Category: Data and AI

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2025 Work Trend Index Report – AI agents will make every employee an “agent boss”.

Microsoft has just released its annual Work Trend Index report, and as anticipated, its focus is boldly centered on the transformative impact of generative AI in the workplace.

The report reveals that we’re on the brink of a paradigm shift where AI will not only reason but will also solve problems in unprecedented ways. Much like the industrial revolution or the dawn of the Internet, Microsoft suggests that a complete overhaul of work practices may take decades to fully materialise.

The annual Work Trend Index conducts global, industry-spanning surveys as well as observational studies to offer unique insights on the trends reshaping work for every employee and leader across more than data from 31,000 workers across 31 countries, LinkedIn labor market trends, and trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals,as well as leading AI-native startups, academics, economists, scientists, and thought leaders.

The full report is in the link below, but I’ve summarised the key insights around how the report claims generative AI is reshaping work and leadership dynamics.

AI’s Transformative Role

  • AI continues to advance in its reasoning and problem-solving ability, with the potential to revolutionise work.
  • Major transitions like the industrial revolution and the Internet took decades and view is that full wide scale AI may follow a similar path.

Immediate Impact of AI on work

Key FindingStats
AI Adoption 82% of industry leaders acknowledge AI is changing work
New Work ModelsThe “Frontier Firm” concept describes organisations using AI-powered intelligence on demand.
New emerging rolesThe rise of “agent bosses”—professionals managing AI agents to enhance productivity.

Productivity Challenges

Challenges from the last 5 years continue to plaugue employees and impact productivity with tech overload and AI is seen as a “potential” to reduce this and bring better focus to information workers.

The report reveals that 80% of the global workforce feels overburdened by constant interruptions—an email, meeting, or ping every two minutes. Consequently, about 82% of leaders plan to harness AI and digital labor within the next 12 to 18 months to alleviate these pressures.

82% of leaders plan to harness AI and digital labor within the next 12 to 18 months to alleviate work and resource pressures.

Bridging Business Needs and Human

  • AI is making intelligence more accessible, shifting focus from headcount to on-demand expertise.
  • It helps close gaps between business demands and human workload.
  • Organisations are urged to invest in adoption training and business process reviews to determine the most optimum areas to leverage AI.
Key Finding% impact
Executives concerned about productivity53%
Global workforce feeling overburdened80%
Average interruption rateEvery 2 minutes
Leaders planning to use AI to improve work82% (within 12–18 months)

Talent, Hiring and Employment Trends

Addressing common concerns about AI replacing jobs, the report delves into LinkedIn data that indicates that top AI labs are hiring at twice the rate of traditional big tech companies. Interestingly, it says that much of this new talent is transitioning from established tech firms, underscoring a dynamic reshuffling of skills and expertise in the workforce.

The report also underscores the necessity for executives to strike the perfect balance between human talent and AI agents. As these digital assistants become ever more integrated into daily tasks, the role of the “agent boss” is emerging leaders who build, delegate, and manage AI agents to magnify their impact and steer their careers in the age of AI.

The report talks of a future where every worker, from the boardroom to the frontline, must adopt a CEO-like mindset for an agent-powered startup, predicting that within five years, 41% of teams will be actively training and 36% managing AI agents.

  • AI labs are hiring at 2x the rate of big tech firms. 
  • Many AI hires come directly from established tech companies.


Human vs. AI Balance in Workplaces

Leadership PerspectiveEmployee Persective
67% of leaders understand AI agents.40% of employees understand AI agents.
79% of leaders believe AI will accelerate careers.67% of employees believe the same.

AI’s current and future role in Work Automation

AI UsageAreas Impacted
46% of leaders use AI agents to fully automate workstreams. Customer service, marketing, product development.
Organisations evaluating human-to-AI balance AI integration must match societal expectations and business needs. |

But…..it states that AI is shifting the global work landscape, demanding strategic adaptation with..

PercentageAreas Impacted
83% of leaders believe AI will enable employees to tackle more complex tasks.
78% of leaders want to recruit for new AI-related roles.  
The report highlights that 67% of leaders are familiar with AI agents compared to only 40% of employees, and 79% believe that AI will accelerate their careers, outstripping the 67% noted for the broader workforce.

What other leaders are saying…

Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft) said publically that AI might eventually perform “most things,”. We have also seen Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff already rethinking his company’s hiring strategies for 2025. This says that as we navigate this transformative wave, company leaders need to carefully consider when and what digital labour can complement, or in some cases, surpass that of human expertise, especially in roles that demand a personal touch or entail significant responsibility.

There is a necessity for executives to strike balance between human talent and AI agents. As these digital assistants become ever more integrated into daily tasks, the role of the “agent boss” is emerging—leaders who build, delegate, and manage AI agents to magnify their impact and steer their careers in the age of AI

Microsoft Work Trend Index Report

Summary

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index report paints a vivid picture of a future in which they show how AI is starting and has the potential to reshape every facet of our professional lives.

It claims that 83% of leaders believing that AI will empower employees to tackle more complex challenges and 78% actively looking to fill new AI roles, the global work landscape is poised for a dramatic evolution—one that necessitates a delicate balance between harnessing digital innovation and preserving the unique value that human insight brings to the table.

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Deep research AI models coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot

As March 2025 comes to an end, Microsoft have unveiled several exciting updates across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and Copilot Studio.

Copilot announcements this week

1. Updates to Copilot Studio Message Rates

Effective April 1, 2025, updated (cheaper) message rates for Copilot Studio will go live. These adjustments cover tenant Microsoft Graph grounding and agent actions (previously known as autonomous actions). The prices of tenant Microsoft Graph grounding and autonomous actions are being reduced from 30 messages and 25 messages to 10 messages and 5 messages respectively, from April 2nd, 2025.

Also coming is Agent flows which allow agent creators to bring Power Automate automation features directly into Copilot Studio to quickly and consistently automate business processes. There will also be new deep reasoning in agents combines reasoning models including Open AI o1 with the ability to access enterprise data to complete complex tasks.

Microsoft are also updating pricing with a new  zero-rating for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users in Microsoft 365 apps and services, ensuring inclusive, seamless integration and cost-effective use of these tools. This means licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot users will not be charged for using agents in their organisation

2. Rule-Based Workflows in Copilot Studio

From April 2025, Copilot Studio will introduce structured, rule-based workflows for agents. This aims to simplify process automation, enabling users to create efficient, consistent workflows with minimal manual effort. Usage of this functionality will contribute to the Copilot Studio meter, encouraging innovation while maintaining transparency in resource utilisation.

3. Deep Reasoning in Copilot Studio

So this is a big one – Microsoft have made deep reasoning capabilities available in Copilot Studio’s public preview from today. This will empowers users to address complex, decision-intensive tasks by leveraging advanced reasoning algorithms.

Whether it’s managing intricate processes or solving challenging problems, this tool offers remarkable precision and depth in its execution.

4. Two new Deep Reasoning Agents

Microsoft announced two new deep reasoning agents—Researcher and Analyst—as part of an early preview which will also be coming “soon” with previews coming in April before wider rollout.

  • Researcher Agent: has been designed for content creation and information synthesis, this agent combines OpenAI’s advanced deep research model with Microsoft Copilot’s orchestration. By integrating Copilot Chat’s web and work grounding capabilities, Researcher enables users to brainstorm ideas, generate high-quality content, and analyze data more effectively.
Researcher Agent in Copilot.
  • Analyst Agent: This is powered by a new reasoning model. the Analyst agent will function as a virtual data scientist and will have the ability to process complex datasets and provide real-time code validation (using Python) and will be able to deliver actionable insights and visually compelling representations of data in minutes.

Microsoft say that these agents will be gradually rolled out to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users through the Frontier program, an early access programme for customers to test out early and new Copilot innovations.

Read more

To dive deeper into these updates, visit Microsoft’s official blog.

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Windows 11 finally gets a native Copilot app.

At the end of Feb 2025, Microsoft gave Apple Mac users with a brand-new native Copilot (consumer) app experience and now after a feeble Web app version, Windows 11 is finally getting a proper one too.

This latest update brings a fully native Copilot app to Windows, delivering a faster, smoother, and visually enriched interface that aligns perfectly with the Windows 11 design language. Yay.

It also has a keyboard shortcut that lets you hold the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds to start chatting to Copilot via voice.

From Web View to Native App

For those who followed the initial rollout, you’ll remember that the original Copilot for Windows was simply a web view of the Microsoft Copilot website. While functional, it left much to be desired in terms of responsiveness and overall polish. 

Copilot App – Webapp to Native App

The new Copilot update transforms that experience completely. By leveraging the native app UI framework, Microsoft has infused the app with features that make the experience feel inherently Windows 11 that is also complete with a sidebar for managing chats, elegant mica blur effects, and native context menus and buttons.

This adherence to the native design not only improves aesthetics but also boosts performance and responsiveness.

What’s New in the Copilot for Windows App?

Enhanced User Interface

  • Native Design Language: The interface now mirrors the sleek, modern aesthetics of Windows 11. 
  • Smooth Interactions: Launching the app is noticeably quicker, and interactions feel seamless thanks to the native integration.

Intelligent Chat Management  

  • Sidebar for Conversations: All your previous chats are saved and easily accessible in a dedicated sidebar. 
  • Instant New Chat: Starting a new conversation is as simple as hitting the new chat button.

Retained and Expanded Functionality 

  • Text and Voice Chat: Continue to interact with Microsoft’s AI assistant using text, or opt for the Copilot Voice for a more dynamic experience. 
  • Customisable Settings: Options include settings to enable or disable launching the app on Windows boot, as well as toggling the alt+spacebar shortcut for quick access.

In short, there’s no real feature changes here – just a native Windows App, ensuring that the native experience makes no compromises on capability and features along with performance and usability improvements of a native app.

First thoughts on the new version

I have to confess—I wasn’t thrilled with the old web view version of Copilot for Windows. It felt like an afterthought compared to its Mac counterpart. This new native experience, however, is a major improvement. The app now inspires confidence in handling everyday AI tasks and is genuinely enjoyable to use. 

Getting the new Copilot App

For Windows Insiders excited to explore this update, the latest version (1.25023.107.0) or higher is now available via the Microsoft Store and should update automatically. The app is rolling out in preview across all Insider channels, inviting users to experience this transformative upgrade first-hand.

As a Microsoft product inside another Microsoft product, the evolution from a mere web view app (which should never have been done in my opinion) to a fully fledged native app that looks and feels like a Windows app not only elevates user interaction but also shows that Microsoft is actually serious about integrating AI seamlessly into everyday computing tasks.

The new Copilot for Windows app also has a keyboard shortcut that lets you hold the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds to start chatting to Copilot via your voice.

Microsoft want your feedback

Microsoft would like feedback too, which you can do by filing feedback in the  Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Apps > Copilot or directly within the Copilot app by clicking on your profile icon and choosing “Give feedback”.

This feedback shapes the future. Whether we can expect more iterative updates, possibly with additional features and enhancements will only happen based on the Microsoft collects feedback from Insiders.

Conclusion

The leap to a native interface is more than just a cosmetic upgrade—it represents a thoughtful stride toward a more integrated and responsive Windows experience. I’m excited to see how this native Copilot app will further inspire productivity and innovation as it evolves.

What are your thoughts on this updated native app?

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Making IT fAIr

Interesting article I read today about how the UK government is looking to change around the use of creative content without authors permission unless they choose to opt out.

