Microsoft is replacing Microsoft Teams Live Events with a new “Town Hall” in the experience. Users with Team Premium licenses will also gain exclusive access to new “advanced features”.
Teams Town Hall | Image (c) Microsoft
What is Teams Town Hall?
Town Halls is revamped experience for large-scale events in Teams called Town Halls, cv will replace Live Events. The new Town Halls experience is officially available for commercial customers from Thursday October 5, 2023.
What features does it offer over Live Events?
Teams Town Halls offers many new advanced production capabilities, a new experience offering a structured approach for attendee engagement, and a new unified experience for users. Some of these features will only be available to Teams Premium customers.
Teams Town Hall enables customers to host various types of internal and external events, such as company-wide town halls, all hands, global team meetings, internal broadcasts, fireside chats, and more. It gusto provides much better support for external presenters.
Teams Town Hall supports up to 10,000 attendees, and up to 20,000 attendees for Teams Premium customers. It also allows up to 15 town halls to run at the same time, and up to 50 for Teams Premium customers
Teams Town Hall features advanced production capabilities, such as a new meeting template, third-party eCDN support, green room functionality, control over what attendees can see, moderated Q&A sessions, and more.
Teams Town Hall provides a structured approach for attendee engagement, such as attendee reporting, live reactions, polls, surveys, and more.
Teams Town Hall features Email communications and advanced customisation (for Teams Premium users). Organisers will be able to send pre-configured email templates for the event invitation and the event recording emails instead of manually creating a separate email, copying the event link, and sending a calendar invite to attendees.
Teams Town Hall will (soon) support both RTMP-in (so events can be produced directly from an external encoder and integrate different external media feeds) and RTMP-out, allowing organizers to stream the event out to a custom app or different endpoint outside of Teams such as YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Meta Workplace, and others. Note, this functionality will be available next year.
Teams Town Hall will create a unified experience for users whether they are hosting a small meeting, customer-facing webinar, or company-wide town hall. The current live event platform is not a consistent experience with Teams.
Teams Town halls will (soon) be integrated with Viva Engage to allow attendees to view the event in Viva Engage, whether the event is produced directly in Teams or with an external app or device.
When will Teams Live Events be retired?
Retirement of the current Teams Live Event service will continue to be supported over the next 12 months and fully retire by September 30, 2024.
Existing recordings will be available until December 31, 2024, but the transition to town hall must be completed before the retirement date.
To set-up a new Town Hall event, users (unless disabled by policy) can create a new Town Hall directly from Teams as shown below.
Don’t forget Microsoft Mesh
Microsoft is also rolling out Microsoft Mesh to Teams users in public preview in this month (October 2023). Mesh is a virtual reality platform that will enable richer and more immersive events. It will work on PC and Meta Quest VR devices. You can read more here.
Microsoft and Meta have announced that they are expanded there AI partnership which will see Bing and Meta (who own Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) working together to create enhanced user experiences.
Microsoft say that Meta will extensively use Bing Search which it will integrate into their AI’s chat experiences, enabling more timely and up-to-date answers with access to real-time search information.
Meta AI and Bing (image from The Verge)
Bing’s integration will also extend to some of Meta’s other AIs, such as ChatGPT, that are available to message with in WhatsApp, FaceBook Messenger, and Instagram.
This announcement builds on the previous collaboration between Microsoft Bing and Meta to accelerate innovation in the era of AI.
Microsoft say that Bing aims to deliver powerful and useful AI experiences into the products people use most. If a request requires fresh information, Meta AI will automatically ask Bing to get the chat answer….
Benefits of the Bing and Meta Partnership
This partnership should benefits users in several ways, inluding allowing users to access the latest web data and information from Bing through Meta AI’s chat services, such as Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
For Microsoft this gives them more usage and reach of Bing in search, a service typically led by Google. Microsoft AI is extremely powerful and smart but often not exposed as users “default” to Google and “googling it”.
Yes, I thought Mesh was dead too – but it’s not! Today (Sept 26th), Microsoft announced that Microsoft Mesh will be going into Public Preview in October 2023.
What is Microsoft Mesh?
Microsoft Mesh is a new 3D immersive experience that will be surfaced through Microsoft Teams. It aims to help blur the lines between the physical and virtual space, “re-imagining the way employees come together” through three-dimensional (3D) immersive experience known as “digital spaces”. Backed up by information in Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index Report, “organisations need new ways for people to connect from different locations or geographies, using the tools they already have”.
People will be able to join these immersive spaces in Microsoft Teams, or via custom immersive space in Microsoft Mesh. Either way, this will transform the two-dimensional meeting into a 3D immersive experience.
These immersive spaces will each have unique attributes that create a perception of being physically together in a 3D digital space, including spatial audio interaction, co-presence, and immersion feedback.
Microsoft Mesh Example | Image (c) Microsoft
Microsoft Mesh will be customisable
Microsoft say that organisations and teams will be able to customise these immersive spaces in Mesh using a “no-code” editor or by using a dedicated “Mesh toolkit”.
Secure and Inclusive
Microsoft Mesh is built on Microsoft 365 with the usual enterprise-grade security and privacy. It will support haptic feedback on supported devices and supports certified dedicated VR headsets such as Oculus Quest 2, and as well as on PC.
Getting Started with Mesh
Once available, IT will need to ensure users have a suitable base license (Teams Essentials, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3/E5, or Office 365 E1/E3/E5. and will also need to enable / authorise the use of the Mesh app for Teams once available. Teams Premium is also needed.
The new Immersive spaces will be available in the classic Teams app, followed shortly afterwards in the new Teams.
Users can also download the Mesh app for PC from the Microsoft Store or the Mesh app for Meta Quest devices from the App Lab.
Microsoft Teams Premium is needed to use Microsoft Mesh.
Microsoft hosted a live Surface and AI event on Thursday 21st September where they announced a lot of new and exciting features and products across its various platforms and services. In this blog post, I have tried to summarise the most notable ones and explain how they might benefit you and your organisation.
Disclaimer (and product plug) - Since this was an AI event in whole, I also want to state that other than some slight tweaks, this blog post was written by Bing Enterprise Chat - Microsoft Designer created the image. The whole thing took less that 10 minutes.
Copilot: Your AI Assistant at Work and Beyond
Copilot is a new feature that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help you with various tasks, such as drafting emails, summarizing texts, creating images, and more. You can access Copilot from Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing, and chat with it in natural language. Copilot will understand your intent and provide relevant assistance based on the context and your data.
For example, you can ask Copilot to draft an email for you with a specific tone, or to generate a graphic art based on your description. You can also use Copilot to answer questions, troubleshoot your PC, control your settings, and access recommendations. Copilot is designed to save you time, reduce your cognitive load, and ignite your creativity.
Copilot will be generally available for enterprise customers on November 1st, and for a select group of consumers and small business customers as part of the Early Access Program (EAP). It will initially be limited to three hundred licenses and will cost $30 per user per month.
Windows 11: The Most Powerful and Personal Windows Ever
Windows 11 is the latest (and IMO best) version of the Microsoft’s desktop operating system that powers millions of devices around the world. Windows 11 offers a fresh and modern design, improved performance, and security, and a more personalised and connected experience. They announced the latest update coming next week (Sept 26th). Some of the new features in Windows 11 will include:
An updated Start menu that gives you quick access to your apps, documents, and settings.
An updated Taskbar that lets you easily switch between multiple instances of each app, hide the time and date, and end tasks with a right-click.
A new Dev Home that helps you set up your development environment by downloading apps, packages, or repositories, connecting to your developer accounts and tools, and accessing experimental features in WSL.
A new Dev Drive that provides a fast and secure storage volume for developers, with a file system that delivers both performance and security.
A new WinGet Configuration that simplifies the setup process for developers by reducing it to a single command.
New Gallery in File Explorer that makes it easy to access your photo collection across all your devices.
A new Snipping Tool that lets you record your screen with audio and mic support, copy and redact text from a screenshot, and edit your images with Paint.
A new Photos app that has new editing capabilities to achieve stylish background blur effects and makes it easier to find specific images backed up in OneDrive.
Updated Narrator that uses natural human voices in new languages, and lets you use voice access to log in to your PC and access other areas on the lock screen.
Refreshed Notepad app that automatically saves your session state, allowing you to close Notepad without any interrupting dialogs and then pick up where you left off when you return.
A new Instant Games feature that lets you play your favorite casual games directly from the Microsoft Store without the need to download and install them on your device.
Windows Copilot – Your Copilot for Windows.
Windows 11 also announced general availability of Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch, which allow you to log into your Windows 365 Cloud PC as the primary Windows experience on the device or easily switch between the Cloud PC and the local desktop. Windows 365 is a cloud PC service that lets you stream a full Windows experience from anywhere on any device and is fully managed from Intune.
This update will start rolling out as a free update on September 26th.
Surface: The Ultimate Devices for Work and Play
Surface is Microsoft’s line of devices that combine innovative design, powerful performance, and versatile functionality. Surface devices are built to work seamlessly with Windows 11 and Microsoft 365, offering the best productivity and creativity tools for work and play. I am a massive fan of Surface
The new / refreshed Surface devices include:
Surface Laptop Studio 2: The most powerful Surface ever built, with the latest Intel Core processors, NVIDIA Studio tools for creators, touchscreen display, and flexible design with three unique postures.
Surface Laptop Go 3: The lightest and most portable Surface Laptop, with touchscreen display, premium features like an incredible typing experience and a Fingerprint Power Button, and four stylish colours.
Surface Go 4: The baby Surface Pro is this time, available only for corporate and not consumer market (why??), the device is the same dimensions as before but is more repairable (the most repairable and sustainable device int he Surface Fleet). It ditches the 4GB RAM option (good) and brings a higher spec entry level processor. Pricing increases too which is a shame as is ditching consumer market. These are great for school kids.
Surface Hub 3: The ultimate collaboration device for teams, with a large interactive display that runs the Microsoft Teams Rooms experience. Surface Hub 3 pairs seamlessly with Teams-certified devices and supports Hub on day one. There was also an upgrade announced for Surface Hub 2S customers to upgrade to Surface Hub 3,
The new Surface devices are available for pre-ordering now.
Microsoft 365: The World’s Productivity Cloud
Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based subscription service that offers the best productivity apps for work and life. Microsoft 365 includes apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Teams, Stream, Loop, Clipchamp, and more.
Microsoft 365 Copilot (which will be available from 1st November) is an add-on service at $30 per user per month and provides in-built AI-powered features and services that help you get more done across all your Office 365 apps and services – with support also coming to Microsoft Designer, Loop and Clipchamp and more.
Some of the new features and services in Microsoft 365 include:
Copilot in Outlook, Excel, Word, Loop, OneNote, Stream, and OneDrive: Copilot is integrated into various Microsoft 365 apps to provide AI assistance for different tasks. For example, you can use Copilot in Outlook to draft emails, in Excel to create charts, in Word to summarize documents, in Loop to generate content blocks, in OneNote to take notes, in Stream to transcribe videos, and in OneDrive to find files.
