Cisco and Microsoft Shake Up Collaboration at Enterprise Connect 2025 with new AI infused features

Enterprise Connect 2025 brought the usual buzz from everyone in the Collab and Contact Center Space.  From AI and  integrations in Contact Center to subtle hybrid work updates for meetings and chat, these announcements from the Collab giants continues to set to redefine how we collaborate in 2025…

Here’s everything you need to know from what Cisco and Microsoft announced.

Microsoft Teams – Key Takeaways:

  • New Live chat widget rolling in out this spring for small businesses. This allows website visitors to chat with sales or customer support team in Microsoft Teams. There’s also a Live chat widget which will provides a dashboard for managing conversations, notifications for incoming chat requests, and an option to view previous customer interactions.
  • Teams Chat will be getting a new @nearby feature that allows people to easily connect with other colleagues who are physically close by to them. This helps encourage face to face chats when people may not realise that colleagues are in the same or adjacent office.
  • Teams meeting recap is now supported for webinars, and the limit for town halls has been increased to 50,000 attendees.
  • Teams channels: Loop comes to Teams Channels by allowing users to add a Loop workspace tab to standard channels.
  • On a security front, Teams has now introduced the automatic blocking of malicious files, detection of sensitive information during screen sharing. This used a combination of Defender and DLP.
  • Teams Phone is getting new features like SMS messaging in US and Canada, as well as barge/whisper/monitor/takeover for team leads in groups and when using Call Queues.
  • In Teams Rooms the new recommender feature will suggests suitable meeting rooms to facilitate easier in-person collaboration. The facilitator agent will also be coming to Teams Rooms (in preview now) to take notes for you in meeting which can co edited by attendees.

The big annoucement on the Microsoft Teams front was of course the annoucement of Teams Phone extensibility for Dynamics 365 Contact Center and for certified ISV solutions such as Luware which are coming soon public preview.

Cisco Webex – Key Takeaways

  • Cisco who are firmly on the AI drive, unveiled their vision for agentic AI collaboration, alongside new AI-powered features for their Webex platform. They said general availability of their Webex AI Agent was due before Easter!
  • Agents upgrade: with new features coming for Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center, including suggested responses and real-time transcription for agents.
  • Teams Rooms: Cisco announced that AirPlay support on Cisco Devices in  Microsoft Teams Rooms mode would also be coming soon.
  • Line of Business Agent integration: The new Cisco AI Agents  allow agents in Webex Contact Center to integrate with other enterprise apps like Sales force, Dynamics and ServiceNow to improve workflows and customer support with APIs and connectors. This will allow for workflows automation.

Read more.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftteamsblog/microsoft-teams-at-enterprise-connect-2025-leading-the-future-of-collaboration/4393733?wt.mc_id=MVP_309187

https://www.webex.com/us/en/live-events/enterprise-connect-2025.html

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?

Cisco Live: Every business in the world will become a tech company

…and that’s what the innovations and announcements at Cisco Live this week were all centered around. in networking, security, data centers, and more that we unveiled at Cisco Live EMEA are all about.

Reliving the past to innovate the future

The Cisco Live keynote began with Oliver Tuszik [President, Cisco EMEA] walking us through the 40-year history of Cisco’s innovations that powered big data, IoT, and cloud computing – reminding us that Cisco has been here since the beginning of the internet days and how their technology is what powered the internet and cloud generation we are all now firmly in.

In his opening, he said that “every business in this world will become a technology company,” stating that every organisation is or will soon face three main challenges in this journey:

  • Unlocking the power of AI, especially as we move out of the ‘hype cycle’ of AI, with companies now seeing tangible, real-world efficiency and productivity gains using the technology, but with only 7% of European companies being “AI ready”.
  • Killing complexity. “Everything is growing fast” as companies scale and grow their technologies in the face of the skills shortage. To do this they need to re-invent, simplify, and consolidate complex technology and multi-vendor products into solutions.
  • Strengthening digital resilience.“Digital resilience is business resilience,” especially if every company is to become a tech company.