The full article is below but in short it sets out these approaches and goals. https://newsmediauk.org/make-it-fair/

Proposal

The Government’s proposal is to change the laws to favour tech platforms, allowing them to use content without permission or payment unless the authors /  creators specifically opt out.

Concerns

Creator and authors are challenging this arguing that this shifts the burden onto them. They believe that tech companies pay for using their content and training models based on their content.

They are urging the  government to enforce copyright laws to ensure fair compensation for creators, securing the future of creativity and AI but in a way that protects the authors and creators of content.

The article calls for UK people to back this plan  urging the UK government to enforce copyright laws to ensure fair compensation for creators and authors.

Where do you stand?

This is a tricky one for me as today, I feel most content LLMs are trained on are US based data sources and I would love to see more content based on UK data (after all I am British). At the same point, if a levvy is introduced and royalties paid a model for recouping costs is needed which may lead to this content being excluded in LLM training. This could lead to more bias and still leave them “out of pocket”.

Welcome your thoughts?

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Copilot in Excel gets new document references features

In an new update announced on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog this week, Microsoft has announced that Copilot in Excel will soon be able to reference documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF formats jyst like the other officee apps can. This enhancement significantly expands the capabilities of Copilot in Excel, making it a more powerful tool for users.

With this update, you can now ask Copilot to perform tasks such as displaying to-do items in a table or organising emails with columns for the sender and subject line. This feature is particularly useful when you need to combine data from various sources, including public statistics from the web, internal documents, organisational details, or tables from another Excel files or contained in Word docs.

Getting Started with the New Feature

To take advantage of this new functionality, you need to meet the following minimum requirements:

  • Windows: Build 17729.20000 or later
  • Mac: Build 24053110 or later
  • Copilot license
  • Web search enabled
  • Stable internet connection

Upcoming Web Version and Limitations

Microsoft has announced that this update will soon be available for the web version of Excel. However, there are some limitations to be aware of. For example, refreshable data imports only work for Excel files with tables stored on SharePoint or OneDrive. Additionally, there is limited support for handling workbook and external data simultaneously.

Recent Updates to Copilot in Excel

Copilot in Excel has received several updates in recent months, further enhancing its functionality. One of my favourite features is the Clean Data feature, which addresses issues such as text and number inconsistencies.

Copilot has been integrated into the Excel start up experience, enabling users to use Copilot to explain what they want to create and receive improvement suggestions.

Looking Ahead: More Features on the Horizon

With Microsoft’s global AI tour taking place in cities around the world, including a stop in the UK on March 5th, we can expect even more exciting features to be announced soon. These updates highlight Microsoft’s commitment to continually improving Copilot and making it an indispensable tool for Excel users.

Stay tuned to my blog for more updates in Copilot and bookmark the Microsoft 365 Road map page.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=%5B”Microsoft+Copilot+for+Microsoft+365″%5D

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Here’s how to save and re-use your Copilot Prompts

Finally, it is here – Microsoft 365 Copilot now lets you save your prompts within Copilot for easy re-use later. Yes – this means you no longer need to save your prompts in separate documents or constantly copying and paste them.

How to save and re-use your prompts in Copilot

  1. Open Copilot chat window in your browser at https://m365.cloud.microsoft/chat/.
  2. Enter your prompt or prompts as usual
  3. When Copilot has completed its response(s), scroll back to your prompt in the chat.
  4. Hover your mouse over the prompt – you’ll see bookmark and link icons appear.

5. Click on the bookmark icon to save the prompt to your library – you can also give it a friendly name to make it easier to find and reuse later.

    Accessing Your Saved Prompts

    Finding your saved prompts is just as easy.

    1. Click on “View Prompts” above the chat box.
    2. In the prompt library popup window, select “Your Prompts.” where you will be presented with a list of all the prompts you’ve saved.
    3. Click on any saved prompt, and it will automatically paste the text into the chat window, ready for you to use again.

    Why this feature matters

    The ability to save and easily access prompts directly within Copilot enhances productivity and streamlines your workflow. It’s a small change with a significant impact, making it easier than ever to manage your prompts efficiently.

    No more hassle, no more copying and pasting—just seamless, effortless prompt management.

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    Microsoft makes OpenAI o1 model free for Copilot users.

    OpenAI’s most advanced AI model “o1” which is known for its problem solving and deeper thinking has been available behind a $20 per month ChatGPT premium subscription. ChatGPT premium gives limited acess for $20 a month and unlimited access for $200 a month.

    Copilot let’s you use it for free.

    Microsoft has a tight partnership with OpenAI and is also on a mission to put their AI (Copilot) across every Microsoft Service it offers with huge capability and features even on theor “free” tiers.

    Copilot Consumer Pro users have had access to Think Deeper (which uses the o1 model) for the past 12 months, but Microsoft have now made this feature free to everyone including those using the free version of Copilot.

    To access it, you need to simply head ovee to Copilot on the web, (or via the mobile app) and ensure you are signed in with a Microsoft account (MSA). You then get completed free access to the Think Deeper search (which uses the o1 model).

    How to get Microsoft Copilot

    To get Copilot, head to the web (you actually find Copilot in the Edge browser) and go to https://copilot.microsoft.com or head over to you phones app store and search for Copilot and install it.

    You need to be signed in with your Microsoft account to use these features.

    Using o1 features aka Think Deeper

    Once in Copilot, use the AI chat as you would before (or like you did in ChatGPT) and you will see a “think deeper” button inside the text input box.

    Using Copilot’s Think Deeper (ChatGPT model o1)

    Selecting it activates the o1 reasoning model. As it processed your prompt, you also get a spinning symbol since searches and responses using o1 are more thorough that with GPT 4 and typpically take around 30 secs.

    Using Copilot’s Think Deeper.

    This is Microsoft’s way of letting you know that you’re in for around a 20-30 seconds wait. If you don’t need deep search so for normal use), toggle this back off to go back to the super fast GPT-4o version…

    So what can o1 do then?

    The deep thinker feature of Microsoft Copilot is much better for more complex tasks and research due to the o1 model ability for in depth reasoning. 

    As such it is simply better for solving complex issues like math, logic or science, for analysing or creating long or richer documents and reports or for code creation and debug. The best way to test this is to run two Copilot Windows side by side and test out the same prompt with and without Think Deeper enabled.

    Content created with o1 is also more “accurate” with far less AI hallucinations (aka, making things up).

    Why do many GPTs Hallucinate? In general, GPT models learn by mimicking patterns in their training data (huge amounts of data). The o1 model uses a different technique called reinforcement learning, whereby it's language model works things out (though it's training) by rewarding the right answers and penalising wrong ones. This takes longer through the iterative and testing process. Once done the model  moves through queries in a step-by-step fashion much like human problem  solving.

    o1 limitations?

    It is worth noting that o1 isn’t quite on the same level as ChatGPT in some areas. It is less effective with factual knowledge and is currently less able to search the Internet and cannot process files and images.

    What about DeepSeek?

    The big story this week has of course been DeepSeek, a controversial Chinese AI firm that has announced and launched their own GPT-4 and o1 rivals that have been supposedly built at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI, Google and other US models, shaking share prices, disrupting the market and rasing many questions.

    What is more is more is that DeepSeek models are claimed to be more advanced and faster than GPT-4o and smarter that o1.

    The advent of DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the tech industry. Global stock markets have reeled, sparking a cascade of investigations and looming threats of bans.

    Yet, the bot hasn’t been without its champions. Interestly, Microsoft – OpenAI’s top financial invester and partner  – has already embraced the DeepSeek R1 reasoning model, and has integrating it into Azure AI Foundry and also GitHub.

    These platforms, beloved by developers for fostering advanced AI projects, now stand as the new playground for DeepSeek’s innovative potential.

    DeepSeek logo

    Open AI Strikes Back

    In the wake of its free mobile app’s viral triumph, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman swiftly revealed plans to accelerate the rollout of new releases to keep ahead of its new Chinese competitor.

    OpenAI are not standing still either though. Et the end of December 2024, month, they began  trialing twin AI models, o3 and o3 mini. Remarkably, the former has surpassed o1 in coding, mathematics, and scientific capabilities, marking a significant advancement in their AI prowess.

    There is no doubt this is an area that doesn’t stand still. By the time I click publish this post will likely already be out of date!

    DeepSeek has certainly ignited an even greater sense of urgency within the already dynamic AI sector which moves and evolves on an almost daily basis.

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    Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat: Everything you need to know including features, agents, pricing, and how to access it.

    Copilot Chat on a Phone

    Microsoft announced last week (15th Jan) that Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is coming to every Microsoft 365 Commercial Customer regardless of whether or not they have paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses and what’s more we now get access to use agents with company data grounding support. Along with it comes a new pay-as-you-go tier that allows employees to access everything from chatbots to agents without the need for a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

    While Microsoft is still confident that the full Microsoft 365 Copilot remains “our best in class personal AI assistant for work“, the new pay-as-you-go tier means organisations can start using the technology at a much lower entry point and look to address key business cases rather than going full in on Microsoft 365 Copilot. .

    “Copilot Chat enables your entire workforce — from customer service representatives to marketing leads to frontline technicians — to start using Copilot and agents today”.
    Jared Spataro | Chief Marketing Officer | AI at Work | Microsoft.

    What is Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat?

    Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is Microsoft’s AI-powered chat feature designed to empower every person in every organisation to leverage Generative AI to make their “work lives easier and more efficient”.

    For the employee, Microsoft Copilot Chat is a “personal assistant” they can chat with to get get answers, understand things better and get things done faster. Copilot Chat is It’s part of the broader Microsoft 365 Copilot suite but focuses specifically on enhancing communication and collaboration through chat.

    How is Copilot Chat Different from Microsoft 365 Copilot?

    The main differences between Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot is three-fold.

    1. Chat within Microsoft 365 Copilot provides work-grounded chat which means that Copilot can reason over data within your Microsoft 365 organisation such as files, SharePoint sites, your OneDrive, people (within Entra ID), your meetings, chat and email etc. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat cannot access this data unless you “paste” into a chat window.
    2. Copilot within the Office 365 Apps such as Outlook, Teams, Excel, Word etc is only available with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
    3. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a paid add-on, where as Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is included for free within your core Microsoft 365 licensing.

    Microsoft Copilot Chat – Beyond Web Grounded Chat!

    I’m personally not a fan of the name Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat because I do think it confuses people. The point I want to bring out here and why this was worthy of a post, is that previously, Copilot Chat (as it was called) only had access to data on the web and did note have the ability to leverage any of the new AI features such as Agents.

    This has now changed. As the table above shows, with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, organisation will be able to create agents that do have access to data stored or connected to your Microsoft 365 tenant and also (and this is big) the ability for organisations to build and use autonomous agents (agents that can operate independently of a user).

    The use of these new AI capabilities are paid for using a PAYG model. This means non Microsoft 365 Copilot users will have access to AI agents (for example in SharePoint) even if they themselves do not have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

    What does Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat Provide?