Generative Expand, Fill, and Erase in Microsoft Designer: These features let you manipulate images in creative ways, such as expanding the canvas, filling in missing areas, or erasing unwanted objects. Generative Erase is generally available now, and Generative Fill and Expand are coming soon.
Copilot Lab: Copilot Lab is a feature that lets you learn how to use Copilot effectively, share your favorite prompts with coworkers, and get inspired by other users. Copilot Lab will be accessible to all Microsoft 365 Copilot users once it’s generally available in November.
Mobile Application Management (MAM) for Windows: This feature allows employees to access organisational resources through Microsoft Edge from an unmanaged device, while giving IT the ability to control the conditions under which the resources can be accessed.
Bing and Edge: The Smartest Way to Search and Browse
Bing and Edge are Microsoft’s search engine and web browser that offer a fast, secure, and personalized way to search and browse the web. Bing and Edge use AI to provide relevant information and assistance based on your needs and preferences.
Some of the new features and improvements in Bing and Edge include:
DALL-E 3 in Bing Image Creator and Microsoft Designer integration: Bing Image Creator is a feature that lets you create images from text descriptions using AI. Bing Image Creator is now powered by DALL-E 3, which produces more realistic and detailed images. You can also access Bing Image Creator directly from Microsoft Designer for further editing.
Content Credentials: Content Credentials is a feature that uses cryptographic methods to add an invisible digital watermark to all AI-generated images in Bing. This helps you verify the origin and authenticity of the images. Content Credentials will be supported in Bing Image Creator, Microsoft Designer, and Paint soon.
Bing Chat Enterprise: Bing Chat Enterprise is a feature that lets you chat with Copilot from the Edge mobile app. You can also use multimodal visual search and Image Creator from Bing Chat Enterprise.
Copilot in Microsoft Shopping: Copilot in Microsoft Shopping is a feature that helps you find what you’re looking for more quickly. You can ask for information on an item, and Bing will ask additional questions to learn more. Then, Bing will use that information to provide more tailored recommendations. This feature will be available soon on both PC and mobile.
Personalised Answers: Personalised Answers is a feature that uses your chat history to inform your results. For example, if you’ve used Bing to track your favorite soccer team, next time you’re planning a trip it can proactively tell you if the team is playing in your destination city. Personalized Answers will begin to roll out soon.
Microsoft Advertising: The Best Way to Reach Your Customers
Microsoft Advertising is a platform that helps businesses connect with their customers across the web. Microsoft Advertising offers various solutions and tools to create effective and engaging ads that reach the right audience at the right time.
Some of the new features and improvements in Microsoft Advertising include:
Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform: Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform is a feature that simplifies and enhances every aspect of your experience with the platform. You can use Copilot to create campaigns, get content recommendations, optimize your performance, and more. This feature will be coming soon.
Compare & Decide Ads: Compare & Decide Ads are a new type of ads that pull relevant data of various products or services into a succinct table. This helps users easily evaluate different options based on their criteria. Compare & Decide Ads will be available for cars initially and will be brought to closed beta in early 2024.
Conclusion
These are just some of the highlights from the Microsoft September 2023 News. There are many more features and products that we didn’t cover here, but you can find them on the current web page context. I hope you are excited about these new developments, and I would love to hear what you are most excited about.
Microsoft have announced the Surface Hub 3 and along with a way to breathe new life into Surface Hub 2S with an upgrade module for the Surface Hub 2S.
Surface Hub 3 Transforms Meetings and Collaboration
Surface Hub 3 is the latest all-in-one hybrid meeting and collaboration device that combines the best of Microsoft Teams Rooms, Windows, and Surface Hub. It offers a consistent and seamless experience across all meeting spaces, from small huddle rooms to large conference rooms and brings new AI tools to enhance your hybrid meetings and collaboration sessions.
Surface Hub 3
In this blog post, I will explore some of the key features and benefits of Surface Hub 3, and how it compares to its predecessor, the Surface Hub 2S as well as availability, pricing and how to upgrade from Hub 2S to Hub 3.
What is Surface Hub 3?
Surface Hub 3 is a device that combines the functionality of a digital whiteboard, a large touchscreen display, a video conferencing system, and a Windows 10 PC. It is designed to empower teams to work together more effectively, whether they are in the same room or across the globe.
Surface Hub 3 – Video (C) Microsoft.
Like the predecessor, Surface Hub comes in two sizes: fifty inches and eighty-five inches. Both models have a high-resolution, 4K PixelSense display with an anti-glare coating that makes content visible in any lighting condition. They also have two microphone arrays and speaker pairings that deliver clear audio and optimize sound based on device orientation. Additionally, they support active inking with up to two Surface Hub Pens Surface Slim pens, providing twenty points of multitouch for immersive on-device collaboration.
Surface Hub 3 runs on Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows, which means that it offers a consistent user interface and feature set with other Microsoft Teams Rooms devices. This makes it easy for users to transition from one meeting space to another, without having to learn different systems or adjust settings. Users can also pair Surface Hub 3 with Microsoft Teams Rooms certified peripherals in larger conference rooms, such as external microphones, speakers, cameras, and more.
Surface Hub 3 also supports some unique capabilities that set it apart from other devices. For example, it allows users to physically rotate the device between portrait or landscape mode at any time, to suit their needs and preferences. It also enables users to move the device around the building with a Steelcase Roam Stand and an APC Charge Mobile Battery (both sold separately), offering flexibility and mobility.
Existing Surface Hub 2S customers can also upgrade their existing Surface Hub 2S devices to Surface Hub 3 with the Surface Hub 3 Pack, which includes a new processor cartridge and a software license.
How does Surface Hub 3 improve over Surface Hub 2S?
Surface Hub 3 is an evolution of Surface Hub 2S, which was launched in 2019. While both devices share some similarities, such as the sleek design and the Windows 10 Team edition operating system, Surface Hub 3 offers several improvements over its predecessor.
Here are some of the main differences between Surface Hub 3 and Surface Hub 2S:
Performance: Surface Hub 3 has a faster processor and graphics card than Surface Hub 2S, resulting in a smoother and more responsive experience. It also has more memory and storage capacity, allowing it to handle more complex tasks and applications. In short, Microsoft say that Surface Hub 3 has a 60% CPU performance increase, and a 160% GPU graphics performance increase gen-on-gen. This helps its support more inclusive, media rich meetings, higher definition meetings and hardware powered AI features like background noise cancellation and studio video effects.
Software: Surface Hub 3 runs on Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows – offering a true Teams experience whilst still providing leading edge Windows 11 capabilities which means that Surface Hub 3 can access more apps and services from the Microsoft Store, as well as use Windows Hello for biometric authentication. It also means that Surface Hub 3 can benefit from new features and updates that are released for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows.
Features: Surface Hub 3 also has unique features that are not available on Surface Hub 2S. These include smart rotation, portrait mode, improved mobility options, persistent chat, Teams Front Row layout support, Cloud IntelliFrame (a smart video feed that separates participants into individual boxes), video segmentation (a feature that removes backgrounds and adjusts video sizes), and Copilot in Whiteboard (a feature that helps generate and organize ideas). Surface Hub 3 also works in portrait mode.
Surface Hub 3 with Teams Front Row
Why Surface Hub 3?
Surface Hub 3 is not just another collaboration device. It builds on 8 years of innovation, the power of Microsoft Team, AI, and Windows 11. Surface Hub 3 continues to offer versatile and inclusive solution that can transform huddle rooms, meeting rooms and collaborative spaces. Surface Hub brings:
Consistency: Surface Hub 3 brings a consistent experience across all meeting spaces, regardless of the size or configuration of the room. It runs a variant of Teams Rooms on Windows meaning the device can be be used for different purposes in different spaces and in multiple modes – bringing whiteboarding, presenting, hybrid meetings, or for co-creating in open spaces.
Simplicity: Surface Hub 3 brings simplified your meeting setup and management since it is powered by Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows platform. People can easily start or join a meeting with one touch, share content wirelessly, and control the device with voice commands. IT can also manage Surface Hub through the Microsoft Teams admin center and the Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal.
Engagement: Surface Hub 3 enhances the meeting engagement and participation experience with new AI-powered features that Surface Hub 3, Teams and Copilot bring to life. This makes remote attendees feel more connected and visible, thanks to the Cloud IntelliFrame and video segmentation features. You can also make your brainstorming sessions more productive and creative, thanks to the Copilot in Whiteboard feature.
Innovation: With Surface Hub 3, you can unleash your team’s potential and foster a culture of innovation, thanks to the Surface Hub 3’s design and capabilities. You can experiment with different modes of interaction, such as touch, pen, voice, or gesture. You can also explore new ways of working, such as rotating the device, moving it around, or pairing it with other devices.
Upgrade your Surface Hub 2S to Surace Hub 3
Organisations with Surface Hub 2S devices can also upgrade their existing Surface Hub 2S devices to Surface Hub 3 with the Surface Hub 3 Pack, which includes a new processor cartridge and a software license. This brings Microsoft Teams Rooms – including the latest Teams Rooms layouts and management capabilities to existing Surface Hub 2S. It provides a power upgrade with faster performance, improved graphics and added storage and allows for Portrait mode on the Surface Hub 2S 50”.
Availability of Surface Hub 3
Surface Hub 3 is available for preorder now, and it will start shipping in early 2024. There are the same two models to choose from – fifty-inch or eighty-five-inch version.
Pricing for Surface Hub 3
Pricing for Surface Hub 3 is similar to the Hub2S and is listed at (RRP) being
Surface Hub 3 85” with 2x Surface Hub Pens and 1x Smart Camera. £24,649.00
Surface Hub 3 50” with 1x Surface Hub Pen and 1x) Smart Camera. £ 9,299.00
Surface Hub2S 50″ Upgrade Pack to Hub 3: £2749.00
Volume and sector discounts will be available as usual through your Microsoft Surface Hub Reseller.
Surface Hub 3 is the ultimate device for meetings and collaboration. It combines the best of Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub, offering a consistent and seamless experience across all meeting spaces. It also enables you to leverage AI to enhance hybrid meetings and collaboration sessions.
Today (Thursday 21st September) at a live event in New York, Microsoft announced their “revised” vision, release date and confirmation of pricing for Copilot – a “digital companion for your whole life”. Microsoft have said this this Copilot will create a single Copilot user experience across Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365, and Windows (plus more services that will come later). There’s also a new logo!
The Copilot experience promises to be consistent across all platforms and products – Microsoft 365, Bing, and Windows 11.
This has been in preview with Windows Insiders for a while and is essentially the new and revamped “cortana” [ok its far more than that]. Microsoft describe this as “a digital companion for your whole life” and will be nested into Windows 11 from September 26, 2023.
Windows Copilot will be embedded into Windows 11 and will bring generative AI, search, and the ability to control apps and services within your desktop environment.
Currently in preview – will start rolling out starting from September 26 as part of 23H2.