New Products and Services for the AI Generation

Following the keynote, Jeetu Patel (EVP and Chief Product Officer) talked about what Cisco stand for and the product strategy and vision saying that Cisco’s mantra is to build products people love; quality is priority zero; and think ‘10x’.”

Echoing the opening messages, he enforced that every business is working frantically to understand, play out and refine the opportunities and challenges of realising and adapting to how they work and serve customers in the era of AI.

Jeetu said that “every organisation needs to lay the groundwork for AI,”. He went on to say that the last two years have been “experimental” and that Cisco believe that over the next 2 to 5 years, the world’s workforce will be “supplemented” by AI agents and apps and eventually robots and even humanoids. Cisco said that whilst they believe this shift will create more jobs than it removes, the working world will change, and that change will happen rapidly. He said the IT and Digitial industry needs innovative technologies, new operating processes, and new outlook to business, one that we haven’t seen in this capacity since the dot com boom.

There was loads of technology and updates to existing products announced and a reminder from Cisco just how much of a Software company they now are…

Networking

The first new product announced was the Cisco UCS C845A M8 Rack Server – a modular rack with flexible GPU scaling designed to run AI workloads faster and more efficiently.

Cisco said that this will be the new Cisco blueprint for service providers as they look to capitalise on the opportunities of AI. These new Servers will helpo service providers and large enterprise organisions building their own AI services to meet the demand for high-bandwidth along with secure, and energy-efficient connectivity.

Cisco say that this architecture will result in simplified networks, AI-powered operations and resilient networks with end-to-end network security and observability. Cisco also said that this will better help service providers and telcos monetise easier, by allowing them to deploy services closer to their customers to provide intelligent service delivery.


Cisco also annouced two new N9300 Series Smart Switches, with Cisco’s Silicon One E100 chips, AMD Pensando DPUs, and Cisco Hypershield built in…. Cisco say that Hypershield will be embedded on the new switches, meaning that multi-layer protection can be scaled for zone segmentation, micro segmentation, and distributed exploit protection, along with with a centrally managed firewall distributed throughout the datacenter at the service level.

Cisco Hypershield will be embedded on the new switches, meaning that protection can be scaled for zone segmentation, micro segmentation, and distributed exploit protection – with a centrally managed firewall distributed throughout the datacenter at the service level, allowing service providers and enterprise customers to enforce security policies directly on the network fabric, enabling a “fully distributed security model”.

Cisco AI Defense

DJ Sampath, VP of Product, AI Software and Platform, showcased on stage on how Cisco’s newly announced AI Defense application allows businesses to validate and test new AI models in a matter of minutes which will represent a huge time saving reducing the typical weeks of testing down to hours.

Webex Contact Centre

Cisco Webex also got some new AI attention, with Caitlin Lacey (Director of Global Product Marketing, Collaboration Devices) showing off the newly updated Webex AI Agent that can be used to build autonomous AI chatbots to elevate the customer support experience. Cisco showed how these new AI models are not just limited to text either as they showcased voice based agents with ‘lifelike’ voices and super-low-latency responses which can be built to reduce the number of telephone agents needed and also reduce the time customers need to spend waiting on hold only to be transfered to another department and put back on hold. They even showed how customers can interrupt the agent mid flow. Impressive demo.

Cisco said that the new Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center is natively integrated with Webex Contact Center today and will be available for integration with third-party contact centers later this year. It includes context transfer summaries, dropped call summaries, Human Agent Wellbeing and automatic customer satisfaction scores (Auto CSAT). They are also introducing new features later this year including suggested responses, real-time transcription for agents, wrap-up summaries and mid-call summaries.

The agents will be available in English only at launch, however, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish will come later in 2025.