    Key Features of Microsoft 365 Copilot

    1. Copilot Chat
      • Free, secure AI chat powered by GPT-4 and GPT-4o.
      • Ability to use Copilot Agents for automating tasks directly in the chat.
      • Support for file uploads in chat for summarising documents, analysing data, and suggesting improvements.
    2. Support for Copilot Pages
      • Collaborate in real-time with AI and team members.
      • Integrate content from Copilot, files, and the web.
      • Create AI-generated images for campaigns and social media.
    3. Agents
      • Ability to create and use agents using natural language to automate repetitive tasks.
      • PAYG / metered pricing for agents with IT control over deployment and management rather than requiring all users to have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
    4. Copilot Control System
      • Enterprise data protection (EDP) for privacy and security.
      • Enables IT to better govern access, usage, and lifecycle of Copilot and agents.
      • Allows for measurement and reporting capabilities just like other Copilot Services.

    Use Case Examples

    A couple of use case scenarios are;

    1. A customer service rep can ask a customer relationship management (CRM) agent for account details before a customer meeting.
    2. A service or field service agent can access step-by-step instructions or real-time product information from information stored in SharePoint or Dynamics 365.
    3. A sales person can get help with positioning a product based on information on solution propositions or marketing collateral.

    How much does it cost?

    Understanding the charges is not super straight forward to map. For comparison though, a Microsoft 365 Copilot license costs around $30 per user per month, so use this as a basis for comparison.

    In another blog post, Richard Riley, General Manager of Power Platform at Microsoft said that “usage of agents is measured in ‘messages’ and the total cost is based on the sum of messages used by your organization.“

    So what does that mean? Well, Microsoft now offers two ways for organisations to access the pay-as-you-go version of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat:

    1. Track each “message” sent to the AI whereby each message costs $0.01, billed monthly.
    2. Pre-buying a pack of messages. This works a bit like a mobile data plan. As an example, you can buy 25,000 messages for $200 a month

    The actual cost vary based on the type of response you need with responses that need generative AI costing more than responses that don’t.

    • Web-based answer: Free / no-cost
    • Classic answer: 1 message
    • Generative answer: 2 messages
    • Answers pulling data from company’s own systems (e.g., SharePoint): 30 messages

    This paid capability is of course optional and organisations can decide whether to turn it ‘on’ or ‘off’ in Copilot Studio.”

    Riley introduced the concept of “autonomous actions,” describing them as “generatively orchestrated triggers, topics, data connectors, and workflows, visible in the activity map displayed in generative orchestration mode“.

    These are also available as pay-as-you-go, with a cost of 25 messages each time they act.

    Here’s some costed use examples…

    • An agent answering customer questions online could use 500 classic answers and 2,000 generative ones, costing $45 for those 4,500 messages.
    • Another agent answering HR questions internally using Microsoft Graph data might use 200 generative and 200 tenant Graph messages, costing 6,400 messages or $64 for the day.

    This approach allows businesses to fine-tune their AI usage to meet their specific needs, addressing concerns about the high costs of deploying these tools across enterprises. It also helps cost modeling certain scenarios much easier and provides an alternative to just giving every person a $30 per month Copilot License.

    Using Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

    Assuming IT have enabled this in your environment, you can try this by navigating to https://m365copilot.com or by downloading the Microsoft 365 Copilot App from your preferred app store.

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    Comparative Analysis of Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI and Cisco AI Defense

    Introduction

    The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into enterprise environments has introduced new security concerns. As adoption of AI continues at “cautious” pace, organisations must ensure the safety of the hundreds of AI apps that employees use (or try to use) sanctioned or unsanctioned as well as any AI applications built or customised by the organisation. This affects both data governance, exposure, and leakage as well as compliance.

    Last week, Cisco announced the upcoming availability of their new AI Defense Service. Whilst other provides claim similar protections, Cisco AI Defense is different. This blog aims to provide a comparison between this new service from Cisco and Microsoft’s Defender for Cloud and AI product.

    I have aimed to not only compare their key features, similarities, and differences, but also to look at how both offerings can indeed help organisations based on specific business scenarios and needs.

    Cisco AI Defense

    Overview

    Due to be released in March 2025, Cisco’s new AI Defense works slightly differently to Microsoft’s offering and is focused on securing AI applications throughout their entire lifecycle. AI Defense integrates with Cisco’s extensive network infrastructure portfolio providing specialised AI security measures. 

    Business and technology leaders can't afford to sacrifice safety for speed when embracing AI. In a dynamic landscape where competition is fierce, speed decides the winners. Fused into the fabric of the network, Cisco AI Defense combines the unique ability to detect and protect against threats when developing and accessing AI applications without tradeoffs". Jeetu Patel | Exec VP | Cisco.

    Whilst not released yet, it will I have based this product release information I have read.

    Cisco AI Defense focused on two primary areas of protection.

    1. Accessing AI Applications: Recognising that whilst third-party AI applications can significantly boost productivity but may pose risks such as data leakage or malicious downloads. Cisco AI Defense is designed to give IT and SecOps full visibility into app usage and can enforce policies to ensure safe, secure access.
    2. Building and Running AI Applications: Cisco acknowledge that developers require the freedom to innovate without worrying about vulnerabilities or safety issues in their AI models. AI Defense discovers your AI footprint, validates models to identify vulnerabilities, and applies guardrails to enforce security measures in real-time across both public and private clouds

    Key Features

    • End-to-End Protection: Protects both the development and use of AI applications, ensuring safety and security throughout the AI lifecycle.
    • Network-Level Visibility: Leverages Cisco’s unmatched network visibility and control to detect and protect against threats.
    • AI Model and Application Validation: Identifies potential safety and security risks with automated vulnerability assessments.
    • Real-Time Protection: Offers robust real-time protection against adversarial attacks, including prompt injections, denial of service, and data leakage.
    • AI Cloud Visibility: Automatically inventories AI models and connected data sources across distributed environments.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI

    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI is designed to offer comprehensive security for AI applications and cloud services. Being a Microsoft product, it integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 and their wider cloud ecosystem, providing robust threat protection and security posture management. It also supports multi-cloud environments making it suitable for enterprise organisations.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI’s primary protection areas are based upon:

    1. Threat Protection and Security Posture Management: Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI provides real-time threat protection for AI workloads and visibility into AI components, identifying vulnerabilities and offering built-in recommendations to strengthen security.
    2. Integration and Continuous Monitoring: It integrates with Defender XDR for centralised alerts and continuous monitoring, ensuring security measures are enforced across hybrid and multicloud environments.

    Key Features

    • AI Threat Protection: Provides real-time threat detection for generative AI applications, including data leakage, data poisoning, jailbreak, and credential theft.Real-time identification and mitigation of threats to generative AI applications.
    • AI Security Posture Management: Continuous monitoring and management of the security posture of AI applications, with automated vulnerability discovery and remediation recommendations.
    • Cloud App Security: Protection for SaaS applications, offering visibility into cloud app usage and protection against threats.
    • Prompt Evidence: Includes suspicious segments from user prompts and model responses in security alerts.
    • Extended Detection and Response (XDR): Integration with Defender XDR to centralise AI /workload alerts and correlate incidents for efficient incident management.
    • Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem: Seamlessly integrates with Azure, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft security solutions and workloads.

    Comparative Analysis

    In short, both Microsoft and Cisco are providing products which complement their wider security portfolios to help customers better protect their organisations in the rapidly evolving world and adoption of AI technologies.

    Similarities

    • AI Security: Both solutions focus on helping organisations secure AI applications and provide end-to-end visibility into their AI workloads.
    • Real-Time Threat Detection: Each offers real-time threat detection and protection, ensuring prompt identification and mitigation of security threats.
    • Integration with respective Ecosystems: Both solutions integrate with their respective broader security ecosystems (Cisco for Cisco products, Microsoft for Microsoft products).

    Differences

    Whilst both focus on security across the customers domain with a focus on understanding and protecting against (and keeping control of) AI based applications, there are clear, there are some subtle and unique differences.

    Scopes of Use

    Cisco AI Defense Specialises more in securing AI applications throughout their lifecycle including home grown developed services, where as Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI is more focused on providing comprehensive security for both AI applications and SaaS applications.

    Platform Integration

    Cisco AI Defense provides deep integration with Cisco’s network infrastructure and other Cisco security products. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI has seamless integration with the wider Microsoft’s ecosystem, including Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics, Power Apps as well as being part of the wider Microsoft security solutions.

    Capabilities

    Cisco AI Defense places a key emphasis on AI-specific security measures that include automated vulnerability assessments and real-time protection against adversarial attacks.

    Whilst similar in approach, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI offers broader security features, including threat protection for both AI and cloud services, and integrates with Microsoft’s XDR for centralised incident management.

    When to choose which?

    When to choose Cisco AI Defense

    • Best For: Organisations with a significant focus on AI development and deployment, particularly those heavily invested in Cisco’s network infrastructure.
    • Primary Benefits: AI model validation, runtime protection, and extensive integration with Cisco’s network and security products.

    When to Choose Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI

    • Best For: Organisations utilising a mix of AI and SaaS applications, especially those heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem (Azure, Microsoft 365, etc.).
    • Primary Benefits: Comprehensive threat protection, tight integration with Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365 and existing Microsoft security solutions.

    Case Scenario: Ficticous Enterprise Organisation

    Customer Profile: “A large enterprise organisation with a complex infrastructure, several hundred applications (mainly SaaS) as well as in-house and hosted custom applications running in Public Cloud (Azure), mix of productivity tools (Microsoft 365), AI-powered assistants (Microsoft Copilot and Chat GPT), multi-campus network environment (Cisco Meraki), Cloud Voice (Microsoft Teams), Space Management Tools (Cisco Spaces) and network performance monitoring (Cisco ThousandEyes).

    Organisation  has and uses Microsoft 365 E5. They have a contact centre based on Cisco Webex and use Microsoft Teams Meeting Rooms with Cisco endpoints. User devices as mix of Lenovo and Surface. They also use Cisco Duo. They have a Cisco EA.

    They are in the middle of a Microsoft 365 Copilot pilot with around 20% of their organisation but aware that some other departments may have other shadow AI tools. They are also looking at building their own apps that will use a magnitude of AI agents and connectors.”

    Cisco AI Defense vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI

    Given the complex infrastructure and diverse applications of this large enterprise organisation, the differences, strengths and similarities of each really stand out. Appreciating this a “made up” organisation, you can see where and why each product has its strength and merits.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI

    Given the extensive use of Microsoft services and the presence of Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI is highly recommended. It offers comprehensive security coverage for both AI applications and SaaS applications, integrating seamlessly with the existing Microsoft ecosystem. The core services are also included within the Microsoft 365 E5 subscription.

    Key Benefits:

    • Broad Threat Protection: Covers both AI applications and cloud services, ensuring robust security across the organization.
    • Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem: Seamless integration with Azure, Microsoft 365, and the organisations other Microsoft applications and security solutions.
    • Centralised Management: Facilitates centralised management and monitoring, improving operational efficiency.

    Cisco AI Defense

    Considering the organisation’s significant investment in Cisco networking solutions and the presence of Cisco Meraki, Cisco Spaces, and Cisco ThousandEyes, Cisco AI Defense is also recommended. It provides specialised AI security measures and integrates well with Cisco’s network infrastructure.

    Key Benefits:

    • AI-Specific Security: Focuses on securing AI applications throughout their lifecycle, providing tailored protection.
    • Deep Integration with Cisco Infrastructure: Enhances overall network security by integrating with Cisco’s network and security products.
    • Real-Time Protection: Offers robust real-time protection against adversarial attacks, ensuring continuous integrity of AI operations.