Windows Copilot will also support third part app support like Spotify and Adobe.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Described by Microsoft as “your AI assistant at work”, this was initially announced back in March as been in closed invite only Early Access Preview since June.
Microsoft 365 builds includes enterprise-grade security, privacy, compliance, and responsible AI to ensure all data processing happens inside your Microsoft 365 tenant—using which will be natively built into the Microsoft 365 apps and services everyone already uses like Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
This will be available for enterprise customers for $30 per user per month
It requires a base license of Microsoft 365 E3, E5 or Business Standard or Premium
It will be available from November 1st to purchase
Includes the new Microsoft 365 Chat (formally Business Chat).
Rollout will be staggered – with release first to EA customers who were on the Early Access Programme and then will be available in phases there-after. Customers are advised to speak to their Microsoft Team for more information.
Note: Whilst this is great – IMO it is a little too soon (about 4 months sooner than most expected). Organisations do need to ensure their data lifecycle, governance, compliance, and security is in top shape to get the most from Copilot in Microsoft and there are strong recommendations about getting Copilot Ready – I have covered this here previously. This is an area I’m working a lot with organisation with at the moment – helping with use cases, data preparation, training, awareness, security, and governance.
Bing Chat Enterprise
This has been in public preview for a couple of months for Commercial and Education customers and is the same as Bing Chat for consumer (which is also free) but brings commercial data protection for AI
This is available free for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers or at a cost of $5 as a standalone
Bing Chat Enterprise adds commercial data protection to Bing Chat, ensuring that sensitive business data is never seen by anyone, never stored, and never used to train the foundation models.
Support multimodal visual search and Image Creator and will also be available on Microsoft Edge and Bing mobile app
Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader in the inaugural Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Desktop as a Service (DaaS). According to Gartner, DaaS is defined as “the provision of virtual desktops by a public cloud or service provider” and encompasses a variety of cloud solutions, such as Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop, which are described in a way that is familiar to customers of varying backgrounds and technical expertise.
Given the newness to the market of Microsoft’s two offerings in this space, it’s incredible to see Microsoft leading in this catagory (ahead of the golden players like Citrix and VMware).
Gartner stated in their report that “Microsoft is one of the few vendors with significant global presence,” and “Microsoft is in a unique position, as it owns the architecture for Windows, Intune, Microsoft 365 applications, Azure, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365.”
Microsoft have two offerings in this space which are both designed to provide organisations with secure and versatile cloud desktop solutions that support flexible work options.
Windows 365 – a fully managed DaaS solution that securely streams personalised Windows desktop, apps, settings, and content from the Microsoft Cloud to your Cloud PC which can be accessed from the device of your choice.
Azure Virtual Desktop, a full enterprise cloud virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platform that delivers hosted remote desktops and apps with flexibility and control without compromising on security.
You u can check out my short user experience demo on Windows365 here.
As the telecommunications landscape continues to evolve, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is gradually being phased out in favor of modern communication technologies. It will be completely switched off by the end of December 2025, and new PSTN lines can no longer be bought or sold.
This transition presents both opportunities and challenges for organizations that rely on traditional phone systems. The future and replacement, of course, lie in Cloud Calling. However, achieving a smooth transition requires careful thought, planning, and migration.
Moving calling into the cloud also helps extend the functionality and reach of collaboration solutions like Teams, Zoom, and Webex, for example.
This blog discusses key considerations for businesses in preparation for the PSTN switch off next year and covers seven essential areas.
Assessing your existing calling infrastrucure.
Expore the different options.
Remember to carry out a network readiness assessment.
Consider all the Cloud Calling Options.
Ensure you have a solid testing plan.
Don’d forget security, compliance and privacy.
Adoption and Training are key.
Assess your current calling infrastrucutre
To prepare for the PSTN turn-off, you should first examine your current telephony infrastructure. Find out how many PSTN lines, hardware devices and related costs you have. Check if you have any legacy systems that depend on PSTN connectivity, such as fax machines or alarm systems that use analogue connections. This assessment will help you measure the impact and look for appropriate alternatives.
Action: Speak to your UC or voice partner. They will be able to carry this out for you and help you with costings and options.
Explore Different Cloud Calling Options
With traditional PSTN services becoming obsolete and being turn off, cloud-based communication solutions, such as Microsoft Teams not only offer more advantages but make lots of sense for organisations by having a singl platform for meetings, chat, calling and apps. Moving towards integrated solutions help you save costs, scale up and down as needed and provide a simpler unified and easier to use platform with everything in one place. It also is proven to improve adoption and make communication more “frictionless” as well as providing better integratation with other line of business applications.
The same applies to organisations who are already invested in wider UC platforms such as Webex or Zoom. To find the best solution for your organisation, you need to assess your needs and goals. You may also benefit from working with a trusted technology partner who can guide you through the migration process.
Remember to carry out a Network Readiness Assessment
Before implementing your chosen cloud voice solution, make sure your network infrastructure can support it. Unlike traditional PSTN or dedication “voice solutions”, putting cloud calling along side your collaboration and productivity solutions like Teams, Zoom or Webex typically means that IP routing, VLANs, bandwidth and QoS settings will need to change. You’ll need to check internet bandwidth, wired and wireless etworking, VLANs, VPNs and network security. You may also need to add or implment CoS and QoS to to ensure quality of service. Your cloud provider, IT or technology partner will be able to help – so will the chosen vendor you decide to work with and many will have “tools” to help you check connecivity health.
Not all Cloud Calling is the same so consider your options
To transition from PSTN to a different phone system, it is essential to carefully compare the various methods of connecting your calls. When considering the inclusion of cloud calling in your collaboration suite, such as Webex, Zoom, or Teams, multiple options are available. Whilst these vendors all provide their own native “calling plans,” which may be the simplest and most suitable choice in certain cases, . it is also important to explore alternative connectivity methods, such as Direct Routing (via SBCs managed by you or your partner) or Hosted Direct Routing (a managed service). Additionally, you may even consider utilising solutions that are not inherently integrated into your collaboration suite. Instead, these solutions involve an app that runs alongside or within the Teams, Webex, or Zoom app, providing calling capability.
For each of these options, it is crucial to thoroughly consider the advantages and disadvantages, such as cost, seamless communication, geographical coverage, SLAs, and level of integration with other line of business applications like Office 365, Contact Centre, and CRM. It is highly recommended to conduct tests whenever possible to evaluate the performance of each solution.
Have a solid test and rollout plan
An inclusive testing and migration plan must be formulated to ensure a seamless transition to the new environment. This plan should encompass pilot testing, deployment and migration milestones, specific timelines, and clearly defined responsibilities for each stage of the transition.
Prior to proceeding with a full-scale production rollout, it is strongly advised to conduct a network readiness assessment (as mentioned above) in conjunction with systems testing involving a select group of users based on a user acceptance test plan.
In order to aid employees in adapting to the new system and to facilitate their feedback, it is imperative to incorporate comprehensive training and change management activities. Regular communication with stakeholders and designated “champion groups” should be established and their expectations managed consistently throughout the transition process.
Security, Compliance and Privacy
For organisations operating in regulated industries, it is imperative to carefully consider and select an alternative communication solution that aligns with regulatory and compliance requirements. Factors such as data privacy, security measures, and industry-specific regulations should be taken into account when evaluating communication solutions. Additionally, the seamless integration of features like language translation, call recording, and transcription into your existing collaboration tools should be carefully considered.
A recent development worth noting is Microsoft’s announcement regarding the inclusion of Copilot functionality in Teams Phone. However, it is crucial to involve your legal and compliance teams in order to address any potential issues and adhere to relevant standards. If necessary, consult with your vendor or partner to ensure compliance and resolve any concerns.
Training and Adoption
Summary
As the deadline for switching off the PSTN approaches, organisations can benefit from adopting a modern and integrated cloud calling platform that offers better features, more flexibility, and greater affordability and future-proofing. They can also use this opportunity to streamline and simplify their communications by choosing solutions that integrate with their wider communication and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Webex or Zoom.
Microsoft said yesterday in a blog post that they will “pay legal damages on behalf of customers using its artificial intelligence (AI) products if they are sued for copyright infringement for the output generated by such systems“.
In the post, Microsoft said that they will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks arising out of any claims raised by third parties for copyright infringement so long as their company’s customers use “the guardrails and content filters” built into their AI powered products which include Bing Enterprise Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft said that this offers functionality that is designed to reduce the likelihood that their AI-powered services will return content that infringes copyrighted content.
Microsoft is announcing our new Copilot Copyright Commitment. As customers ask whether they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we are providing a straightforward answer: yes, you can, and if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.
Microsoft
Microsoft’s say that their Copilot Copyright Commitment will protect customers so long as they have “used the guardrails and content filters we have built into our products” said Hossein Nowbar, [CVP and Chief Legal Officer at Microsoft] in their blog post yesterday. Microsoft also pledged to pay related fines or settlements and said it has taken steps to ensure its Copilots respect copyright.
Microsoft’s pledge comes are part of their ethical use of AI commitments and say that “We believe in standing behind our customers when they use our products – we are charging our commercial customers for our Copilots, and if their use creates legal issues, we should make this our problem rather than our customers’ problem“.
Generative AI is now everywhere
Generative AI applications leverage existing content such including news, images and artwork, and evening programming code and use it to generate new “AI generated” content which may use combinations of different data sources. Microsoft is embedding much of this technology, powered by their partnership with OpenAI Inc, into their core technology products like Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 which as a potential to put their customers in “legal jeopardy”.
With the proliferation and growing use of generative AI – people are using these tools to generate text, images, sounds, other data, and people have raised concerns over the technology’s ability to generate content without referencing it to its original authors. To address this Microsoft, said that “We are sensitive to the concerns of authors, and we believe that Microsoft rather than our customers should assume the responsibility to address them. Even where existing copyright law is clear, generative AI is raising new public policy issues and shining a light on multiple public goals. We believe the world needs AI to advance the spread of knowledge and help solve major societal challenges. Yet it is critical for authors to retain control of their rights under copyright law and earn a healthy return on their creations“.
Protecting and upholding Copyright Laws
Artists, writers, and software developers are already filing lawsuits or raising objections about their creations being used without their consent which has accelerated since the available of Generative AI tools exploded with the release of ChatGPT back in November 2022. This includes programmers, artists, and authors.
I cannot show you that, as it would be unethical and illegal to do so. AI breaching copyright is a genuine issue that affects many artists and creators who have their original works used without their permission or compensation.
Microsoft say that their Copilot Copyright Commitment extends their existing intellectual property indemnification coverage to copyright claims relating to the use of its AI-powered assistants called Copilots and through to their AI powered Bing Chat Enterprise.
Microsoft state in their blog that “we have built important guardrails into our Copilots to help respect authors’ copyrights. We have incorporated filters and other technologies that are designed to reduce the likelihood that Copilots return infringing content. These build on and complement our work to protect digital safety, security, and privacy, based on a broad range of guardrails such as classifiers, meta prompts, content filtering, and operational monitoring and abuse detection, including that which potentially infringes third-party content”.