Webex Meeting rooms

Recognising the volume of BYOD meeting room solutions (where customers are not tied to any meeting platform like Webex, Zoom or Teams), Cisco are continuing their investment by supporting “Flexible Conferencing” with their Cisco Room Bar BYOD. This are designed for small to medium rooms, allowing seamless laptop connectivity along with the quality of Cisco audio and video experiences for BYOD / plug n play spaces.

Thousand eyes

Cisco announced updates to Thousand Eyes with a new traffic insight functionality which will give IT support and network administrators greater observability along with the ability to pinpoint disruptions within connected networks, WAN and Internet more easily and visually. This helps identify and pin point potential network disruptions on their own and public/third party infrastructure more easily.

Meraki and Cisco XDR

Cisco Meraki suite is now getting integration with Cisco XDR to power “the SOC of the future.”. For any organisation looking to build their own or build and sell their own SOC, this integration of Meraki dashboard data into Cisco XDR will allow SecOps to see incidents and threats as they emerge across their network infrastructure adding to the visibility scope over what they had before.

Firewalling

Cisco announced their “Hybrid Mesh Firewall“. This is a brand new AI optimised firewall that combines Cisco Firewall Threat Defense, new AI Defense capabilities, and their Security Cloud Control into a single management system.

From what I have read so far (so correct me if I am wrong), each firewall in the mesh will have two versions – an active and shadow version. As such new updates to rules and threat protection for example will be first introduced on the ‘shadow’ device which will then become ‘active’. They will then swap roles, with monitoring taking place over a period of time at a highly granular level to ensure the update works as intended. This will reduce downtime and provide consistent operations. .

Skilling for the Future AI Generation

Cisco has also launched a new AI Skills Journey program to help partners and companies build this much needed AI Infrastructure skillset. This new training will be available at https://u.cisco.com

Cisco are are also updating their current certifications, including traditional certs like the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) and Internetwork Expert (CCIE). These updated certifications reflect the AI and cybersecurity skills needed to achieve impactful business outcomes. Select programs

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.

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.

AI-PCs vs Copilot+ PCs: Understanding the Difference

As technology advances, the distinction between AI-PCs and Copilot+ PCs becomes increasingly important. Both types of devices leverage dedicated AI chip sets to enhance the user experience. They support new and upcoming software features. These devices prepare us for the continual wave of AI innovation. Under the name, what are the differences between the specifications and ability of these two types of “next generation” devices?

This blog aims to summarize the similarities and differences between the AI-PC, as dubbed by Intel. It also discusses the Copilot + range of PCs powered by Snapdragon ARM based chip sets.

The AI-PC

AI-PCs, like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 6, are powered by Intel chipsets and are the first of their next generation of personal computers designed to handle complex AI tasks efficiently. These PCs are equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors which also include a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which accelerates AI and machine learning workloads directly on the device, providing up to 10 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) of AI performance.

This means faster performance for tasks like real-time language translation, image creation, and enhanced multimedia experiences such as object removal, blur and audio isolation without relying heavily on cloud services or throttling the PCs CPU.

For the average user, this translates to a smoother, more responsive computing experience with smarter features. For IT professionals, it means robust performance for data-intensive applications and improved security through local processing and devices which will perform in a more unified way without “subtle” tasks like back-ground blur in video calls, hammering the CPU or consuming more internet bandwidth.

The Copilot + PC

Copilot+ PCs represent the pinnacle of AI-enhanced computing, designed to deliver unparalleled performance and support for AI-infused applications and extensions. These PCs are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series processors. They feature a turbocharged Neural Processing Uni (NPU). This NPU is capable of performing over 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This advanced hardware allows real-time AI functionalities. These include language translation, image generation, and intelligent task management directly on the device. For the average user, this means a seamless, responsive experience with smarter, more intuitive features. For IT pro’s Copilot+ PCs provide more robust performance for data-intensive and AI applications. They enhance security through local processing.