    Combined Approach

    Given the organisation’s diverse IT infrastructure and the need for comprehensive security, a combined approach using both Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI and Cisco AI Defense is advisable. This dual solution ensures that all aspects of the IT infrastructure are covered, from AI applications to cloud services and networking.

    By leveraging both solutions, the organization can achieve a robust, integrated security framework that covers all their IT needs, ensuring comprehensive protection and efficient management.

    Budget and Management Considerations

    • Budget: While using both solutions might seem costly, the investment is likely justified by the enhanced security and centralised management capabilities.
    • Management: Both solutions offer centralised management, making it easier to oversee and control security measures. The tools are managed across the respective product suites which are already in use within the organisation minimising additonal admin / sec ops over head.

    Conclusion

    Cisco AI Defense and Microsoft Defender for Cloud and AI are both robust solutions tailored to different security needs and infrastructures. Understanding their strengths and integration capabilities allows organisations to make informed decisions, achieving comprehensive and integrated security frameworks.

    Cisco AI Defense is new and will be available in March 2025, so please do let me know if I’ve missed anything obvious…

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    Microsoft 365 Personal, Home and a Family get Copilot for three….

    Microsoft 365 Price Rises

    In a move that perhaps comes as no surprise, Microsoft has revealed a small $3 price increase per use (the first in 12 years) but is including Microsoft 365 Copilot (previously a $20 add on) to these subscriptions, which enables users to leverage Copilot in Office apps without needing a separate Copilot Pro subscription. But there is catch… See later.

    I’ve not seen UK pricing as yet, but starting soon, consumers will soon see a new price of $9.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Personal and $12.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Home.

    It’s not actually about Copilot through…

    Oddly, Microsoft says the price increase is not actually about Copilot inclusion buy it more about aligning the prices with new features that have been added over the years such Microsoft Designer and Clipchamp, both of which have extensive AI capabilities.

    Or is it…

    Microsoft are offering anyone who’d rather stick to the old plan the option to buy what they new call their “classic sub tier which won’t include Copilot, but just a limited time. This, I believe will be offered as a downgrade option but will only be available for a limited time.

    So… If the classic tier doesn’t include Copilot… Is the price hike about Copilot or not.. What do you think?

    So what is included for Copilot in Personal and Home subscriptions?

    With the introduction of Copilot, Microsoft 365 apps are getting a significant upgrade. Here’s a breakdown of the new features you will get

    Word

    Here we get Draft and Chat capability in Word. In draft mode you can create/ generate text from within the Copilot pane directly in Word. This works for new and existing documents and also allows your to rewrite taxt, expand on it, condense it and more. Chat mode on the other hand acts as your Word AI assistant. It can summarise and explain text, paragraphs or whole documents, suggest changes and also. Help you discover Word features such as formatting or just help you to learn new features.

    PowerPoint

    Here we get similar capabilities to Word. Copilot can create, restructure, change and enhance PowerPoint presentations from scratch based on user-provided criteria. It can also analyse existing Word documents (and other uploaded files) and generate a complete presentation from the information contained within it.

    Excel

    With most people using just a tiny fraction of what Excel can do, Copilot in Excel will help anyone analyse tables, highlight data correlations, suggest and help with new formulas based on your natural written queries, and can also generate insights to help you better reason over tables data and even entire workbooks.  It is also really great for helping you format and organise data, create visualisations, and even teach you (or write) formulas for you.

    OneNote

    One of my favourite apps, Copilot here can assist in drafting ideas, plans, and organising information within your Notebooks. Copilot can also format content and create lists according to your criteria. What’s great is it can also do the woith your hand written notes (for those like me that use OneNote on my tablet). I find it great for handwritten meeting notes or interviews in that Copilot can then write my notes up professionally for me!

    Outlook

    Load of useful abilities for Copilot here in Outlook and one I think most people will use alot. Copilot in Outlook can summarise emails from friends, family, and colleagues which is nice for long email chains you have just been forwarded!

    It’s also great for helping you to draftnand write an ew email or response to an email based on specific tones, lengths, and formats you set.It can also help coach you by reviewing what you have written and suggesting changes.

    Copilot can pull information from other emails to provide context in threads, making it useful for managing multiple email chains.

    What about Copilot Pro?

    Despite the price increase, Microsoft is limiting Copilot usage under the Home and Personal subscriptions through monthly AI credits which are automatically applied to your account and reset each month (think mobile data tarrifs). They have not yet shared (that I have seen anyway) how many AI credits will be given each month.

    Microsoft also offers Copilot Pro which is currently $20 /£19 a month which brings the same features as above but gives unlimited access to Copilot in Office, plus what they call boosts for image creation in tools like Designer.

    I’m hoping this also gets a price reduction as it suddenly seems quite pricey for the additional capacity rather than entire features.

    Conclusion.. Yes please!

    To me I can’t wait  to see this come to Family accounts because for me today, if I want Copilot Pro in Office for all 4 members of my family, I need to pay $80 a Month! This makes is so much more affordable and a no brainier.. bringing AI tools to its 84 millions consumer users and at a much more digestable price that with Copilot Pro.

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    Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption: Practice Makes Perfect

    As we all get back into the flow of work following the Christmas and New Year break, Microsoft continue to announce new features for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

    Microsoft 365 Copilot has been available to “everyone” to buy and use now for a year now and it’ actually hard to conceive that it only actually ben 12 months! That said, I know hundreds of organisations that are using it every day and getting a great experience from it. I also know others (and people in my own organisation that have a bit more of a “hmmmmm and it’s ok” mindset to Copilot.

    As I head back into my first full week at work with Copilot at my side, it’s worth looking at just how far it has come. From taking notes and summarising content, helping me catch up things I have missed (or forgotten) and evening being my companion to help me thrash out ideas, explain things, get a different opinion – Copilot is by my side.

    Copilot is like that tireless colleague who’s always ready to lend a hand, doesn’t get tired, doesn’t take a lunch a break and doesn’t need to pop out for a coffee when I need it! I often describe Copilot as a drunk intern, in that it adds huge amounts of value to my day, but it doesn’t solve every work problem, nor can it assist with every task. It can’t make decisions for me, do my executive reports, remember to do things for me (there’s other tools for that) and can’t actually do my job for me. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a tool, a powerful tool, but like any tool, its effectiveness hinges on how you use it and more importantly how you don’t!

    Having helped many customers and seen the results it can have, as well as my own experience of integrating Copilot into my daily work (and personal online life) routine, it takes time. It not as simple as allocating a licensing and clicking the Copilot button. Good adoption and useful results require practice (lots), sharing what works, and an understanding of its capabilities and limitations. In this blog. I share a few little tips we have learned on the way, coupled with some tips to see value every day.

    1. Results may not be instant – Practice makes perfect

    You may hear people say “it is rubbish” or “it didn’t do what I thought”, or “Copilot can’t help me in my job”.

    This is sometimes true, but nearly all of the time, it is simply not! Copilot can certainly help you brainstorm ideas, answer questions, explain content and even get a third person review on something you have created, but it it is not going to transform you into a master mathematician, coder, web designer or salesman overnight.

    Like learning a new musical instrument (my son is learning the trumpet at the moment) or a language, it takes time (and patience) to get the hand of pretty much any tool.

    Success comes (and I see it every day) by embrace the learning curve, trying new things and giving yourself room to grow alongside this technology which is constantly evolving and improving. Working with Generative AI is a totally different way of working with technology so give yourself time to work with it. There is no AI Natives (yet!).

    2. Don’t get fired – Copilot for everyone but not for everything!

    Think of Copilot as your co-pilot, not as the captain of your work. Copilot is there to assist you in what you do but not to take over. While it might draft a great email or executive summary, help you expand on a point or explain something, only you (as the Pilot) can ensure it aligns with your objectives and ask and that what it produces resonates with your audience.

    Remember you are accountable for what Copilot produces for you – Copilot is the co-pilot. You are always in command. Copilot will remind of this, but do. Check the content, is it what you needed and asked for. Does it seem correct, read well and has it used the right content and context. If Copilot get’s it wrong, its your block on the line not Copilot’s.

    Your expertise and personal touch are irreplaceable, and you are still responsible for what it produces. Don’t look silly buy not checking what it produces!

    3. Remember you are human – It is not!

    The Human Touch is everything. For example, when using Copilot to write or reply to a sensitive email, or when writing a personal response to something, Copilot can absolutely provide you with a solid starting point or provide guidance on how to write it.

    We have all read those emails comms that are so obviously written by AI. It’s easy to spot an email from someone you know that has clearly left AI to write for them!

    Empathy, nuance, and authenticity and the way in which you communicate is what makes you. It’s important to use what Copilot (or an AI) creates as a draft or a guide and ensure you inject your personality and insights to make your communication truly impactful and truly you.

    4. Copilot is not a mind reader – be clear in your asks

    Copilot doesn’t inherently understand the nuances of your specific situation, so back to my drunk intern analogy, you need to give it context around what you want your assistant to do.

    Copilot can “summarise a report” but won’t know how you would like this summarised, the tone you woudl like, who you are summarising it for and how long you want it unless you tell it. Be explicit about the how you want the output (the goal), the context of what you need, and your expectations for how you want the output to be presented.

    Remember the formula for Copilot promoting is G.C.S.E – Goal, Context, Expectations and Source.

    5. Don’t leave sensitivity to chance

    Microsoft 365 Copilot will adhere to your company identity and access management, respect DLP policies and even understand sensitivity labels if they are used.

    Many organisations however do not use these (though are starting too), but regardless, make sure you check that you are not feeding Copilot confidential customer information when creating responses for other customers or sharing internal information that is not supposed to be shared.

    People get scared that Copilot may share sensitive information. Since Copilot is the assistant and not the author, you are responsible for checking that the data you have fed it (or referenced) can be used and shared externally.

    There are new tools coming to help users better protect privacy and for IT / Sec to control what Copilot accesses, but it’s still “on you”. Remember Copilot can’t get the sack – you can!

    6. Copilot will not replace learning but it can help you learn.

    Some like to portray that they are an expert over night with AI tools like Copilot. Sure Copilot is great at simplify complex concepts or helping you know how to do something in say Excel or Word. Copilot is also really great at helping you understand seomthing, can explain something complex “as if i am a 10 year old” and so on, but it’s not a substitute for your own learning journey.

    That said, I find Copilot is great for helping you to learn something. It can help you “learn” the basics about a topic, put things into different perspectives, and even help map learning paths and helps you find resources. At the end of the day, it is still you that will learn what you are learning, but Copilot is really great at helping you learn in your way…

    7. Copilot has an appauling memory

    One fo the things Copilot is really bad at (by design currently) uis remembering things. This mean that not only will it not ask you how that report went, or if your customer replied to the email it helped you write.

    In fact Copilot cannot (currently) evcen remeber past convrsations or preferences so once you “start a new conversation”, all history of that task you were working are forgotten.

    As a tip – I tend to have a couple of chats running in parallel so I can switch between contexts as I need to. ChatGPT now has this capability to imagine* it is only time before this comes to Microsoft 365 Copilot

    8. The Roadmap is every changing

    The last time I looked, there was 112 new features in development and 18 that are currently “rolling out”. This AI technology is evolving rapidly and Copilot is no exception.

    New features and improvements roll out regularly. It’s worth checking on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap from time to time to ensure you stay informed about what is coming. There are also a plethor of blogs like this one, user communities, webinars and formal training to help you stay abreast of the latest innovations and tips.

    Knowledge is power – the more you know, the more you can leverage Copilot to your advantage.