You can already see evidence of this safety net in tools such as Bing Enterprise Chat where the tools will do what it can to avoid purposely breaching copyright.
I have run well over a dozen Business Briefing sessions with customers over the past month and whilst still not available to (most of) us yet, one thing is for certain – Microsoft 365 Copilot will be an absolute game-changer for any business that uses Microsoft 365 as their primary productivity and collaboration toolset.
If you are already leveraging Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Office, and even apps like Forms, Loop and Viva, the way you work with these apps, with your teams and customers is about to be turbo charged – bringing huge benefits to every employee who has a Copilot license.
This blog covers the 5 key things I’ve been talking to business’ about in the run up to release of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Recap – what is Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be as deep rooted into Office 365 as Windows is on moder desktop and will be as revolutionary and disruptive as the hype. Whilst we may have “heard this before”, my early experience of Microsoft 365 Copilot tells me that this goes beyond any form of productivity gains we’ve been promised or seen before.
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be an absolute game-changer for any business that uses Microsoft 365 as their primary productivity and collaboration toolset.
Copilot won’t just be for IT and the techies either – in fact, IT may benefit the least!
Copilot will help increase the speed to get work done, improve the quality and help people get more from your tools and data. It should help increase profit by automating tasks, enhancing productivity, and improving skills.
Copilot will be accessible to users through natural language and starts with a prompt from you in the associated Office 365 App through an approach called “grounding”. Microsoft 365 Copilot will help with anything and everything. It can help you with tasks such as analysing data in Excel, summarising documents, creating presentations from scratch or content elsewhere in PowerPoint, automatically minuting meeting and assigning follow-up tasks and providing detailed responses to any clarifying questions.
There is so much excitement for Microsoft 365 Copilot but also many things’ organisations need to do to prepare to ensure they get the best return on their investment – yes, it’s an investment, at circa $30 per user per month.
Here’s my five key things to be excited about and to make sure you prepare for….
Whether you are a business leader, manager, or a member of team, you need to understand how Copilot works and how it can benefit your role and your organisation. Otherwise, you will find your competition are using it to their advantage.
#1 It’s still a waiting game….
Whilst Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 Copilot back in March 2023 and made it available to an extremely limited (twenty-six) US organisations, the sizzle videos Microsoft released, which dominated social media has sparked huge interest, questions, and speculation about what is coming.
Then, in June 2023, Microsoft expanded the availability of the product to an “invited” list of around six hundred customers. Microsoft said they also expect to release Microsoft 365 Copilot in the “coming months” but realistically I think that this is still nine to twelve months away, though I expect the private preview will be available to more organisations around the time of Microsoft Ignite at the back end of 2023.
Whilst we hate to wait – there is a lot of preparation that most organisations will need to do to plan, prepare (and pay) for Microsoft 365 Copilot to get the best value from it.
We also now know that Microsoft 365 Copilot will set you back around $30 pupm based on the pricing Microsoft announced back in June 2023.
#2 – Quality of your data will be critical to success of Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot is powered by a large language model (LLM) that can access and analyse information from the Internet (it’s built on ChatGPT-4) but most importantly (and the main differentiation of this and ChatGPT), your organisational data.
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be deep rooting into your Office 365 environment, giving it the ability to leverage your Outlook messages, Teams chat, calls and meetings, OneDrive and SharePoint documents, Loop components, CRM data (Dynamics 365), Azure Files, and other internal and external data (via plug-ins) that it is permitted to access – and act on this data (at your command) to provide you create new content (from multiple sources), analyse data, compare content or re-write work directly from within your Office applications and services.
The other thing that stands Microsoft 365 Copilot aside from other AI tools like ChatGPT is a new indexing tool coming to Microsoft 365 called Semantic Index for Copilot, which is a sophisticated map of all your user and company data. For example, when you ask Copilot about the “March Sales Report,” it doesn’t simply look for documents with those words in the file name or body, it instead understands that “sales reports are produced by Kelly on the finance team and created in Excel.” And it uses that conceptual understanding to determine your intent and help you find what you need.
Sounds incredible right? Yes, but Microsoft 365 Copilot’s performance will depend primarily on what you ask it to do (more on that later), and the quality and completeness of your data. If your data is inaccurate, has multiple conflicting versions, or the permissions/access control are not correct, it may not give you the best results or even be able access the information. There is also the danger that it will have access to things you think it shouldn’t if your data governance and protection need work!
Therefore, if you do nothing else while you wait patiently for it, you need to ensure that your data is clean, updated, and consistent. The quality and security of your data has never been so important.
This is something that will need addressing and it is something that Microsoft strongly recommend doing now (while you are waiting for Copilot to be available).
Teh success of Microsoft 365 Copilot within your organisation will not be Copilot itself - it will be your organisational data that Copilot relies upon to do its job.
#3The impact of Copilot will be huge for everyone.
We’ve all (most likely) used ChatGPT or Bing Chat Enterprise to help us write or summarise text, but with Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees will be able to get a jump start into whatever task they are starting or finishing.
This is because, with Copilot, Microsoft have not just added a tool that can access Generative Chat services (think Bing Chat Enterprise – which is powered by ChatGPT4).
Once you have your hands on Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees will be able to focus on the part of work that needs real human and skilled input, using the power of AI to get started quicker, improve quality of our work, and spend less time on mundane tasks. Microsoft 365 Copilot should be able to assist people in creating high-quality content in a a much shorter amount of time.
Using AI to improve how we work – Image (c) Microsoft.
You will have seen from the demos that every Office app will have a Copilot button, which once clicked will call your Copilot assistant’s chat box right from within your application.
For example….
In Excel – Copilot can help analyse data and generate charts, creating formulas from free text input, visualise information better or look for trends across different cells, sheets, or workbooks. It will also be able to help with data management by suggesting content and formatting options for your spreadsheets
In Word it will help you write documents, curate executive summaries, create proposals or summarise from emails, presentations, or meeting notes. It will be able to write, edit, summarise, and creates right alongside you with only a brief prompt. Copilot will help you create a first draft of document, bringing in information from across your organisation and the internet as needed. Copilot can add content to existing documents, summarize text, and rewrite sections or the entire document to make it more concise.
In PowerPoint – Copilot can help you turn your ideas into stunning presentations. Copilot will be able to transform existing written documents into decks complete with speaker notes and sources or start a new presentation from a simple prompt. It will be able to condense lengthy presentations at the click of a button and let you use natural language commands to adjust layouts, reformat text, and perfectly time animations. Microsoft call it your “storytelling partner”
In Outlook – According to a report by McKinsey, the average employees spend 28% of their time reading and responding to emails. Copilot will help you triage your inbox, summarise long email threads, and generate replies for you. Copilot will also help you with tasks such as scheduling meetings, creating tasks, and setting reminders and can also help with email management by suggesting content and formatting options for your messages.
In Teams – Copilot will help you summarise and prepare for meetings by combing through all your documents, emails, meetings, files, and resources to get you information you need that is highly relevant. It can streamline tasks such as scheduling meetings, creating agendas, and taking notes during meetings. It can also help you with tasks such as creating tasks, setting reminders, and managing your to-do list. Copilot can also help you with team collaboration by suggesting content and formatting options for your messages.
Copilot won't be limited to Microsoft 365 either. Copilot is coming to Dynamics 365, Teams, Viva and of course Power Platform. Copilot is also coming to Windows 11, Bing and of course their developer tools GitHub. There's even a Security Copilot for your Microsoft 365 Admins and SOC.
#4 Copilot “should” pay for itself.
Watch the sizzle video again – Microsoft 365 Copilot will be able to do all the things shown here just by chatting to the Copilot chat bot. it and will also suggest things proactively.
At $30 per user per month, this can add a lot of cost to your cloud subscriptions, but rest assured, Copilot will save vast amounts of wasted time, which will increase productivity (letting people work on other things). Copilot is there to aid every person do almost any task in any app.
For example
While you may not be able to test this until you have your hand on a pilot yourselves, most of the organisations I have spoken to know that eventually investment in AI has the potential to more than pay for itself. With Microsoft 365 Copilot, this $30 (£25) pupm, should improve output and productivity, save time (which saves money) and enabled people to get more done quickly (which saves money) depending on how you look at it to more than £25 pupm in investment.
So, £25 a month is around 75p per day. If you have someone earning £50,000 a year, and they work ~250 working days then this is about £200 a day or £25 an hour.
Now, say they host/run TWO meetings a month and spend 30 mins writing up minutes and action plans after the meeting – then that’s about one hour @ £25 cost.
If, instead of doing this themselves, Microsoft 365 Copilot could write up the minutes and take actions just for that one meeting then we have technically saved that £25 for an investment of £25 (per month) – so we have already broken even after one Copilot run meeting!
Once you’ve run a pilot and tested this out, I am pretty certain almost every person or role would benefit from Copilot and even if not everyone, you’ll want to look at a time and motion study (or mini assessment anyway) and look at the ways Copilot can squeeze an additional 30 mins a day in time back or revenue generating tasks.
#5 – It won’t be perfect so make sure you “check it’s work”
Like all transformative technologies, there are tasks that AI is not well suited for, so it’s important to be aware of the potential drawbacks.
AI-produced content and outputs may contain inaccuracies, biases, or sensitive materials because they were trained on information from the internet, as well as other sources. AI may not know about recent events yet, and struggles to understand and interpret sarcasm, irony, or humor. Please remember that it’s not a person.
Microsoft advise that “It’s important that you review any content the AI generates for you to make sure it has accurately produced what you wanted.” – this means you are responsible for the content and checking its sources!!
Remember again, that Copilot’s ability to do the best job will be reliant on what you ask and where the data comes from that it uses, so remember – rubbish in, rubbish out. Your pilot and testing of Copilot are critical in making sure users get the best experience.
Microsoft Loop is a newish Microsoft 365 app designed to help people collaborate and organise content from various Microsoft 365 apps into different collaborative workspaces and pages. Loop can be used as its own app for simple and group collaboration, or for keeping, organising and consolidating your content from your different ‘loops’ in a central place.
What is Loop?
Microsoft launched Loop (in preview) back in March this year and (whilst still officially in preview), now has its own dedicated app in the Microsoft Store (as well as being available in iOS and Android).
Microsoft Loop is now available through the Microsoft Store though it’s really just a progressive web app.
Loop consists of workspaces, pages, and components that stay up to date across different applications.
Microsoft Loop is designed to enhance Co authoring and editing of “components” across Microsoft 365 apps.
Loop components, pages and spaces can be created directly from within the Loop App (which is essentially a progressive web app) ontent within a project can be converted into a Microsoft Loop component. Those components can then be shared with a group of people or any individual. Importantly, you can share part of a project or a specific component with someone rather than having to share an entire workspace or project.
Microsoft Loop
Loop is now in the Microsoft Store
You can now get the Loop app from the UK Microsoft Store – there are also apps for iOS and Android. You can also use Edge and pin it as an app (which essentially has the same effect).