This can also reduce reliance on cloud services with the ability run “some” AI workloads locally depending on what has been coded of course by the software vendor. Examples of this might be background blur which as trivial as it may sound it network and compute intensive and can be performed on an NPU far better and with far less compute power.. This combination of powerful hardware and specialized software makes Copilot+ PCs a significant change in both personal and professional settings.

Copilot+ PCs, on the other hand, take this AI integration a step further. Some examples are the recently released Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 devices from Microsoft. There are also devices from all other major manufacturers. These devices feature powerful and dedicated NPUs. They also come with Windows 11 – Copilot “exclusive” software and services enabled. These devices need Copilot+PCs to use them.

Interactions like “click-to-do” and Microsoft’s Recall leverage the advanced NPU’s capabilities. They provide enhanced AI features directly on the device. These interactions reduce CPU and GPU workloads. They allow local AI compute, which will in the long term support local language models.

These devices are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series chips, which offer at least 45 TOPS of AI performance. This provides advanced functionalities such as real-time language translation and intelligent task management. It also enables more efficient multitasking. All of these features are included in the Windows 11 24H2 update.

Despite the differences, both AI-PCs and Copilot+ PCs bring enhanced performance for handling AI workloads. These devices provide a more integrated and advanced AI experience, thanks to the combination of powerful hardware and specialised software. At the time of writing the Copilot+ PC range deliver more AI-grunt than AI-PCs. However, the Intel-based AI-PCs will likely be more adopted by large enterprise organisations. These organisations still need to run older legacy applications. These applications have not yet been compiled to run on Windows on Arm (WoA). WoA is needed for Copilot+ PCs which are built on ARM chipsets and not Intel.

Spotting the Difference

The subtle differences between AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs. As endpoint technology continues to evolve, the gaps will most likely close. The 2025 edition of these technologies will continue to evolve. There is also new AI “optimised” PCs from AMD but I have not reviewed these here.

The main way to spot a Copilot+ PC or AI-PC vs an older generation device is the presence of a dedicated “Copilot key”.

The list below highlights the key things found on Copilot + PCs

  • AI Integration: Copilot+ PCs (currently) offer a more integrated AI experience. They include specialised software and features designed to enhance productivity. On the other hand, AI-PCs provide general AI capabilities without the specialized software. Copilot+ PCs are needed to run new Windows features like recall and Click-To-Do.
  • Dedicated AI Key: Copilot+ PCs include a dedicated Copilot key for quick access to AI-powered assistance. This key is not available in “some” AI-PCs. Older generation PCs also lack this feature.
  • Connectivity: Some Copilot+ PCs feature advanced connectivity options. These options include 5G, which is not typically found in AI-PCs or older generation devices.
  • Exclusive Software Features: Copilot+ PCs come with enhanced productivity tools like Recall and Click-To-Do. They also include other third-party features from Adobe, for example.

Conclusion

These new generation of AI-PCs and Copilot+ PCs bring more than just an annual chip set refresh. They are the ennoblement for the current and next wave of creativity. They drive productivity and innovation with the increasing number of AI-powered or AI-enhanced applications.

As always, Surface sets the standard – with their innovative anti reflective and HDR display technology, elegant and sleek design, sustainable and repairable design and unique features like the versatile kickstand along with fluidity of the Slim Pen 2 on Surface Pro, they empower users to achieve more and create without limits.

Cisco Webex One 2024 Keynote: “Experiences Amplified”

Webex One 24 Logo

The Webex One 24 opening keynote was a showcase of Cisco’s commitment to revolutionising the way organisations collaborate and connect. It highlighted several new announcements, renewed partnerships and AI innovation across their portfolio which will continue to innovate the “future of work”.

This blog summarises my key highlights from Cisco’s fifth annual Webex One event. This year’s theme focussed on the transformative power of AI and human connection. Senior Cisco execs, including Aruna Ravichandran and Jeetu Patel, opened by discussing the latest AI innovations and their impact on customer and employee experiences and of course used the event to showcase new technologies and products from Cisco as well as new and extended partnerships with key vendors including Apple and Microsoft.