    9. Integrate Copilot into your daily routine

    Consistency is key. Copilot really adds avlue when you use it little and often and when it’s seamlessly woven into your daily workflow. Here are some reaaly simple habits to form:

    • Start your week with a recap: Use Copilot to remind you of any emails you did not repond to last week from your peers or boss, to prepare you for your upcoming meetings, or to sugegst a date your team (rememeber it knows who works for you) are available for an afternoon off-site.
    • Start Your Day with Copilot: Use Copilot in the morning to outline your your day, important tasks or get you up-to-date on something. You will soon be able to schedule Copilot to do certain tasks for you.
    • Catch on and control your meetings: One of Copilot’s hero capabilities is to help ypou catch up on a meeting you missed, take notes for you in a meeting and even help keep the meeting flowing.
    • Remeber your GCSEs: Before engaging with Copilot, know what the Goal is you are trying to achieve. Give Copilot context on how you wnat it done and ensure it knows what you expect. Clear questions yield better answers.
    • Share and Collaborate: Encourage your team to adopt Copilot and share tips. Collective learning amplifies benefits.

    The true power of Copilot lies in how you incorporate it into your daily routine:

    10. Don’t Give up

    You may not always get the instant results, don’t give up. Ttry again, ask others what works for them and check out help and guidance. There’s loads.

    • Stay Curious and ensure you experiment with different prompts and functions. You might discover new ways Copilot can assist you.
    • Reflect Regularly by taking time to assess how Copilot is impacting your work. Adjust your approach as needed to maximise benefits.
    • Share your success so other can benefit from what you have learned and what works best for you.

    Final Tips

    Microsoft 365 Copilot is a remarkable assistant that can amplify your productivity, spark innovation, and even make mundane tasks more manageable. But remember, it’s a tool designed to enhance your capabilities – not replace them. By using it thoughtfully, staying informed about its features, and integrating it into good work habits, you can unlock its full potential.

    Technology is a force multiplier, but it’s the human element that truly makes the difference. Copilot offers incredible capabilities, but it’s up to you to wield them effectively. Use it wisely, continue to learn, and keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Your proactive engagement and thoughtful application are what turn a powerful tool into transformative results. So take charge, embrace the technology, and watch how it elevates the work you do every daym, little my little, bit my bit can make a huge difference in a week.

    Oh and don’t forget to share your successes with others.

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    Phi Silica SLM coming to Windows Runtime and Copilot PCs

    At CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft’s head of Windows devices, Pavan Davuluri, announced that Phi Silica, a Small Language Model (SLM), will be integrated into the Windows runtime as part of Copilot in the first quarter of 2025 to provide offline use and performance boosts whilst also paving the way for additional features and privacy enhancements made possible through local processing.

    What’s a Language Model?

    Before diving into the details, it’s important to understand what a language model is. Language models are designed to comprehend, generate, and perform human-like language tasks, having been trained on vast amounts of data. However, not all language models are the same – they come in different sizes, large and small, each with unique strengths and weaknesses tailored to specific requirements.

    The main differences between small and large language models lie in their size, capabilities, and resource requirements.

    • LLMs are ideal for applications needing high accuracy and versatility, such as advanced search, chatbots and content generation.
    • SLMs are generally more suited for specific, lightweight applications, like mobile apps and edge devices and laptops such which have local NPUs like Copilot+ PCs.

    SLMs are coming to Windows 11

    The Phi Silica SLM, which was first showcased at Microsoft Build in Seattle in May 2024, is designed to complement the Large Language Model (LLM) that runs in the cloud allowing specific AI workloads and processing to be run locally or handed over and run in parallel with the cloud based LLMs.

    Small, but mighty, on-device SLM

    Microsoft


    Why? Well, whilst LLMs are typically faster and more accurate, they require cloud-based operations and can be costly to run and inflict  subscription fees (think Microsoft 365 Copilot). SLMs, on the other hand, can run many and other AI-driven applications and tasks locally on PCs, ensuring privacy and preventing data leakage to the cloud. However, SLMs are less sophisticated and require dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to provide these local AI capabilities. Hello Copilot+PCs.

    Copilot+ PCs and AI PCs

    The NPUs (Neural Processing Units) in Copilot+ PCs are designed to be highly power-efficient, capable of performing trillions of operations per second (TOPS) while consuming very little power. Specifically, on devices with Snapdragon X Elite processors, the Phi Silica model’s context processing uses only 4.8 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of energy on the NPU.

    Additionally, the token iterator stage of the model shows a 56% improvement in power consumption compared to running on the CPU. This efficiency allows Phi Silica to operate without overloading the CPU and GPU, ensuring smooth performance and minimal impact on other applications.

    Microsoft said that features like Windows Recall, Click-to-Do and other AI functionalities will soon be able to leverage these SLMs. Phi Silica uses a 3.3 billion parameter model, fine-tuned by Microsoft for both accuracy and speed and will. Improve performance, enhance privacy and enable more “offline” usage.

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    The Future of AI Agents and shift to Agentic AI

    Image of Satya Nadella

    In a recent podcast episode with Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner, Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft, discussed a wide range of topics related to his role at Microsoft, the state of the technology, business growth and capitalism in this new “AI Era”.

    The podcast which you can watch on YouTube here covered some interesting topics including the Future of AI Agents and their potential to transform how we interact with technology. In this blog (worth a listen), Satya gives his predications/insights into the future of AI Agents and emphasises that AI agents will fundamentally change the landscape of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, predicting that the traditional notion of business applications will collapse in the era of agentic AI.

    What is Agentic AI?

    Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can make decisions and take actions autonomously, without direct human intervention. These systems are designed to perceive their environment, reason about the best course of action, and execute tasks independently. In short these agents are designed to function as workplace teammates, capable of handling various tasks across different applications.

    As example, in e-commerce platforms, instead of static, rule based chatbots, agentic AI-driven systems can track a customer’s journey, personalised recommendations, and assist with returns seamlessly without user / supervisor input. These agents will be able to actively learn from interactions, optimising the customer journey in real time and learning about user preferences.

    Agentic AI typically inhibits the following features:

    • Autonomy: Agentic AI systems can operate independently, making decisions based on input data and predefined goals.
    • Adaptability: These systems can adapt to changing circumstances and inputs, adjusting their actions to achieve their objectives.
    • Proactivity: Agentic AI can anticipate user needs and take actions without explicit instructions, making them more proactive in their behavior.
    • Collaboration: In the future, agentic AI systems will be able to work together in multi-agent networks, collaborating to handle complex tasks that a single agent cannot manage alone.

    Changes Ahead for AI Agents

    The video / podcast is an hour and a half (but an enjoyable and informative listen). Reading between the sections, Satya talks extensively about where he sees AI Agents evolving massively through 2025. I have summarised this below.

    Increasing Sophistication and Capabilities

    AI agents will become increasingly sophisticated and capable, eventually replacing traditional software applications. These agents will be able to understand and anticipate user needs, providing personalised and proactive assistance. They will leverage advanced natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to interact with users in a more human-like manner.

    Autonomous AI Agents

    Through 2025. we will see autonomous AI agents handle more and more complex tasks with minimal human oversight, optimising workflows and enhancing efficiency across industries. These agents will streamline workflows, manage intricate operations, and simplify everyday activities. For example, OpenAI’s “Operator Agents” will autonomously execute multi-step processes, such as scheduling meetings or managing projects.

    Multi-Agent Networks

    Sayta talks abiut the “future” being a place that is not about singular agents but more about networks or systems of agents where agents can discover and collaborate with other agents. These multi-agent networks will enable agents to handle tasks that they can’t do themselves by invoking other agents (agents talking to other agents). This collaborative approach will enhance the overall capabilities and efficiency of AI agents.

    Vertical AI Agents

    Vertical AI agents, which are specialised for specific industries, are expected to have their moment in 2025. These agents will dominate their respective fields by offering tailored solutions that address industry-specific challenges. For example, retail AI agents will act as personal shoppers, offering personalised recommendations and optimising inventory management.

    Persistent Memory and Personalisation

    AI systems with persistent memory will enable highly personalized interactions, transforming AI into long-term companions that adapt to user preferences and habits. This capability will allow AI agents to provide more relevant and context-aware assistance, enhancing user experiences.

    Emotional Intelligence

    Future AI agents are expected to possess emotional intelligence, allowing them to understand and respond to human emotions. This will enable more empathetic and effective interactions, particularly in customer service and healthcare settings.

    Integration with IoT and Personal Devices

    AI agents will increasingly integrate with the Internet of Things (IoT) and personal devices. This integration will enable seamless interactions across various platforms and devices, creating a more connected and efficient ecosystem. For example, AI agents in smart homes will manage household tasks, monitor energy usage, and provide personalized recommendations.

    Ethical AI and Transparency

    As AI agents become more prevalent, there will be a greater emphasis on ethical AI and transparency in decision-making. Ensuring that AI agents operate responsibly and transparently will be crucial for gaining user trust and acceptance. This includes addressing issues related to data privacy, bias, and accountability.

    Proactive AI Agents

    Proactive AI agents will anticipate user needs and take actions without explicit instructions. For example, an AI assistant might reorganize your day based on traffic updates and weather, reschedule missed appointments, and even draft personalized messages. This proactive approach will make AI agents more valuable and indispensable in daily life.

    Enhanced Communication and Collaboration Tools

    AI agents will enhance communication and collaboration tools, making it easier for teams to work together. These agents will facilitate real-time collaboration, manage project timelines, and provide insights to improve productivity. They will also assist in content creation, research, and workflow automation.

    Shift and the of SaaS apps?

    Another interesting section to listen too is at around 31 minutes, where Satya talks about his vision of how AI agents could potentially replace traditional SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. Whilst something that will not happen over night, he talked about the shift from business apps with connectors into other apps, but in an agent to agent and agent to back-end system.

    We can already have connectors into applications like SAP, Dynamics etc. A great quote he used was “when was the last time any of us really went to a business application” In the AI age, we access the data in these systems from a mesh of data sources which over time, these back-end SaaS systems would eventually become obsolete as AI agents take over multi-repository CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations. This shift would lead to the collapse of conventional business applications, with AI agents handling the core logic.

    The idea will be that you simply pull information from systems through AI Agents such as looking up customer details, updating inventories, changing a contact in NetSuite CRM for example or checking delivery status for an order.

    Other examples, Sayta talked about with regards AI Agents included:

    Infinite Memory: He explained that infinite memory refers to the ability of AI agents to retain and recall information over extended periods, much like a human’s long-term memory. This capability will allows AI agents to build on past interactions and experiences, making them more effective and personalized in their responses and actions.

    Proactive Task Management: AI agents are envisioned to operate autonomously, handling complex tasks such as processing customer returns, managing shipping invoices, and optimizing supply chain operations. This proactive approach reduces the reliance on user-initiated interactions, further diminishing the need for traditional SaaS applications.

    Automation of Business Logic: Satya explained that AI agents would be able to automate many backend business processes, creating a new tier of multi-agent orchestration. This means that business logic, which is currently hardcoded into individual applications, will be managed by AI agents across multiple apps or databases and will adapt based on useage and need.

    Integration with Existing Tools: Nadella highlighted the integration of Python with Excel as an example. AI agents can use Excel’s visualisation capabilities for advanced tasks, transforming it into a more intelligent and autonomous tool. This integration demonstrates how AI agents can enhance existing applications, making them more efficient and reducing the need for traditional SaaS apps.