“Microsoft Loop is a transformative co-creation experience that brings together teams, content, and tasks across your tools and devices. Loop enables you to organize your thoughts, content, and resources as your project evolves. Loop’s portable pieces of content (components) synchronize across apps and stay up to date wherever they are shared across Microsoft 365.”
Microsoft Loop works for both personal and work accounts.
What else can Loop Do?
I covered Loop in more detail in a previous post which you can access here
My friend Darrell (Modern Work Mentor) also has a series of awesome videos and articles on Loop which you can access below.
Back in March, Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI powered service that would bring generative AI features into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and the rest of the Microsoft Cloud which has the potential to fundamentally change the way we work with apps, data and services and ever…
CoPilot will work alongside your Microsoft 365 apps and services and leverages the same built in security and privacy in mind so that data is always safe. It respects existing Microsoft 365 security and privacy settings as well as respects individual and group permission policies. This means that you can use it to generate reports, summaries, or other documents without worrying about data leaks or unauthorised access.
How much will Microsoft 365 Copilot cost?
Until now, there has been no indication as to pricing or available (Microsoft 365 Copilot is currently in a closed private preview), but this week, Microsoft used their global partner conference to announced pricing.
Microsoft 365 Copilot for commercial customers will cost an extra $30 per user per month on top of what organisations pay for their Microsoft 365 licenses. There is also minimum base license requirement (for the add on) of Microsoft 365 E3, E5, or Business Standard or Professional, though I expect that large enterprise organisations will be able to get a cheaper rate on Enterprise Agreements.
Microsoft 365 Copilot will cost $30 per user per month for commercial customers.
What about other Sectors?
Pricing for Public Sector, Healthcare/NHS, Edu and Not for Profit has not yet been announced.
Cheaper than “expectations“?
Rumours of what organisations in the Early Access Program (EAP) had been paying led to speculations that costs could be closer to $40 per use per month so this price is actually lower that what some thought, though other rumours suggested Microsoft “might” bundle it in Microsoft 365 E5.
What do you think – how much were you expecting Microsoft 365 Copilot to cost?
When will Microsoft 365 Copilot be available?
No dates have yet been annouced for wider preview, public preview or General Availability (which is the cycle Microsoft usually follows for new products and services.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is still currently early access preview testing (EAP) with 600 paying enterprise customers.
Bing Chat Enterprise
Microsoft also yesterday announced Bing Chat Enterprise, a new version of the ChatGPT-4 powered Bing Chat service that is now built into their Edge browser and Windows 11 (currently in preview). Bing Chat Enterprise’s main difference will be its privacy model which will ensure user and business data are protected and will not leak outside the boundaries of the organisation.
Bing Chat Enterprise
“Bing Chat Enterprise gives your organization AI-powered chat for work with commercial data protection,”
Yusaf Mehdi and Jared Spataro |Microsoft
Microsoft said that unlike it’s AI rivals “Chat data is not saved, and Microsoft has no eyes-on access, which means no one can view your data. And your data is not used to train the models.”
Bing Chat Enterprise will be “free”
Unlike Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise will be available to existing Microsoft 365 customers at no additional cost, and Microsoft also said that they also plan to offer a standalone version for $5 per user per month.
Data privacy has been a major concern for many companies, who are putting in contols to stop employees using generative AI chat tools. Global organisations including Samsung, Verizon, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are all among the companies that restricted or banned the use of public verisons of Bing Chat, ChatGPT, Google Bard etc. Bing Chat Enterprise’s privacy guard is designed to enable organisation to leverage these AI tools with peace of mind.
When will Bing Chat Enterprise be available?
Bing Chat Enterprise is currently available in preview and is accessible from within Microsoft Edge or bing.com/chat.
When Windows Copilot (not to be confused with Microsoft 365 Copilot) is released to the public in a Windows update later this year, Bing Chat Enterprise will also be available from within Windows 11. You can test out Windows Copilot today as a Windows Insider.
As well as launching avatars last month, Microsoft has just released (in Preview) animated backgrounds in Teams meetings. It’s designed to refresh the meeting experience by allowing users to change their existing background with “a dynamic animation for a more immersive virtual environment.”
Available to all Teams customers (commercial not personal), this brings a currently limited set of animated backgrounds to bring “creativity and personalisation to the Teams meeting”. Currently, it is only possible to select from the pre-defined backgrounds though we expect the ability to have company-wide a custom animated background to also be supported soon.
Using Animated Backgroundsin Meetings
Before you join: To use this new feature, upon joining a Teams meeting, you need to navigate to Effects and Avatars > Video effects and select one of the new animated background on the pre-join screen before you join the meeting.
Teams Animated Backgrounds
When in a meeting: To use these when you are already in a meeting, you can click More > Effects and Avatars > Select a background can be used to add an animated background.
What images are compatible with Teams animated backgrounds?
Currently, only the stock animated images provided by Microsoft are supported. We expect organisations will have the ability to upload their own soon!
Known issues and limitations.
Microsoft have said that the following limitations apply to using animated backgrounds.
Animated backgrounds are not available on low-end devices – min requirement of 8GB RAM and CPU with 4 logical processors.
Only pre-defined backgrounds from Microsoft are currently supported.
Using video filters may slow down background animation, if your machine has a high workload and lots of apps running.
While not especially surprising given its lack of attention, Microsoft has quietly announced that it “will no longer support Cortana in Windows as a standalone app,” starting in late 2023 as we see the introduction of Windows Copilot which was announced at Microsoft Build last month.
Originally launching in 2014 for Windows and Windows Phone, Cortana was poised to be be the “the next big thing,” – a personal assistant to rival Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, that could look up things, take notes, answer questions and even book things in your diary or read your emails. There was even an iOS and Android app and Cortana also made it’s way into Microsoft Teams as an assistant for video conferencing.
Cortana on Teams Rooms
Cortana on Windows 10
Cortana Apple iOS
Goodbye Cortana
Lack of investment, low consumer demand, and lack of “intelligent speakers” to allow Cortana to be heard. In 2020, Microsoft announced a new vision for Cortana instead positioning it as part of their “vision to deliver transformational AI-powered experiences in Microsoft 365 through Cortana, your personal productivity assistant for Microsoft Office and Teams“.
Earlier this year Microsoft announced they were dropping support for Cortana as an app on Apple iOS and Android and as of late 2023 it the final nail in the coffin will be it evicted from the Windows OS as well. I expect Cortana on Teams Rooms to be replaced by Copilot in Teams at some point though at this moment in time, Microsoft have said that “This change only impacts Cortana in Windows, and your productivity assistant, Cortana, will continue to be available in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams rooms.”
This year (and it’s only June), we have see the advent of Bing Chat (which is powered by ChatGPT- 4), voice access for Windows 11, Cortana’s voice functionality has all but now been replaced, as has its future.
Microsoft’s advice for anyone that still uses the Cortana app in Windows is to use something else!!
“We know that this change [removal or Cortana] may affect some of the ways you work in Windows, so we want to help you transition smoothly to the new options. Instead of clicking the Cortana icon and launching the app to begin using voice, now you can use voice and satisfy your productivity needs through different tools”.
Microsoft
Introducing Windows Copilot
At Microsoft Build, Microsoft announced that a preview version of Windows Copilot would be coming to Windows Insiders later this June (most likley for the US first, before rolling out to other regions).
Windows Copilot will centralised AI assistance across Windows. In conjunction with Bing Chat and both first and third-party plugins, it will enable people to interface with Windows and Windows apps and services using Copilot chat, rather trying to find what app to use, find settings or work out how to do something.
Yesterday (6th June 2023) was the first day of Cisco Live which was hosted in Las Vegas.
CEO Chuck Robbins hosted the keynote, along with a host of product leads and Cisco executives who ran through their huge list of updates. The core focus for Cisco and the announcements made, were focussed on security, networking, cloud, AI, and sustainability. Some of the key announcements were:
Updates to their Full Stack Observability Platform (FSO), a cloud-based service that provides comprehensive visibility and insights into applications and networks.
Cisco Cloud Application Security, a new feature of their FSO ⬆️ that monitors and protects cloud applications from threats.
Cisco Networking Cloud, a unified cloud network management platform that simplifies connectivity and security across devices and networks.
Cisco Secure Access, a single sign-on solution that enables users to access any application from any device or network.
Cisco Multicloud Defense, a platform that unifies security controls across clouds and applications, with support for multiple firewalls.
Cisco Secure Firewall 4200, a new, faster, and more reliable firewall that works with their Multicloud Defense service
Cisco SOC Assistant, an AI-powered tool that helps security teams detect and respond to incidents, with optimized remediation tactics.
Cisco Key Themes
Chuck Robbins highlighted, Cisco’s five key themes going forward as:
Reimagine your applications.
Power your hybrid work.
Transform your infrastructure.
Secure your enterprise.
Your journey to sustainability.
Reimagine your applications
The first main product announcement was that of the general availability of Cisco’s Full Stack Observability (FSO) Platform which has been in preview for a few months.
The focus and need for FSO was positioned as the fact that “Every business is a digital business“. She discussed how that while having the right applications is critical to getting work done, they also need to work efficiently for people to be productive, wherever they work. Liz Centoni pointed out that the magnitude of apps used by businesses can “lead to an avalanche of data and insights that can be overwhelming, meaning delays in functions such as threat detection“.
Origibally announced last year, but now available to all, FSO is designed to let organisations gain insights and analytics almost any data source, helping reduce the number of monitoring tools needed, speed up support efforts and keep users online and productive. One of the key use cases for FSO is that in customer digital experience monitoring, whereby Cisco are able to measure predict and monitor the end-to-end user experience across various parts of a customer journey (for example, during an online e-commerce experience).
Joining FSO to Security, Cisco also announced that a new product – Cisco Cloud Application Security, is also coming FSO, which will bring a new layer of security insights into FSO to help understand, see, and act on threats affecting the organisation.
Power your Hybrid Work
The focus on this topic was really blended into Security and FSO which I cover later. There was not much talk about collaboration tools like Webex, though they did say that Webex was remains as a key part of Cisco’s collaboration strategy, which is now able to work seamlessly with Microsoft Teams with their support for Cisco Powered Teams Rooms. Cisco revealed how global organisations like Audi, Carhartt, and MGM Resorts International are using the end-to-end Cisco stack to enable hybrid work and improve productivity.
Journey to Sustainability
Sustainability was a key focus for Cisco, and they publicised a few key initiatives and some major pledges and initiatives to help both Cisco and their customers get greener, recycle more, and ensure sustainability manufacturer, supply chain and lifecycle management. “If you take our technology and put our ecosystem along it, it can help the transition to a modern and low-carbon economy” was a statement given by Cisco Chief Strategy Officer Liz Centoni.