Cisco emphasised the integration of AI into (all) their products, the importance of secure and smart workplaces, and the future of seamless collaboration. They also introduced new technologies like the autonomous Webex AI agent and Cisco spatial meetings for Apple Vision Pro, showcasing their commitment to enhancing productivity and connectivity.

“Don’t worry about AI taking away your jobs, but worry about people who use AI effectively” | Jitu Patel

Aruna Ravichandran, Cisco’s Senior Vice President emphasised the importance of human connection and creativity in the transformative world of AI, highlighting the event’s focus on groundbreaking AI innovations and customer experience.

Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s Executive Vice President, talked about the “seismic shift in AI“, noting that while AI has brought significant momentum and pockets of impactful change, for the most, our lives have not yet materially changed. He said that he sees a dramatic change in the next decade, emphasizing the potential of agent-based technologies to redefine and reshape jobs and workflows fundamentally.

Let’s look at a few of these in more detail.

Cisco’s AI Strategy

Cisco’s AI strategy is focussed on integrating AI natively into their products, providing AI infrastructure, and ensuring AI security. Jeetu Patel talked passionately about the importance of AI-ready data centers, modern networks and AI aware security as well as what he called “future-proof workplaces”, and resilience in operations, driven by AI and data. Cisco unveiled new AI-driven features across their Webex collaboration suite, designed to make virtual meetings more intuitive and productive. These enhancements included real-time language translation, advanced noise cancellation, and AI-powered meeting summaries, ensuring that every participant can stay engaged and informed as well as work with Apple and Microsoft integration and connectivity.

Building Future Proofed Workspaces

Cisco talked about the importance of seamless integration across various platforms. They said they are introducing new APIs and partnerships that will better enable Webex and their meeting spaces technologies to integrate more effortlessly with other tools and applications, providing a unified and streamlined user experience, including with Microsoft Teams. Cisco aims to continue to raise the standard of what the workplace with secure campus and branch networking, smart building technology, workplace security, and seamless collaboration should look like something they see themselves having a unique industry advantage of.

“Our goal is to make every meeting as productive and engaging as possible, no matter where you are in the world.” | Jeetu Patel | Cisco VP

Cisco said the focus is on creating productive, automated, and secure environments for employees to work from anywhere. Cisco also showcases its advancements in spatial meetings, emphasizing the importance of human connection in AI-driven interactions – with a differentiated focus on creating immersive and engaging meeting experiences that feel as intimate and effective as in-person interactions.

Autonomous Agents in Webex Contact Centre

Cisco also introduced their upcoming autonomous Webex AI agent, designed to enhance self-service in contact centers. This AI agent combines conversational intelligence with generative AI and integrates with back-office systems to deliver personalized outcomes, reducing the need for human agents. The demo showed some advanced autonomous (AI Agents) enhancing customer self-service – combining conversational AI with generative AI along with integrates with back-office systems and processes like HR and Finance.

Extended Partnerships

Cisco discussed extended partnerships with both Apple and Microsoft, emphasizing their collaborative efforts to enhance technology and user experience and to meet customers where they are. These partnerships emphasize Cisco’s commitment to interoperability and enhancing user experiences across different (in some cases, competitive) platforms.

Cisco said that their Cisco Room devices for Microsoft Teams have become the fastest-growing Microsoft Teams Room solution in the world with over 3,000 customers now leveraging Cisco technology to power their Microsoft Teams investment.

Cisco’s long-term relationship with Apple was discussed and references made to Cisco technology being integral to Apple’s product development. The keynote highlighted the collaboration between the two including the development of the Apple Vision Pro, which integrates Cisco’s Webex for immersive 3D meetings

An AI powered Sustainable Future

High on the agenda was Cisco’s commitment to sustainability which was a key theme through the keynote. Cisco introduced new features aimed at reducing the environmental impact of virtual meetings, such as energy-efficient data centres and tools to measure and offset carbon footprints.