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    The Windows Copilot app is now a “real” app

    If you are not a fan of PWA (progressive web apps), the Microsoft is bringing good news. Windows Insiders are getting a new version of the Copilot app for Windows 10 and 11 which replaces the web-based application with a new native version.

    The old app (or current app if you are not a Windows Insider) is a Progressive Web App which limits some of the Windows control such as quick view that is available in native Windows Apps. recently ChatGPT published their Windows App into the Microsoft Store and this latest update from Microsoft now makes the Copilot a real app too!

    In the announcement, Microsoft said that

    With this update, the previous Copilot progressive web app (PWA) is replaced with a native version. After installing the Copilot app update, when you run Copilot, you will see it appear in your system tray.

    Microsoft Windows Insider Team

    Whilst it’s hard to notice immediately differences, after installing the updated version (1.24112.123.0) Copilot on Windows is now a “proper” app rather than a WebApp.

    This also means that Quick View can be used now with Copilot which lets you move the quick view window and resize it to suit your workflow. By default, the Copilot app in Windows uses the RegisterHotKey function and sets Alt + Space keyboard shortcut to open Copilot in Quick View mode which can be used to open and close Copilot’s quick view whenever you need it.

    If you need to switch / flip back to the main Copilot app window, then this can be done by clicking the icon at the top left corner of the quick view window.

    Devices with the dedicated Copilot key will open the Copilot app up the main window.

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    Streamlining Copilot Adoption: Reducing Data Oversharing in Microsoft 365

    One of the concerns I often talk to organisations about, is the fear that Copilot might surface sensitive information that it should not have access to due to IT/Compliance teams not really knowing who has access to what. The phrase “Security through obscurity” is often what we heard being used.

    The primary cause of this is the over-permissioning and sharing of files, which is a growing concern for organisations and one of the “blockers” often cited in Copilot Adoption.

    The over-sharing problem

    The ability to reason over employee data and shared organisational data is one of Microsoft 365 Copilot’s strengths over other Gen AI tools (that need feeding). These responses Copilot gives and the content it creates rely on access to data that the user already has access to across their organisation’s Microsoft 365 environment. And here often lies the problem. If an organisation has low levels of data governance, no data classification and labelling, combined with high levels of over-sharing can create real concerns for IT and Data Compliance teams.

    One of the reasons that Copilot often has access to data that it “perhaps” shouldn’t have is not due to security flaw or issue across Copilot or Microsoft 365, but because files or sites have been shared too widely and have no (or the wrong) privacy and sensitivity set. Addressing this is no small task since many organisations will have million of files and tens of thousands of SharePoint and Teams sites.

    Organisations and even teams within organisations often operate at various levels of maturity in governing SharePoint data. While some orgaanisations strictly monitor permissions and oversharing of content, others do not. The situation is further complicated because many people, teams and organisations have “legitimate” reasons to share “some” data widely within the organisation. This can mean users in your organisation may make choices that result in the oversharing of SharePoint content. As an example

    • Users may save critical files in locations accessible to a wider audience than intended.
    • Users may prefer sharing content with large groups rather than specific individuals.
    • Users might not pay close attention to permissions when uploading files.
    • Users may not understand how to use sensitivity labelling (if enabled) to control access.

    Services such as Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 utilise all data to which individual users have at least View permissions, which might include broadly shared files that the user is unaware of. As a result, users might see these applications as exposing content that was overshared. Oversharing can lead to sensitive information being exposed to unintended recipients. Users, while well intentioned, might not always grasp the implications of their sharing choices. They might overlook permissions or opt for convenience over security.

    As a result, it’s important to use the permission models in SharePoint to ensure the right users or groups have the right access to the right content within your organisation. The following sections describe the key steps that administrators can implement to configure their SharePoint permissions model to help prevent data oversharing.

    Dealing with Oversharing

    The good news is that Microsoft is adding new features to SharePoint and Purview to make it easier to see, understand and control over sharing across Microsoft 365 with a hope to help adoption efforts and wider roll out of Microsoft 365 Copilot. This includes new Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and enhancements for Data Loss Prevention policies in Microsoft 365 Copilot, and SharePoint Advanced Management. These can help automate site access reviews at scale and add controls to restrict access to sites if they contain highly sensitive information.

    Microsoft have also released a blueprint guide for organisations planning to or deploying Copilot. These are nicely tailored to adjust to those with mainly Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses respectively.

    These new tools IMO are going to be vital to help organisation understand and address oversharing so they feel more feel confident in their employees adopting AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot.

    AI is really good at finding information, and it can surface more information than you would have expected. This is why it’s really important to address oversharing. Typically, these issues are a by-product of good collaboration, particularly across Teams, SharePoint sites and OneDrive.

    Alex Pozin | Director of Product Marketing | Microsoft

    From early 2025, Microsoft will make access to SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) available at no extra cost to Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions. Outside of this, SharePoint premium (which includes SAM ) will be available at a cost of around $3 per user each month.)

    New Capabilities in SharePoint Advanced Management

    There are also new features for SAM that Microsoft says will provide greater control over access to SharePoint files. 

    • New permission state reports (available now) can identify “overshared” SharePoint sites. The site access review feature can then provide a easy way to ask site owners to review and address permissions.
    • Restricted Content Discovery – which should start to roll out this month in public preview (December 2024), will allow IT admins to prevent Copilot from searching and processing data in specific sites for content and result generation. This does not prevent direct access to the site meaning that users can access the content directly as normal. This feature builds on the SharePoint Restricted Access Control, which was released last year, and lets IT admins restrict site access to specific sites to just “site owners” only, while also preventing Copilot from indexing and summarising files in these sites.

    One of the use cases for this, are for where there are data locations containing information that needs to be contained to a set of people – such as financial reports, M&A planning, amnd other secret stuff. IT need to be confident that these locations and files will not show up in SharePoint searches and will be well out the reach of Copilot or other AI tools, essentially making sure that nobody can accidently or unintentionally be aware of, see or access the content. This is where Restricted Content Discovery comes in – locking down and hiding this information from plain site and from Copilot’s retrieval augmentation and indexing.

    New Capabilities in Microsoft Purview

    Microsoft are also adding new capabilities in Purview too. Purview is available as standalone or is part of Microsoft 365 E5.

    /

    Microsoft Purview is a centralised hub within Microsoft 365 that helps organisations meet regulatory and compliance requirements. It helps organisations manage their compliance obligations, protect sensitive data, and mitigate risks within their Microsoft 365 environment.

    Here, there are new tools to help identify “overshared files” that can be accessed by Copilot. These includes oversharing assessments for Microsoft 365 Copilot in the Data Security Posture Management (DPSM) tool which is now in Public Preview (from December 2024) and can be accessed via the newly revamped Purview portal.

    DSPM Portal in Microsoft Purview

    The oversharing assessments are designed to highlight data that may present exposure risk by scanning files for sensitive data and identifying data repositories such as SharePoint and Teams sites where access permissions appear to be too wide and broad. The tool will also provide recommendations to admins and site owners for ways to mitigate oversharing risk, such as adding sensitivity labels or restricting access from SharePoint.

    For example, DSPM can detect and help you deal with controlling ethical behaviour in AI (example demo environment below). For all the recommendation, Microsoft provides a simple step by step “wizard” to help IT and Compliance add policies.


    Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention for Microsoft 365 Copilot, also in public preview, enables IT and security admins to create data loss prevention (DLP) policies to exclude certain documents from being processed by Copilot based on a the file or sites sensitivity label. This applies to files held in SharePoint and OneDrive, but can be configured at other levels, such as group, site, and user, to provide more flexibility around who can access what.

    Insider Risk Management has also been updated to detect “risky AI usage.” This even includes user prompts that contain sensitive information and attempts by users to access unauthorised sensitive information. What’s key to note here is that this feature is not just limited to Microsoft 365 Copilot and also also covers Copilot Studio, and ChatGPT Enterprise.

    Oversharing Blue Prints

    I really like this. Microsoft’s new blueprint resource pages on Microsoft Learn provide recommended approaches and guidance for organisations to help them understand, mitigate and manage oversharing during what they define as the three main stages of Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment.

    • Pilot [Pilot]
    • Wider Deployment [Deploy at Scale]
    • Organisational Rollout [Operate]

    Microsoft provide two blueprint designs. A “foundational path” and what they call an “optimised path” that uses some of the more Microsoft 365 advanced data security and governance tools found in Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions.

    Is there funding available to help?

    It depends – but most likely!

    Microsoft have a Cyber Security Investment Program open to select/specialist partners like Cisilion. These provide funded workshops, assessments and proof of value deployments across key Security workloads including Microsoft Purview as well as structured Copilot pilot deployments, vision and value

    Organisations should speak to their Microsoft Solutions Partner for more information. You can contact Cisilion here should you need to.

    Conclusion

    In many of the discussions I and my team at Cisilion have with customers, we see that almost all of the organisations we work still have concerns over data governance in the realm of AI access. Of these most expect Microsoft to help them address these whilst some have already invested in third party tools to help them get a “grip” on their data and sharing.

    We have seen a plethora of customers invest/upgrade to high-tier Microsoft 365 plans (including E5 Security and Compliance) or full Microsoft 365 E5 in order to gain access to Microsoft Purview. Some argue these tools should be provided as part of their Copilot investment, so it is great to see Microsoft meeting customers in the middle and at least providing some of these tools as part of this license investment.

    The issue is not Copilot per-say, but it is that Copilot with it’s ability to access compnay data is causing more organisations to double down and look at the existing issues they have of too many SharePoint Sites, too much over sharing, orphaned data (data with no owner) inadequate data classification and labeling.

    By addressing security and data governance and levering the new tools available, this at least should solve one of the blockers to AI adoption.

    The second is Adoption and Change Management – more on that in the next blog post!

    Useful links.

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    Microsoft’s Recall hits preview on Qualcomm, Intel and AMD AI and Copilot+ PCs

    Microsoft has recently expanded the testing of its innovative Recall AI feature to Intel- and AMD-powered AI and Copilot Plus PCs. Initially available on Qualcomm-powered devices only, this feature is now accessible to a broader range of devices for testing.

    What is Recall?

    Recall was the keynote Windows feature announced when Microsoft unleashed the Copilot+ PC  when they were released in September this year.

    Initially recalled due to privacy concerns this is now in Public Preview for Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel.

    Recall works by taking screenshots of almost everything you do on your  Copilot+ PC, (these are devices with dedicated NPUs that run at 45 Trillion Operations per Second (TOPS) or more). Recall makes it easy to search and recall past activities such as “the train route I was looking at on Tuesday” rather then scanning back through Internet search history.

    Recall on Copilot+ PCs

    This feature is entirely optional to use, but when enabled enabled, helps users find previous work, content or Internet data through natural language search or an interactive scrollable timeline.

    As the user, you are completely in control of what snapshots are saved and how long for, and have the ability to delete them as needed, ensuring upmost privacy and security. Snaps shots require TPM, secure boot and Windows Hello to be active on the device and Microsoft has not access to the data which is encrypted on your device.

    The power of Edge AI

    Unlike services like Copilot, Recall and many of the newer Copilot+ PC features leverage local LLM models on the device as well as the NPU’s present on Copilot+ PC devices like the Surface Laptop 7 and Pro 11 range. As such when you install the #WindowsInsider Dev builds, you’ll also notice that Windows Updates installs a number of processing services as well as the Phi Silica LLM.