Transform your Infrastructure
Jonathan Davidson, EVP and General Manager of Cisco Networking, announced the launch of Cisco Networking Cloud, a simplified, single cloud network management platform that aims to make cloud networking easier and more secure for organisations. During the announcement he said that Cisco Networking Cloud will provide
Unified experiences across technologies, applications, and networks
Radical simplification through platform consolidation
Cloud-first management with enhanced security and visibility
A simpler design experience with consistent interfaces
Cisco’s claim and message around Cisco Networking Cloud was “If it’s connected – it’s now protected“, and the key focus was about simplicity, with their vision being to bring unified visibility and management covering all an organisations’ technologies, applications, and networks. Cisco said that today, in the most, such unified experiences are being inhibited by operational complexity, but that Cisco is leading the fightback with what he called, “radical simplification“.
Secure your Enterprise
Liz Centoni said, in her presentation that “When it comes to security, we want to frustrate attackers, not users…..giving users safe and easy access to their apps and data“.
Security was the biggest talking point for at the keynote this year and was the topic for the last part of the presentation. The session was led Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s EVP and General Manager of Security & Collaboration. During this part of the keynote, he talked about Cisco’s vision and solutions for network, cloud, and application security. Some of the key points he shared were around how security services needs proper coordination and management to avoid discord and inefficiency – comparing them to an orchestra where everything needs to work in harmony to avoid just being lots of different noises.
Cisco also spoke about the issues and complexities that the traditional patchwork approach of the security has in most organisations and that these point products and solutions typically creates silos and complexity for customers as well increased cost and often areas of little or no protection.
This was used as a hook into announcing Cisco Security Cloud, which is an open, integrated security platform for multi-cloud environments that leverages generative AI capabilities to optimise performance and security of every connection.
Cisco shared how they now observe over four hundred billion security events every day, which provides them intelligence and trends and insights into the threats facing businesses. Cisco talked about the importance of AI within their products sets, which cuts around one hundred billion hours of work in threat detection and mitigation across their customer base.
Cisco emphasised the need for organisations to adopt zero trust and zero friction security, whereby users can connect to any application, from any device, or any network, without compromising on security or having a clunky and difficult user experience. Cisco talked about their Cisco Secure Access, solution – a single sign-on offering that is claimed to “enable seamless connectivity”. Linked to this was Apple iCloud Private Relay an integration with Apple devices and iOS that provides secure access to an organisation’s apps and services with the need to download anything extra on their iOS device. The words “Cisco makes security simple and magical for users” was one of my favourite quotes of the day!
“The world needs security defenses that are completely synchronised, this is what we set out to do – provide a platform for security”
Jeetus Patel | EVP of Security & Collaboration | Cisco
Finally, Cisco talked about the integration of Cisco Secure Access and Thousand Eyes (which is their cloud-based network intelligence platform that provides visibility and insights SaaS applications network performance and user experience. Jeetus Patel, talked about the challenge of securing private and public clouds, which often have different admin consoles, firewalls, and security controls. Cisco said that that their new Cisco Multicloud Defense platform is a new solution that will provide a translation layer to enable seamless communication and unified security across an organisation’s multi-cloud environments.
Cisco also introduced the new Cisco Secure Firewall 4200, a faster (and more energy efficient) offering that improves redundancy and was built alongside their new Multicloud defense platform as well as Cisco SOC Assistant, an AI-powered tool that helps security teams detect and respond to incidents, with optimized remediation tactics.
Did you attend or tune into Cisco Live? What were you most excited about?
Microsoft Teams Meeting recap is now live for both Teams Standard and Teams Premium users. For users with Teams Premium licenses, they also get access to the AI powered “Intelligent recap” feature. In this blog I will cover.
What is Intelligent Recap
What is Teams Premium
How does Intelligent recap work in Teams
How do you summarize a team meeting transcript
How much does Intelligent recap cost?
What is Intelligent recap
Intelligent Recap is a Teams Premium (a service that provides an enhanced Teams experience, including many advanced features including several that use artificial intelligence to provide time saving tasks for meeting organisers and attendees.
Intelligent recap provides AI powered insights, automatically takes notes, recommended tasks, and highlights, as well as creating speaker-indexed video and transcriptions of the recording. It is available to use now for Teams Premium users.
According to research by Microsoft and feedback from their customers, this tool should save people a lot of time since who, more than 55% of people claim that actions and notes are often unclear or inconsistent following a meeting.
What is Teams Premium
Microsoft Teams Premium was released early this year and amongst other premium features, it brings new artificial intelligence powered tools to Teams designed to improve your productivity. The biggest AI feature within Teams Premium is intelligent recap, which after being in preview for while is now generally available.
Intelligent Meeting Recap in Teams Premium
How does Intelligent recap work in Teams
To be able to recap a meeting the meeting organiser (or permitted attendee) will need to ensure they choose (or set to automatic) to record and transcribe the meeting. You also need to have a Teams Premium license.
Intelligent recap is designed to help attendees to catch up on a meeting by reviewing the content, video, key content, and discussion points and to review suggested actions. It also useful for people that were invited to the meeting but were unable to attend and to ensure that everyone has notes from the meeting and are clear on the actions (which it suggests based on the meeting).
Intelligent recap uses Microsoft’s Generative AI to generate meeting notes, recommended tasks, and personalised highlights, which it takes from the transcription it creates.
Intelligent recap also creates personalised timeline markers that are only visible to a specific user. These highlight when someone is specifically mentioned by name, when something is shared by that person and when someone leaves the meeting. This is useful, if, for example, you had to leave an over running meeting because, you can then easily use the recap to catch up on what you missed at the end – particularly if you are given an action.
Intelligent recap also creates speaker timeline markers which make it quick and easy to jump to the most important (or specific parts) of a meeting. They speaker markers show when different people spoke and are organised based on who spoke the most, which is again useful to see the dynamic of a meeting.
Chapters, (which have been delayed but are coming soon), will divide meetings into sections and attempt to organise them by topic – this is currently in testing.
Meeting Recap in Teams “Standard”
It is worth noting that the standard version of Teams does have a meeting recap feature – but lacks the AI powered intelligent notes described above. Instead, the “Recap” tab of a Teams meeting provides links to the meeting transcript, recording, and any notes that were taken manually. You are also able to watch the meeting recording directly within Teams without needing to go to another app or web page. This will also support the new collaborative meeting notes feature when it rolls out in the next month
How do you summarize a Team meeting transcript
To summarise a Teams meeting transcript, you need to make sure the meeting is recorded and transcribed, and you need to have a Teams Premium license assigned.
There are no manual steps needed to summarise the meeting, since the Intelligent Recap feature will work automatically after the meeting ends and after it has processed and analysed the recording and transcription.
One the meeting has finished; you will see a recap tab within the meeting window.
In the Recap panel, you can watch the recorded meeting and access key information such as the agenda, meeting notes, shared content etc. You can also quickly see and navigate to where specific people spoke or where you were mentioned in the meeting for your mentions. You can do that by clicking on the @ over the video window.
The Recap panel is simple to use and very intuitive. From here you can access any notes manually taken during the meeting as well as access the AI notes generated by Teams.
Scrolling down further, shows the AI generated actions that Teams detected or has suggested if not explicitly stated. In my experience these are quite accurate, but it does mistakes – expect it improve over time with more user feedback!
How much does Intelligent recap cost
Intelligent meeting recap is part of Microsoft Teams Premium. Depending on your region and licensing agreement, pricing may vary but RRP is currently on promo for £5.80 pupm. It is due to increase to around £7.
Thanks for reading – as always welcome your comments and feedback.
Everyone has been talking ChatGPT, but here I want to talk about the similarities, differences, and in my view,the HUGE ADVANTAGES OF BING CHAT OVER CHATGPT. Whilst both look similar in the way they work, are both powered by the OpenAI’s Generative AI technology and are conversational based, the speed, accuracy, quality of their responses and capability differs hugely.
Both Bing Chat and ChatGPT are based on the OpenAI GPT technology.
Natural language chatbot ChatGPT, quickly become the focal point in the tech industry since it was annouced and released to the masses at the backend of 2022. Whilst most initially saw it as a “fun way” to write poems, essays, answer exam questions and even generate computer code, 6 months later we are starting to see the true potential of AI as digitial assistants
We now have a plethora of AI tools, with new ones (it feels) coming every day. Outside of this fun stuff, the AI technology behind these tools is capable of so much more, and we are just at the beginning of what will change the way we interface with our devices and apps such as Microsoft Copilot – more on that here:
ChatGPT debuted in Nov 2022, and in Feb 2023, Microsoft their new AI powered version of Bing with Bing Chat being its’ standout feature, powered by the same technology (be it a Peter, better version) behind ChatGPT – a generative artificial intelligence algorithm created by Open AI. Recently Google had also released their AI chat tool Bard, which is not based on OpenAI GPT technology.
ChatGPT debuted in Nov 2022.
In Feb 2023, Microsoft their new AI powered Bing Chat, powered by the technology behind ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence algorithm created by Open AI.
Bing Chat vs ChatGPT – What’s the difference?
Bing Chat and ChatGPT both fall under the category of generative AI, which means they can generate brand-new text that has never been written before.
This kind of AI is useful since rather than leveraging keywords to look for text and return results based on a ranking, it works by providing the answer to the question you ask. Of course, it is only able to do this if it can provide accurate information. To do this is needs access to an entire world of data – like the Internet! So how does it work?
Both Bing Chat and Chat GPT are both built on a large language model (LLM), developed by OpenAI, of which Microsoft now own a majority share.
ChatGPT’s model, known as GPT-3.5, has been trained on billions of articles from across the internet but only as recent as end of 2021.
Bing Chat uses a newer, advanced, GPT-4 language model which can work with more different media types and not just text. Free to use.
ChatGPT offers a paid/premium version of its LLM (also using GPT-4), but it is only available today as a $20 per month subscription service.
The first major advantage of Bing Chat is that it, (since it’s also integrated into their native Bing Search, their Edge browser, and Windows 11), is that it can also search the internet for information and references in real-time. This is a huge advantage, because it’s up to date, but can lead also make it less accurate, since any misinformation it finds upon this search can introduce bias or error into its response. In most cases though, Bing Chat does reference its sources at the bottom of each response, which allows you to quickly verify the Bing’s accuracy and appropriateness by clicking on one of the citations.
Who “knows” more? Bing Chat vs Chat GPT
If you’re looking for information on a technical subject or recent event, Bing Chat will always deliver a higher-quality response as it can search the internet in real time so is “up to date”. ChatGPT does not do as well in recent events as it only has knowledge of events prior up to 2021.
This is the second big win for Bing, since it can be used as a copilot for the Internet, for anything from breaking news headline, shopping, days out, and travel since it does not have date limitations and can use the Internet to keep its LLM up to date.
The third key differentiator between the two is that Bing Chat lets you choose from three modes of conversation – Creative, Balanced, and Precise. Creative mode is closest to ChatGPT’s default behaviour.
More Creative: Longer, more descriptive, and “imaginative” answers.
More Precise: Shorter, straightforward search-focused answers.
More Balanced: Default mode – informative, yet friendly – middle of the other styles.