Did you attend Webex One or watch it remotely, what did you find of interest and what did you hope you’d see but didn’t?

Understanding the EU AI Act and Microsoft’s Commitment to Compliance..

TL:DR

The EU AI Act, effective from August 2024, regulates AI systems within theEU, categorizing them into prohibited, high-risk, and limited or minimal risk. Microsoft is committed to compliance through tools like Purview Compliance Manager, continuous monitoring, data privacy measures, bias mitigation, and transparency initiatives.

Understanding the EU AI Act

The EU AI Act, effective from August 2024, is a comprehensive regulation designed to govern the development, deployment, and use of AI systems within the European Union. It categorises AI systems into three risk levels: prohibited, high-risk, and limited or minimal risk.

  • Prohibited AI Systems: These are AI applications that pose unacceptable risks, such as those that manipulate human behavior or exploit vulnerabilities of specific groups. Organisations must decommission such systems by February 2025.
  • High-Risk AI Systems: These include applications used in biometric identification, critical infrastructure, education, and law enforcement. High-risk systems are permitted but must undergo stringent compliance checks, including conformity assessments by accredited third parties or through self-assessment.
  • Limited or Minimal Risk AI Systems: These cover applications like chatbots and AI-generated content, which are generally permitted but require transparency and informed consent from users.

Key Challenges in AI Compliance

Organisations will likely face several challenges in navigating AI compliance:

  • Ensuring Continuous Compliance: AI regulations are dynamic, and organisations must continuously update their systems to remain compliant. This involves tracking regulatory changes and implementing necessary updates promptly.
  • Managing Data and Privacy: AI systems often process vast amounts of data, including sensitive information. Ensuring that AI applications do not inadvertently access or misuse sensitive data is a significant concern.
  • Addressing Bias and Inaccuracy: AI systems must be trained on diverse and representative data sets to avoid biases. Inaccurate or biased AI outputs can lead to ethical and legal issues.
  • Maintaining Transparency: Organisations must ensure that their AI systems operate transparently, providing clear information on how data is used and decisions are made.

Microsoft’s Commitment to AI Compliance

Microsoft is at the forefront of ensuring AI compliance and ethical use. Here are some key initiatives and tools that demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment:

  • Purview Compliance Manager: Part of the Microsoft Purview family, this tool helps organizations manage compliance with various regulations, including the EU AI Act. It offers templates for different regulatory requirements, enabling organizations to streamline their compliance processes.
  • Continuous Monitoring and Updates: Microsoft ensures that its AI applications, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, are continuously monitored and updated to comply with evolving regulations. This proactive approach helps organisations stay ahead of compliance requirements.
  • Data Privacy and Security: Microsoft emphasizes robust data privacy and security measures. AI applications are designed to prevent unauthorised access to sensitive data, and tools like Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies help safeguard information.
  • Bias Mitigation: Microsoft is committed to reducing bias in AI systems. By using diverse data sets and implementing rigorous testing protocols, Microsoft aims to ensure that its AI applications provide fair and accurate results.
  • Transparency and Accountability: Microsoft promotes transparency in AI operations. Users are informed about how their data is used, and AI systems are designed to provide clear explanations for their decisions.

Conclusion

The EU AI Act represents a significant step towards ensuring the ethical and responsible use of AI. As organisations navigate this complex regulatory landscape, Microsoft’s tools and initiatives provide valuable support in achieving compliance. By prioritising continuous monitoring, data privacy, bias mitigation, and transparency, Microsoft is helping organisations harness the power of AI while adhering to the highest standards of ethical conduct.

What organisations can do

As we move forward in this AI-driven future, it’s crucial for every organisation large and small, private and public to stay informed and proactive about regulatory compliance in this space.

If you are invested in Microsoft Technology, be that Microsoft 365 or Azure, ensure to further explore Microsoft’s extensive and comprehensive suite of tools and resources to ensure your organisation and AI connected systems are not only compliant but also ethical and transparent.

