in the Microsoft cloud. So then you can, you know, really scale as your different users need it. So it is compact, fanless, lightweight and made with recycled materials. However, as far as I know you cannot just use this as a standalone device. So you do need it to be connected to Microsoft Cloud PC and also have a cloud PC subscription and we'll have more information on that in our newsletter. So like I said, some of the key features there. Well, there's no local data or adminless users and making it more secure by design. So it's simple to manage with Microsoft intune. And like I said, the target users here, I mean who is. Who is this not for? Right. I. I'm interested to see what else is talked about with Windows 365 link, but keep your eyes and ears out for that, especially if you are in it. All right, we have our last two things and one of them is talked about and one of them is actually not. I gotta tease that number nine here. All right, so number eight, new feature that I think is definitely worth paying attention to is Copilot Analytics. Yeah, everyone's always wondering, you know, what's the ROI on AI? Well, here is a great a new suite of analytics tools that can help you understand and measure that. So with the new Copilot analytics features, you can measure the business impact and offers and it offers data management and reporting tools. So there is a new and updated Copilot dashboard that tracks readiness, readiness, adoption and impact and that is available now. Microsoft 365 reporting. It monitors adoption and usage with action suggestions also available now. And then Viva Insights. So this provides productivity and outcome reports, including a business impact report and that is included in Microsoft 365 copilot from early 2025. All right, and then our last feature, which is actually a question mark, y', all, I'm going to have to get back to you on this because what I did see was a screenshot for the media to use on recall settings. However, didn't see any information about it. So I've. I've asked my friends here at the IGNITE conference to hey, let me know what's going on with Recall. This is a feature that I was personally excited about, but it did get delayed a couple of times due to privacy concerns reportedly. So there are some new recall privacy issues. So if you don't know what recall is, think of it like this. If you have a Windows plus Copilot plus PC, right, that essentially runs AI on your device, it kind of continually keeps a memory of everything that you've been working on. So at any point you can go in and chat with Recall and say, hey, what was that email that I sent to Bill in accounting? Or what was that website that I was looking at, that new piece of software. Right. So it essentially tracks everything you do on your computer, which I love. But it has been delayed multiple times due to privacy concerns. So there might be some updates. The last update that we got was in October. Reports said that it was delayed until December. So I'm going to go out, I'm going to get to work at the Ignite conference and see if I can get you more information on Microsoft Recall. All right, y', all, that is it. So a very quick update on what I think are nine of the more exciting AI features that are going to be talked about now here at the Microsoft Ignite Conference. So the new out of the box purpose built agents in Copilot Studio. Autonomous agents, no code. My gosh mind blown. Number two, SharePoint agents. Each SharePoint site will have an agent by default. A grounded state of the art model based on your data. You don't even got to work for it, but you can customize them. Number three, the new Microsoft Copilot 365 actions. I think this is great for non technical users. You have Copilot agents in teams, new features and functionalities there as well as new features and functionality in Copilot. In Microsoft PowerPoint, a narrative builder based on a single file. You have new rich artifacts in Copilot pages. You have a new hardware device in the Windows 365 link it. People are going to love that one. The new Copilot Analytics Dashboard and maybe some updates on Recall. All right, I hope that was helpful y'. All, thank you so much for tuning in. Let me know right now in the comments or if you're listening on the podcast. I always put my email and my LinkedIn link in there. Please reach out to me or if you're, you know, if you're going to read the newsletter later today after we send it, reach out to me and let me know what else you want to know more about. I just covered nine of those things over the next couple of hours. You're going to be hearing a lot from Microsoft as well. So I am here at Ignite for the next few days. If you are here as well, please reach out to me, say what's up, maybe come chat AI with me. But also you, I like live stream audience, podcast audience. I work for you. Tell me what else you need to know about what's going on here at Microsoft Ignite. I'll go to work for you, come back and report. So thank you all for tuning in. Appreciate you, you know, joining us live for this special session of Everyday AI. So if this was helpful, tell someone about it. Please share this, repost this with your friends, and please join us tomorrow and every day for more Everyday AI. Thanks, y'. All.

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