Visually Speaking | Bing Chat vs ChatGPT
The fourth standout feature for me is that you can use Bing Image Creator to generate images based on text prompts as pictured above. OpenAI does offer DALL-E for the same purpose. However, it’s not integrated within ChatGPT currently. What makes Bing Chat great is that you can use it in the flow of the conversation – or can use Bing Chat to create you an image on the fly. Bing uses also uses OpenAI’s DALL-E AI image generator (it is powered by Bing Image Creator) and has fewer limitations that the official OpenAI DALL-E website.
As shown below, by using the “More Creative” conversation style, you can start with a simple question and then elevate to an image all in the same context and without switching to a different tool.
Where can you use it? Bing Chat vs ChatGPT
ChatGPT launched in late 2022 as a web-based tool and whilst there are a few third-party browser extensions the browser remains the main mode of use.
Bing Chat is free and available to all and accessible via the new Bing home page at https://www.bing.com.
The fifth standout feature for me, is all the other places you can access Bing Chat from. For example, there is a dedicated Bing app, you can access it via the Skype app, directly from the Edge Brower, from the Windows 11 search and via the SwiftKey keyboard app.
Current limitations | Bing Chat vs ChatGPT
Bing Chat is free and available to all and accessible via the new Bing home page at https://www.bing.com. as well as via Skype, Edge, Windows 11 and more. Bing Chat uses he newer, more powerful GPT-4 model and supports image search and image creation.
ChatGPT is also free but available only via the web and is limited to Text and uses GPT-3.5, though you can pay for the premium version ($20 a month) where you get higher-quality responses, thanks to the GPT-4 model and should also get priority access to the service, faster response times, and early access to new features. as they become available.
Bing Chat limits conversation length (currently) to twenty conversations per topic before you need to start again, meaning long back-and-forth conversations may not always be possible. Microsoft says that most people find what they’re looking for within five replies or fewer.
ChatGPT doesn’t have such restrictions and imposes very few restrictions on usage (even the free version), allowing for almost unlimited length conversations.
Bing Chat can understand most major languages including French, German, and Japanese.
ChatGPT will also respond in other languages, but the underlying GPT-3.5 model was primarily trained on English samples and text so responses in other languages are not as accurate.
Bing Chat does not impose limits on use and there is no premium tier. Responses are funded by advertising, meaning you may see ads that show up embedded inside the chat responses. For example, if you ask for holiday recommendations, you may see suggestions from local travel agents.
ChatGPT uses a token system, and you are limited to a set number of tokens per day for the free version. The premium (paid) version removes these limitations. Additionally, ChatGPT does not currently use an advertising model so is cleaner not biased.
So which one? Bing Chat or ChatGPT?
So, ok, I may be biased, but that doesn’t mean I am wrong, but in my experience, Bing Chat offers a far more premium offering over ChatGPT. It is free and is (if you like that), integrated across more of the applications, services, and platforms that you most likely use. My reasons to use Bing Chat are:
Bing Chat can be accessed from Windows 11, Skype, Edge, Bing app and SwiftKey
Bing Chat can search the web – it is natively integrated into Bing Search (the new Bing).
Bing Chat lets you tailor your chat experience – providing a richer experience than ChatGPT.
Bing Chat is not just about text chat, it can use images and even create AI powered images
Bing Chat is uses GPT-4 and is still 100% free. ChatGPT 3.5 is also free but not as good and you have to pay $20 a month to use the better GPT-4 version. So just use Bing!
Questions and Answers
Is Bing Chat the “same” as Chat GPT?
No. While both leverage Open AI’s Chat GPT, Bing AI uses a more advanced model codenamed Prometheus that has more capabilities than ChatGPT. Prometheus is a proprietary technology from Microsoft that uses Bing and GPT to generate responses based on real-time data. Microsoft’s new Bing also leverages real-time information and OpenAI’s next-generation GPT-4 model to generate responses and can also search the internet. You cannot do this with ChatGPT, though there are browser extensions which provide some search functionality.
What does GPT stand for?
GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. “A GPT is a language model that has been trained on a vast dataset of text to generate human-like text. For example, the “Chat” part of “ChatGPT” refers to it being a chatbot”. [source: HowToGeek]
Who Owns ChatGPT?
ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based start-up. The same Large Language Model (LLM) also powers Microsoft’s Bing Chat. Microsoft owns a majority share in OpenAI and is also using the technology along with its propriety Prometheus model to power upcoming features in Microsoft 365 co-pilot.
What’s the difference between Bing Chat and ChatGPT?
Chat GPT uses GPT-3.5. Bing Chat uses, GPT-4 – OpenAI’s latest language model that’s smarter, safer, and more accurate. GPT-4 supports image inputs for the first time, allowing you to submit visual prompts like a drawing, graph, or infographic. GPT-4 is also smarter and more “creative”.
Chat GPT does have a version based on GPT-4 but is a paid-for premium service. Bing Chat uses GPT-4 already. Bing Chat is also integrated into Bing, Edge, Skype, and Windows 11.
What is Generative AI?
Put simply, Generative AI is a term used to describe computer algorithms that can generate text, images, videos, and audio all on their own based on natural language queries.
Before Generative AI, most AI systems weren’t highly creative and would deliver far worse results than a human. However, that’s no longer the case with generative AI. With Generative AI, you can ask an AI tool like Bing Image Creator to create a photorealistic image of a “cute blue AI creature with orange eyes” and it will deliver the results you see above. In this case, the AI has not been explicitly taught or trained to produce this image, it creates a unique image based on what it knows and what it has therefore “learnt” based.
As such generative AI is designed to mimic the way humans perform tasks. The first step is to extract patterns from existing data (the LLM), so if you want an AI that can generate a face for example, you will need a large dataset containing different images of faces. With enough training, the learning algorithm will learn what a face looks like as well as understanding the common features that a face has, such a nose, eyes ears, and lips. From here, it can start working on smaller details like expressions, facial hair, and skin tones to create unique images.
Summary
Hope you found this blog useful and informative and above it, that it’s made you want to try to Bing Chat. As a reminder, here’s how Bing Chat differs from ChatGPT.
ChatGPT and Bing Chat both use GPT as their large language model (LLM), but Microsoft has adopted a more advanced model for Bing Chat which is more accurate and faster (currently) than Chat GPT.
Since Bing Chat is built into Bing Search, the new Chat feature is more up to date that ChatGPT since it can also leverage web results to feeds it LLM. ChatGPT (currently) does not have knowledge of most recent events like up-to-date news.
Bing Chat is available on more platforms than ChatGPT which seamless integration into Edge, Bing Search, Skype and even SwiftKey keyboard for iOS and Android.
Whilst ChatGPT is great with text-based stuff, Bing Chat also has in-built AI image generators powered by Bing Image Creator (try it – it’s awesome).
Bing Chat uses GPT-4 and is free whereas to get equivalent premium access to ChatGPT, you need to pay circa $20 a month which gives you priority usage and other benefits which include GPT-4 LLMs.
Bing provides three different Chat modes (Creative, Balanced and Precise), while ChatGPT does not have any settings or fine-tuning its output and response mode.
Bing Chat always provides links to its’ data sources whereas ChatGPT does not.
Bing Chat supports many non-English languages and is trained on more than English. Whilst ChatGPT can understand non-English languages, its training was primarily on US English words and samples.
Microsoft has announced a new feature to Outlook (initially on the web) that will allow employees to set up their work hours and location (WHL). Originally teased almost 18 months ago, the feature (tagged 88822 in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap) will let users specify the hours they will be working, and if they will be in the office or working remotely.
The feature is rolling out now (May) to preview users and will be generally availability by June 2023.
This comes because, according to Gartner, from the home office to flexible working, to days in the office and to the front line – the way we work continues to change and evolve. There’s more permanence in the flexibility people have come to expect in how they work.
By the end of 2023, 39 percent of global knowledge workers will work hybrid, up from 37 percent in 2022.
Gartner 2023
An “Outlook” for flexible work
With more people working longer days, shorter weeks or flexible hours, employees will be able to specify different working hours per day, or multiple work slots in a day (for example to fit around school / childcare). For those organisations using Microsoft Teams, which have this feature enabled in Outlook, the location status will also be displayed on their Teams profile card.
The new WHL also impacts how “suggested times” work when creating a meeting event in Outlook on the web. Suggested times will take into account the WHL of the attendees before suggesting times when people are available.
Microsoft.
Other employees within the in the organisation will be able to see their team and colleagues, working hours, and whether they are working in the office or remote when using the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook on the web or in the Teams profile card.
Work hours and location in Outlook.
If users don’t set up WHL, nothing will change.
This feature lays the foundational groundwork needed to support the upcoming Microsoft Places.
Setting your work hours and location
To set your work schedule in Outlook on the web, you simply need to:
Select Settings > View all Outlook settings > Calendar.
Choose Work hours and location, and then define your work schedule by choosing days, times, and locations.
When your schedule changes, you can make the changes in the Calendar view in Outlook or directly from within Microsoft Teams.
Viewing others work schedules
You can view others’ locations when scheduling from Outlook or when viewing their profile card in any the Office apps.
From Outlook, when scheduling a meeting, any employee that has set up their work hours and location, will have their work location and availability shown in the Scheduling Assistant, as shown below. This is also great for shift and part time workers.
Semantic Index for Copilot promises to help organisations get ready for AI within their workplace. What is it? How does it work? and Why will we need it?
Last week as part of Microsoft’ annoucement about the next stage of the early previews of Copilot, they also annouced Semantic Index for Copilot, which will allow organisations to better prepare their data and users for Copilot by creating a “sophisticated map” of user and corporate data.
Image (c) Microsoft
This map is formed by encoding and indexing the keyword searches by uses into a vector that combines the phrsses, meanings, relationships and context of the data. This map is used to help Microsoft 365 Copilot to essentially learn more about your organisation (privacy and data protection being preserved of course), allowing it to better respond to user queries or “prompts.”
Available soon (for no additional cost) for Microsoft 365 Enterprise [E3 and E5] customers as well as Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium, it will work with the Copilot subsystem and the Microsoft Graph to create a sophisticated map of all the users, data and content in your organisation. It’s purpose will be to identify relationships between people and data, helping it to create important connections between them. Organisations will be able to use this to test the responses, answers and deductions formed by Copilot to help clean up, secure and better govern data eliminating the “garbage in, garbage out”, ensuring it will be able to deliver relevant, actionable responses to prompts based on data held within the company. This little video from Microsoft helps bring the process to life:
Microsoft video on Semantic Index for Copilot
Copilot’s new Semantic Index feature should help the chatbot locate and fetch the correct data requested by a user rather than spitting out every result based on a keyword search.
As the technology community eagerly anticipates the wider release of Copilot, Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to enhance its functionality and expand its accessibility represent a significant step forward in harnessing the power of AI to empower users and streamline work processes. Last week the early preview was extended to 600 (invite only) organisations across the US.
Microsoft also shared new upcoming improvements to their existing products which will become AI infused. These annoucements include the integration of Copilot into Whiteboard, Outlook, OneNote, Loop, and Viva Learning. They also said that new image generation features powered by DALL-E are coming to PowerPoint.