    Recalls’ enhanced security and privacy

    Microsoft has implemented many new security updates and controls to address initial concerns raised by security folk and early testers.

    As I mentioned, accessing snapshots now requires Windows Hello for authentication, and the feature mandates the use of BitLocker and Secure Boot. Additionally, Recall can now automatically detects and excludes sensitive information like credit card details and passwords from being saved.

    Click-to-Do and more AI features

    Alongside Recall, Microsoft is also allowing Insiders on Copilot+ PCs to test out Click to Do feature, which recognise text and images in snapshots and content in screen allowing users to perform actions like copying text, invoking Copilot, saving and editing images and more. This functionality extends beyond Recall, enabling users to take actions on images and text with a simple Windows + Q key or Windows Key + mouse click.

    In Paint, the new Cocreator top lets you create art and images by simply typing in text prompts. The Photos app has also been updated with new tools including Image Creator, which lets users make images from text prompts, and Restyle Image, which lets users add different artistic styles to their existing photos. You also get powerful generative erase tools which can be accessed directly from the app or from Click-To-Do.

    These tools use local AI and analysis models on the Copilot+ PCs to work efficiently on the device itself through the use of the NPU.

    Conclusion

    Microsoft initially only made these features available for Snapdragon (ARM based) Copilot+ PCs but with this update they are continuing to u lease the new AI features in Windows 11 to more devices. The expansion of Recall to Intel and AMD Copilot+ PCs marks a step forward in enhancing user experience and productivity on this next generarion of devices.

    What do you think of Recall and Click-to-Do?

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    Facilitator agent: Live AI notes in Teams meetings & chat

    Microsoft announced at Ignite, the new Facilitator agent – an update to the AI notes in Teams that works inside your meetings and chat and is designed to enhance collaboration and streamline the way teams work. It works similar to the AI generated notes after a meeting, but this works live alongside you and all participants can see it working live in the meeting.

    How Facilitator works in Teams Meetings

    Facilitator will take real-time notes during Teams meetings (not currently adhoc meetings or Meet Now), enabling everyone to co-author and collaborate seamlessly. This allows meeting participants to focus and engage more deeply in meetings, while ensuring alignment before the meeting concludes.

    To enable this feature and use it a meeting, organisers can toggle AI-generated notes setting on or off when setting up a meeting in the Teams calendar or enable it during the meeting via the Notes section in the meeting.

    Once enabled, a notification appears in the meeting chat to inform all participants. This also activates meeting transcription, with a notification to users… During the meeting, participants can click on Notes to open a pane where the AI generated live notes are created every few minutes, organised by topics and follow-up tasks.

    What is nice about this is that participants can edit the notes inline or assign tasks to users, with attributions indicating whether the content is AI-generated or user-edited making these Co authored notes by humans and AI!

    After the meeting ends, notes continue to be accessible in the Recap tab and are stored in the OneDrive of the user who enabled real-time notes. These notes are contextual to the meeting transcript, ensuring relevance and accuracy.

    Future Capabilities in Meetings

    As the Facilitator agent gets developed futrther, Microsoft say that it will be able to take on more tasks to enhance meeting effectiveness. Soon, it will also manage meetings from end-to-end, including managing agendas, moderating discussions, and handling action items automatically or semi-automatically

    In early 2025, the real-time note-taking experience will also expand to Microsoft Teams Rooms. Employees will be able to invite a Teams Room to a meeting, allowing all participants to see real-time notes however, they have joined the meeting. This feature will also be available for ad-hoc meetings, enabling in-office discussions to be captured seamlessly.

    How Facilitator works in Teams Chats

    As of now (November 2024), the Facilitator Agent creates and maintains up-to-date summaries of what it considers valuable information within Teams chats. This includes key decisions, action items, and open questions, helping groups stay focused, align faster, and resolve issues efficiently.

    AI-generated notes are automatically enabled when creating a new chat. For existing chats, users can toggle it on via the Notes icon which is shown at the top right of the chat window as shown below.

    When notes are enabled, a notification appears in the group chat to inform everyone that notes are being taken in real time.

    To access the notes users simply click on the Notes icon in the top right corner of the chat to show a summary of the chat thread, organised by topics with corresponding decisions, action items, and unanswered questions.

    These are continuously updated as the chat conversation progresses.

    Availability and access

    Facilitator is already in public preview now for desktop (Windows/Mac), web, and iOS/Android. To access the public preview of the new Facilitator agent, meeting hosts need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

    Facilitator will only be available to users that have app permission policy for Microsoft apps set to “Allow all apps”. The Facilitator App will become available soon for Admins to see and manage in Teams admin center. For more information about app permission policies, see Manage app permission policies in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

    External users cannot access AI-generated notes

    Let me know if you find this helpful

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    Enhanced Data Protection and Governance coming SharePoint and Purview to remove AI adoption blockers.

    This week at Microsoft Ignite 2024, Microsoft unveiled new features and controls for SharePoint and Purview, aimed at empowering IT teams and ensuring robust data protection and governance. These enhancements are part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to providing intelligent solutions that respect an organisations controls while driving productivity and efficiency. Oversharing of data is one of the most common causes of rogue data and poor data governance and one of the biggest blockers to wider AI adoption.

    Microsoft offers two powerful tools to address this concern of oversharing: SharePoint Advanced Management for site management and content governance capabilities, and Microsoft Purview for security, compliance, and governance across data and files. Both have new capabilities and availability following announcements at Ignite in Chicago.

    Advanced Management for SharePoint for Copilot.

    To give IT teams even more control, Microsoft have said that SharePoint Advanced Management will be included at no additional charge for Copilot customers. There’s also need and updated features coming.

    • Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) to help identify and manage content that is restricted or sensitive, ensuring that such content is not overshared within the organisation. This works by allowing SharePoint Administrators to restrict specific SharePoint sites from participating in organisation wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat. Once configured, all content from the site will be hidden from tenant-wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat by default for all users in the tenant, even if a user has site access permissions. While child content will be hidden by default, users will still be able to search for content they have recently interacted with. This includes recently accessed and modified files, even if RCD is applied to the parent site. Searches originating from a site context will not be impacted.This will be available in Public Preview in December 2024 and Generally Available from March 2025
    • Restricted Access Control (RAC) feature allows administrators to control and restrict access to specific sites or content within SharePoint to helps in preventing unauthorised access and oversharing of sensitive information. New AI content governance controls and insights will be available in early 2025.
    • Deployment Blueprint is a new feature that will offers a structured approach to deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot while addressing the risks of information oversharing. It will include best practices, guidelines, and tools to ensure that sensitive information is protected during the deployment process.

    SharePoint Advanced Management will be Generally available in Q1 2025 and will allow IT to better govern access and usage of Copilot and agents, including controls over which users can use Copilot and agents, along with visibility into agent status and life cycle.

    SharePoint Advanced Management will be included as standard for organisations with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.

    Purview

    • Data Loss Prevention – To provide addition protection, Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) will soon be extended to support Microsoft 365 Copilot. DLP policies will be able to identify sensitive documents based on sensitivity labels and exclude processing for Copilot interactions in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat. In preview from December.
    • Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) provides insights into the security posture of data within the organisation. It helps in identifying potential risks and vulnerabilities related to data oversharing and provides recommendations to mitigate these risks.
    • Risky AI Usage Detection is a new feature which can detect and alert admins about potentially risky usage of AI within the organization. It helps in preventing data leakage and unauthorised access by monitoring AI activities. This is now in public preview.
    • GenAI Risk Detections is another feature which focuses on detecting risks associated with the use of generative AI. It ensures that AI-generated content does not lead to oversharing of sensitive information or unauthorised access.

    Measurement and Reporting with Copilot Analytics

    To help IT and business leaders track adoption patterns and return on investment from the use of Copilot and agents, Microsoft is introducing Copilot Analytics.

    This new feature includes out-of-the-box experiences to measure Copilot adoption and business impact, customisable reporting for deeper analysis.

    The new Copilot Analytics. Microsoft Viva Insights will be included in Copilot at no additional charge as part of this new analytics suite.

    How Microsoft partners can help

    Cisilion, as your Copilot Jumpstart partner, will be incorporating these new features and controls into our guidance and briefing and expect Microsoft will rapidly be updating their official documentation and guidance.

    The Copilot Pilot programme, entwines technical readiness with business guidance and comprehensive adoption and change management to ensures that your organisation receives the most up-to-date and comprehensive support in leveraging these advancements for optimal data protection and governance whilst putting these into practice for a smooth and measurable pilot.

    Conclusion

    These new controls and features are designed to provide IT teams with the tools they need to govern access, usage, and reporting while ensuring data protection and governance. Microsoft is committed to helping organisations leverage the power of AI to drive productivity, efficiency, and security.

    You can read the official Microsoft Blogs here.

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    Microsoft’s Copilot AI Agents enter Public Preview

    TL;DR

    Microsoft has introduced autonomous Copilot AI agents in public preview. These agents can learn, adapt, and make decisions, aiming to assist employees with various tasks and improve productivity. While AI has the potential to displace some jobs, it also creates new opportunities and enhances productivity.

    Microsoft’s wave of Autonomous agents are here

    Microsoft has unveiled new tools designed to help businesses create software agents powered by foundation models, referred to as autonomous Copilot AI agents. These agents are currently available in public preview.

    Copilot is Microsoft’s generic term for all their AI-driven productivity workloads. Copilot is built upon the advanced GPT-4 series of large language models by OpenAI and offers a chatbot interface where users can input text, images, or audio prompts to receive responses tailored to their needs. Microsoft 365 Copilot also seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Office applications like Word, Teams, and Excel. It can generate documents, analyse extensive Excel spreadsheets, summarise meetings content, rewrite documents, create entire PowerPoint presentations and even reason over your inbox and company information you have access too….., and much, much more.

    The next step in Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advancement is through what are termed AI-Agents, which are chat bots that can not only respond but can also perform a series of linked tasks (actions) based on user instructions. This new wave went into public preview this week at Microsoft Ignite in Chicago.

    What are Microsoft 365 Copilot Agents?

    This first stage of the next phase of evolution comes with Microsoft introducing a set of Microsoft 365 Copilot agents with predefined roles. These include:

    • Agents in SharePoint. These can be customers with a personalised name and certain behaviours, and can be shared across emails, meetings and chats, with users being able to ask the agents questions and getting real-time responses. These are grounded just on the SharePoint sites and files you specify. One created, employees can ask the agents questions about data across your files. These agents can even be shared or published in Teams for simple access.
    • The Employee Self-Service Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (this currently in private preview), will be able to respond to specific HR and IT questions. It can retrieve employee benefits and even things like payroll info and holiday information, or request help from IT such as a new mouse, password reset etc.
    • The Facilitator agent (in public preview), works like a assistant in meetings and goes beyond the current AI notes that Teams Premium offers. It can take notes, curate actions and even pull up information or execute instructions such as “see if Bob is free and invite him to the meeting”. It will also be able to summarise the conversations based on the role of the participants.
    • The Interpreter agent (due in preview in early  2025) promises real-time interpretation in Teams meetings in up to nine languages. It will also be able to sample and then simulate their personal voice for a more inclusive experience as part of the translation, essentially using the sound of your voice in the language of the other participants. It was great to see this in action at ignite in a live demo!
    • The Project Manager agent, will be able to act and work like a PM with the ability to automate project management, from planning to execution using Microsoft (and later other) project tools like Planner.