Finally, a reminder from Microsoft that they are committed to ensure tbeir AI solutions adhere to their strict Responsible AI Standard while providing meaningful benefits to their customers.
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reenfoced our ‘need’ for AI
In order to further remind us, why we lift like Copilot is needed in today’s work environments, Microsoft also revealed the results of their 2023 Annual Work Trend Index.
This report is based on surveys of 31,000 individuals spread across 31 countries. Microsoft’s findings this year indicated that there has been a drastic increae in the volume of assigned work and the pace required from employees. The report claims that leaders, managers and workers are more looking towards AI solutions to reduce their respective workloads, rather than being scared about jobs it may replace.
The work trend index also highlights the following key points..
62% of employees spend unnecessary time searching for information, as well as communicating and coordinating across teams, leaving little focus time
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents noted that they did not find enough time to do their actual job
70% of respondents would prefer delegating some of their workload to AI copilots
With the rise in AI-powered solutions, 49% are concerned about job security
Managers are 2x more likely to empower their employees with AI rather than replace them with it
82% of enterprise leaders believe that their employees will require new skills in this age of AI, including prompt engineering and enhancing their workflows by integrating AI
There has been a 79% year-over-year increase in LinkedIn job postings which have used words like “GPT” and “GAI” (generative artificial intelligence)
Everyone got very excited when Microsoft introduced the world to Microsoft Copilot back in March this year and just yesterday they reached a new milestone, after annoucing a private preview with just 600 global customers.
But… One of the questions I get asked a lot (between colleagues, partners and customers) is “…are there things we need to do to be ready for Copilot when it becomes available”.
The simple answer is yes – if you want it to work as expected
The longer answer is “it depends” on if you plan to use it, how well your current data is structured, organised and governed, and what processes you have in place around user education, training and change management.
Based on the work I have been doing with Microsoft, this list is aimed to provide the key things, suggestions and considerations for IT, managers and leadership on things you’ll want to get ship-shape while we wait for Copilot to be more generally available, which my sources tell me will be late 2023 to Q1 2024.
1. Get your data in shape.
The reason Microsoft 365 is the productivity suite of choice for so many (arguably most) organisations is because it brings together applications, data, groups, users and services into a common and integrated suite, as well as providing thousands of connectors to allow organisations to connect third-party apps and data into mix.
Powered by the Microsoft Graph, Microsoft 365 already has the power to connect people, teams, and organisations across all their apps and services in an intelligent and context aware, with AI powered services scattered across the Microsoft 365 apps and services you use every day….
With Microsoft Copilot….this will move to a whole new level.
Copilot will put conversational AI at the front and centre of every app and service you know and use. Leveraging personal context, re-generative learning and of course the Microsoft Graph, Copilot will make its’ own deductions on what you ask, what you mean, and how you work. Whilst it will learn and evolve, it will of course, still be dependent on your organisational data, and how its structured, governed and secured.
This means if you have say 50 different documents spread out in 15 different locations that talk about your company strategy or business objectives, and only one of them is the up-to-date version. How will Copilot know which version is correct when it needs to surface information based on a request? In the same way, if the management and reporting structure, job titles and other information is incorrect in Azure AD, Copilots’ decisions and advice around people will also likely be incorrect.
To help, organisations get AI-ready, Microsoft have announced that they will soon start to roll out a service known as Semantic Index for Copilot. This is a new service coming to Microsoft 365 which will create a sophisticated map of your data to help you test how Copilot will ingest and act on your data. Image for example a sales manager asking for “FY23 Sales Report,”. Copilot will be data and context aware, meaning that it will not simply look for documents that contain keywords in the filename or text body. Instead, Copilot will try to “understand” and “learn” about who within the organisation produces such reports, when they are shared, and where they are shared to.
Microsoft say that Semantic Index for Copilot will be a vital tool to help organisations ensure that employees will get predicable, relevant, accurate, and actionable responses to their asks of Copilot and will help your organisation to “tweak” their data lifecycle and governance to ensure that the data Copilot acts on is correct and accessible (or not) by the right people.
What should you do? 1. Check and refine your SharePoint and Teams lifecycle, governance and compliance policies 2. Speak to your Microsoft partner about a funded data governance workshop 3. Review and update Active Directory (or connect to HR to ensure these are up-to-date) 4. Look out for the release of Semantic Index for Copilot to "test your data"
2. Get your security in order
In a similar fashion to making sure our data is correct from a version and validty perspective, if we dont get our security and access control polcies in shape, we risk Copilot duiscovering data that a employee or team may not “meant to have access to”.
In the much the same way that the Office 365 apps “discover” the data around you – presenting files that your collegaues and teams are working on together, Copilot will do the same but on a whole new level, as what is searches for, indexes and uses, will be instructed by the user rather than simply surfaced.
Just like the rest of Microsoft 365, Copilot will adhere to the security, privacy, data governance and data sensitivity policies that has been set-up within your organisation, and will not provide information that the user doesn’t have access to. It may suggest for, example, “you dont have access to that, you may need to request this from Pam in accounts”.
The potential problem of course is that many (ok most) organisations have a sprawl of Teams sites, poor or inconsistent data governance, and inadequate user training, meaning that put simply, you may not realise the sheer amount of information and documents that is being shared within your organisation, and more importantly who actually has access to what data and how many copies may exist and where!
We all worry about Security – do we have MFA? Do we have conditional access configured? Are account protected? Is sensitive information protected? etc. We know the slogan “hackers dont hack in, they login” – just imagine if you have Copilot, and a users’ identity gets compromised. They log in, and with Copilot at their fingertips, they don’t need to worry about where stuff is stored as Copilot will do all the discovery for them!
So what can you do? 1. Review and refine your document management, security and privacy policies - perhaps introduce or enforce DLP and Data Classifcation - aka Microsoft Purview 2. Review your security posture, MFA enforcement, risk based conditional access etc 3. Create straightforward instructions and train people where to store documents and how to protect and secure them 4. Run a pilot and look at adoption data loss prevention and information classification to protect sensitive data. 5. Speak to your Microsoft partner about a funded workshop for 1, 2 and 3.
3. Explore, Plan, Experiment – but treat it as organisational change!
The release of Microsoft Copilot is still a little way away (it is a closed Private Preview today with around 600 global organisations) and there are currently no dates on the roadmap for a public preview mainstream release. There is also no pricing yet about pricing.
What we do know is – it is coming and it will fundamentally impact and change how your people and teams will work. Yes, there is still an element of hype, lots of desire to test it out, loads and loads of questions and lots of unknowns.
Communication and training is going to be a key part of sucess. How do you interface with AI? Yes its’ intelligent, but it’s not a human, therefore people need to be taught how to best work with Copilot. Bear in mind most people use around ten percent of the functionality of say Teams (with most just using basic functions like chat and calling), but to get the most from it, users need to know what to expect, how to use it and how the organisation wants (or not) employees to use it…
Create a pilot group and mini success team. Use this team to keep up-to-date with the news and blogs and above all make sure leadership, management and IT are “in the know”.
Start communicating your plans for Copilot and AI in general. Employees will and should have questions. Are there roles that might change or not be needed? Will you stop hiring? Will you wait and see? It will be important to talk to, and listen to employees, and ideally form a “success with AI” unit, bringing people together from different parts of the business, to discover the challenges they face in their everyday work and how they think and hope AI will help them.
Above all – think of this like a project (one of continual change). Depending on your business, AI will have an impact, and the whole organisation will need to understand and embrace this change (once we have it all working of course). Consider an AI abmassador and follow your usual approach to change management with a roadmap, PoCs, pilots and feedback groups so you hit it head on, with ideas, and a solid vision but with room for hiccups, course changes and surprises on the way.
That sounds like a lot - what can we do? 1. Build a success unit (could be a Team site of Viva Community) 2. Get onto early adoptor programmes when availble, go to the AI conferences and start to leverage demos etc when available. 3. Talk to your peers, partners, and Microsoft Team and look out for funded workshops which will likely be available from summer. 4. Read Microsoft's Worklab report on working with next generation AI (it's a good read).
4. Keep Calm – it is coming but there is time to prepare
Microsoft has just announced the launch of their Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program. It’s an invitation-only, paid preview program that’s set to roll out to only 600 clients across the globe at first in the coming weeks.
They say that they have received overwhelming feedback from their initial early preview clients, they have been “testing the concepts” with. They say those clients have indicated huge benefits to business and the ways in which it can transform and reshape work. In recent months, Microsoft have also released further information around how Copilot will will impact other applications such as Viva, Dynamics 365, Teams and more with new capabilities being announced almost weekly.
This new generation of AI will remove the drudgery of work and unleash creativity…There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help alleviate digital debt, build AI aptitude, and empower employees
Satya Nadella |Chairman and CEO |Microsoft
We will know more as we move forward – there are lots of moving parts – previews, public previews, (potentially) governments getting in the way, data soverignty issues (today data is only processed in the US and not local in local geo), licensing prices and of course availabilty….
In fact – this is probably already out of date as its a rapid moving landscape, and this is just the tip of the iceberg and just Microsoft.
What should you do? 1. Keep checking with your Microsoft team,. your partner and the Microsoft 365 Roadmap 2. Start thinking roles that will be positively affected by AI in the workplace. Speak to users, buid your success team. 3. Think about new skills your teams will need to work along side AI. 4. Read Microsoft's Worklab report on working with next generational AI (it's a good read).
What is next in CoPilot?
A good question….
When Microsoft annouced Copilot in March, where they showed the value concepts in apps like teams, Powerpoint and Excel, they said that this was “just the beginning”. Over the last couple of months, Microsoft have continued to tease new Copilot capabilities to bring AI to every part of Microsoft apps and services. The key annoucements (since the actual annoucement include):
Copilot in Whiteboard – which will make Microsoft Teams meetings and brainstorms more creative and effective. Using natural language, you will be able to ask Copilot to generate ideas, organize ideas into themes, create designs that bring ideas to life and summarise whiteboard content.
Copilot in Outlook will offer coaching tips and suggestions on clarity, sentiment and tone to help users write more effective emails and communicate more confidently.
Copilot in OneNote will use prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information to help customers find what they need easily.
Copilot in Loop will helps your team stay in sync by quickly summarising all the content on your Loop page to keep everyone aligned and able to collaborate effectively.
Copilot in Viva Learning will use a natural language chat interface to help users create a personalized learning journey including designing upskilling paths, discovering relevant learning resources and scheduling time for assigned trainings.
Q&A – This will evolve
Question
What we know
Source
Where will the data be processed by Copilot?
Microsoft have said that currently all processing will take place is the US. It will eventually be regionalised based on customer tennant. No time scales yet
May 2023: Microsoft 365 Conference
Will Copilot respect data seciuroty and soverienty?
Yes -Microsoft have made it clear that Copilots’ sphere of access will be limited to the user context in which it runs, goverened by your organisation’s policies.