    For organisations that need more control or different templates to build on and use, Microsoft Copilot Studio provides a way to customise or create your own AI agent behaviour.

    Agents in Copilot Studio

    Agents built in Copilot Studio can operate independently, dynamically planning and learning from processes, adapting to changing conditions, and making decisions without the need for constant human intervention,These autonomous agents can be triggered by data changes, events, and other background tasks – and not just through chat.

    Copilot Studio bundles many templates for common agent scenarios that can serve as the basis for a customised version. It will also shortly support voice-enabled agents, image uploading (for analysis by GPT-4o), and knowledge tuning with the added ability automatically add new sources of knowledge to help agents respond to questions.

    Devs can use the Agent SDK to access services from Azure AI, Semantic Kernel, and Copilot Studio. There’s also an Azure AI Foundry (also launched at Ignite) integration that links Copilot Studio to facilitate connection to services like Azure AI Search and the Azure AI model catalog.

    Finally, a public preview of agent builder in Power Apps was also announced at Ignite.

    What about Responsible AI?

    Sarah Bird, chief product officer for Responsible AI, wrote in a blog post this week that extra safety considerations arise with autonomous agents and that Microsoft is focused on ensuring that they behave and hand over to human before taking unexpected actions which can have big impacts and that extra guard rails and protections will be put in place.

    The blog post talks about examples of such measures including the vital need for a human-in-the-loop check to make sure autonomous decision-making doesn’t do things it’s not expected too. Nothing demonstrates confidence in automation more than a human approval process.

    Microsoft also suggest that anyone looking to get a sense of AI agents in a real role, can try out the  Linked In Hiring Assistant which is designed to help HR hiring teams speed up the process of dealing with the Admin involved in reviewing  job applications.

    Key Benefits

    The key Benefits these new adaptions to Copilot. Agents should bring to users and organisations includes:

    • Learning and Adaptation: The Copilot AI agents can learn from their environment and adapt to new information and tasks.
    • Decision-Making: These agents are capable of making decisions to assist users in their daily work.
    • Productivity Enhancement: The primary goal is to empower employees by reducing workload and improving efficiency in tasks such as managing meetings, emails, and creating presentations.
    • Automation of some tasks connected to regular and recurring inquiries or asks.

    Human Impact – what about jobs!

    The introduction of AI and automation, including Microsoft’s Copilot AI agents, has the potential to impact the roles of people in jobs.

    • Job Displacement: People naturally worry that AI has the potential to replace certain jobs, particularly those involving repetitive and manual tasks. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs….. But.
    • Job Creation: On the other hand, AI also creates new job opportunities. It can lead to the emergence of new roles that require advanced technical skills and the ability to work with AI systems
    • Economic Impact: AI is expected to contribute significantly to global economic growth. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that AI could deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion by 2030
    • Skill Demand: The demand for skills will shift towards more advanced and technical capabilities. Employees will need to upskill and reskill to stay relevant in the evolving job market. AI skills will be similar requirement to the “Internet skills” we saw on CVs in the 1990s!

    Conclusion

    Microsoft’s autonomous Copilot AI agents represent a significant step towards integrating advanced AI into everyday business operations. By enhancing productivity and reducing routine workload, these agents have the potential to transform how employees manage their tasks.

    These will be in public preview very soon as these often take a few weeks to rollout across the globe.

    Source: Conversation with Copilot, 22/11/2024
    (1) How Will Artificial Intelligence Affect Jobs 2024-2030. https://www.nexford.edu/insights/how-will-ai-affect-jobs.

    (3) The impact of AI on jobs – GOV.UK. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1023590/impact-of-ai-on-jobs.pdf.

    Posted on

    AI agents are transforming Customer interactions.

    AI and human Agent

    In our recent fireside chat, we delved into the transformative potential of AI agents across multiple industries. These business areas include customer service, IT support, and internal business support. The discussion, titled “Rise of the AI Agents,” brought together industry experts across several fields. These included transportation, public sector, legal, media, and executive search. The panel explored how AI is reshaping customer and consumer interactions and discussed enhancing efficiency and driving more inclusive interactions.

    Introduction to AI Agents

    We kicked off the session our fireside chat by setting the scene. We highlighted the traditional challenges faced in contact centers. These include long hold times and inefficient call transfers between chat bots and human agents. Here we agreed on these and but also the importance of not just jumping on “injecting ChatGPT” into workflows, but instead discussed the advent and value of generative AI and human-like conversation across chat and AI-Voice and how these rapid technology advancements have the potential to revolutionise these experiences.

    AI agents, leveraging large language models like, are now capable of understanding context, handling a wide range of queries, and providing personalized responses and we are seeing Contact Center solutions such as Cisco Webex, starting to infuse this technology to assist end-to-end in the Human-to AI, Human-to-AI-to-Human, and Human-to-Human conversation.

    AI agents leverage advanced technologies like large language models (LLMs) and machine learning to provide more dynamic and context-aware interactions. AI agents can understand and generate natural language. This ability allows them to handle a wider range of queries. They also provide more personalised responses. They can learn from data and feedback, improving their performance over time without needing manual updates.

    AI agents can also integrate with various data sources and systems, enabling them to provide more comprehensive and accurate information.

    • Autonomous Agents can operate entirely independently, without human intervention. They can handle multi-step tasks, make decisions based on pre-programmed logic, and adapt to new situations using advanced AI techniques like reinforcement learning. These agents are ideal for environments where human input is minimal or impractical.
    • Semi-Autonomous Agents on the other hand, still involve a “human in the loop.” While they can perform many tasks independently, they require human input for certain decisions or actions. This hybrid approach combines the efficiency of automation with the oversight of human expertise, ensuring accuracy and reliability.

    The example below is a recent marketing video from Cisco introducing their new AI agent in Webex Contact Centre.

    AI Agent example in Cisco Webex Contact Centre

    AI Agent – Use Cases

    Through the discussion, the panel agreed on several key areas in which AI assisted agents could add value.

    • Customer Support: Investing (or extending existing platform) in AI agents can help multiple lines of business better and more efficiently handle routine customer inquiries, such as changing addresses, booking or changing appointments, and freeing up human agents to work on less trivial customer requests or more complex issues. 
    • Sales Assistance: Another area discussed, was where AI can assist human agents (for example in sales or customer service), by providing real-time information and suggestions during human customer interactions, improving the chances of successful sales conversations, such as overcoming objections or asking for more technical information about a product or service.
    • Customer Service and Complaints: helping agents improve their interaction with their customers, such as making agents aware of similar problems, outages or similar calls that led to successful outcomes or helping explain something better or in a different way to their customer.
    • Training and Development: AI can be used to train new agents by simulating customer interactions and providing feedback, helping them improve their skills more quickly. This can be used for onboarding fresh staff, running different customer scenarios or reviewing previous calls for improvement
    • Sentiment Analysis: Using AI to analyse customer sentiment during interactions, allowing agents to adjust their approach and improve customer satisfaction as well as flagging to supervisors early where interaction or training may be needed.

    AI Agent Value and Applications

    Driving efficiency and improving satisfaction

    Darren Everden (London Borough of Hillingdon) shared his insights on how local authorities are looking at utilising AI to improve resident interactions. David emphasised the importance of channel shift and transformation in the public sector, driven by funding reductions and the need for more cost-effective solutions that also improve the resident experience and resolution rate. Darren highlighted the evolution of chatbots, which can now use natural language processing to understand and respond to resident queries more effectively. He also discussed the potential of integrating AI into voice channels, enhancing accessibility and providing a more natural interaction experience making it almost impossible to differentiate from human voice. Interactions are far more natural than ever, and this continues to evolve and improve with models such as ChatGPT-4o.

    Inclusivity and Accessibility

    Ken Dickie from Leathwaite Executive Search, discussed the role of AI in promoting and improving inclusivity and accessibility. He pointed out that AI agents are far better at being able to adapt to the needs of users with disabilities, such as dyslexia, by adjusting text spacing or providing audio responses something human only operated agents simply cannot easily do This real-time adaptability empowers individuals to engage with systems more effectively. Ken also mentioned the global reach of AI, enabling organisations to provide support in multiple languages, thus breaking down communication barriers.

    Enhancing Agent Efficiency

    Aidan Shanahan from Govia Thameslink Railway discussed the benefits of AI in assisting human agents. He discussed his view on where AI can provide real-time guidance and sentiment analysis, helping agents handle customer interactions more effectively. The panel here discussed the role AI as an human assistant (An Agent to the Agent) being particularly valuable in high-stress situations, such as handling complaints, where AI can suggest appropriate responses based on the customer’s tone. Aidan also highlighted the potential for AI to improve internal processes, such as IT support, by automating routine tasks and reducing response times, replacing laboreous processes with natural language requests.

    Jas Bassi from Gately highlighted the potential applications of AI in the legal sector. While acknowledging the generational differences in adopting new technologies, Jas emphasized the need for a multi-channel approach that includes both human and AI interactions. He pointed out that AI can deliver efficiency gains in transactional activities, ensuring faster and more consistent service delivery. However, he also raised concerns about biases in AI training and the risk of deep fakes, underscoring the importance of maintaining a balance between automation and human oversight.

    Low cost of entry and ease of Proof of Concept

    Alex Taylor from Awin shared his experience with implementing AI agents internally at Awin. He mentioned that this is no longer about one off business cases and specific dictated expensive systems. He shared that he is seeing huge interest in the use of AI agents across various departments, such as InfoSec and marketing, in leveraging AI to not only automate and ease customer interactions but also going beyond this and automating processes and improving efficiency. He emphasised the importance of extending this value by connecting backend systems (which also involved in many cases minimising diserpate vendrs) and ensuring they are “compatible” to maximize their effectiveness with automation and semi-automatic interactions. He realised examples, of automatically logging tickets, providing simple answers to issues and even liaising with other systems or processes.

    Finally Alex and Ken agreed that the bar to entry is much lower, with a similar approach,. bring able to serve multiple departments, handle thousands of enquiries and not only reduce the cost, but truely delivery faster, more inclusive and international support even for organisations that don’t have global offices.

    Conclusion: The Value and Opportunities of AI Agents

    Our fireside chat concluded that there were several key value points when it comes to the use and exploration of AI agents across customer and employee focused formal contact centers but also across more adhoc and internal communications within and across business, from website chat to internal IT support.

    • Enhanced Customer Interaction: AI agents can provide more efficient and personalized customer service, reducing wait times and improving satisfaction
    • Cost-Effective Solutions: The low cost of entry and easy of deployment (compared to the previous laborious process of programming conversational paths), enables organisations to handle a higher volume of interactions without significantly increasing costs, making it a viable option for sectors with budget constraints and most importantly without a huge development and support burden.
    • Inclusivity and Accessibility: AI agents can adapt to the needs of diverse user groups, promoting inclusivity and breaking down language barriers both with end customers and with human-agents.
    • Supporting the Human Agents: AI assists can act as a huge support for human agents by providing real-time guidance, sentiment analysis, and automating routine tasks, enhancing overall efficiency and can even help handle delicate situations, detect agent stress and suggest rest-bites and training to supervisors based on AI assisted analysis.
    • Internal Process Optimisation: Used effectively, this can extend way beyond the conversation, streamlining internal workflows, reducing response times and improving productivity across various departments.

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