1. You can check out Microsoft AI Compliance Hub

2. Check out their YouTube video https://youtu.be/briI9LdiZuc

3. Speak to your Microsoft Partner.

Incorporating Microsoft Designer into family life.

In my work life, I am a Technology Officer for Cisilion (a leading UK Microsoft and Cisco technology and service integrator and enabler), but beyond work, I love technology and more importantly, I love to find ways in incorporate new and emerging (or just plain cool) technology into the everyday lives of myself and my family. I’m also a Microsoft MVP, which means I have even more reasons to be a fan and supporter of some of the best and Microsoft – these include Microsoft Designer, Microsoft Clipchamp and of course Microsoft Copilot!

In this blog (with some videos along the way), I’ll show you some of the ways we incorporate the latest Microsoft products into our family activities, routine, and life.

This blog will focus around the recently released Microsoft Designer – which we have been using throughout its development – you’ll see just what a simple to use, yet powerful tool this is and how it has allowed me to blend my professional expertise with my role as a parent and cub leader.

For those new to Designer – you can access it on the web https://designer.microsoft.com or via the mobile app on iOS and Android.


Setting the Scene – About our Family!

I’m married, we have a cat and two young boys (currently nine and seven), the youngest is autistic and the eldest is ADHD (though not officially diagnosed). This means attention to detail is really high, yet patience is low, and they both hate waiting for things or things that take too long and are “boring” are a no no! One loves trains and the other planes (and trains). We created this design in Designer for Christmas Cards in December 2023 🙂

In my work life, I am a Technology Officer, my wife is a teacher that specialises in Special Educational Needs, and in my “spare” time I am a Cub Scout Assistant Leader in my hometown of West Wickham in Kent. My kids love trains, and everything related to them and much of our family time is spend satisfying their craving for train related activities…

Work / Technology Blogs

In my line of work, personal (technical life as a Microsoft MVP) and side-blogger, I use Designer to create inspiring, original and personalised images for blog covers and articles.

The example below is an image design I asked Microsoft Designer to create introducing the new Cyber Security bill announced at the recent Kings Speech in July 2024.

Image Created with Microsoft Designer for a recent Blog

Inspiring Young Minds – Scouting

Consistently looking for ways to ensure young people are ready for the world and life ahead of them, scouting is great. The children learn about working together, solving problems, critical thinking, empathy, the role of people in a community as well some great “life” skills such as exploring the great outside, camping, orienteering, first aid and safety and caring and supporting others.

Technology is a given in schools (well many), the workplace and in the home, but less so in scouting. In the past year, we have been looking at more ways to integrate technology into what we do in simple, yet inclusive ways.

This past year we have been using technology subtly within the “curriculum” without impacting the practical and outdoor nature of the groups purpose. We have digital badges and creative projects and decided early last year (2023) to blend AI design creation into the Cub Scout Group.

After some simple interactive design sessions, we soon had the Cub Scouts designing custom badges, event posters (for a gang show), and promotional advertising (shared over parent social media groups, which not only added a digital touch to what we did, but sparked curiosity and awareness.

Then, last Christmas, the Cubs raised some money for Crisis at Christmas (which fund Christmas dinner and shelter for homeless people) and they together in in groups, created some banner/posters. This was the “winning” one which we used to share the donation to Crisis with

Winning Designer Image from 1st West Wickham Cubs

New Business Ideas

In May 2024, my wife, marketing manager, turned mother, then childminder and now Deputy Pre School manager is looking to venture out and start her our Pre-School aimed at children with Special Education Needs. She had contacted a couple of small graphic design companies to get quotes for a logo design, but then turned to Microsoft Designer Image Creator to see what it could produce. Once she overcame the DALLE-3 “wording and spelling challenges”, she very quickly has a design she loved which she then polished off in Designer Editor. This took minutes and saved her at least £100!

Logo for a new “coming soon” Pre-School

Educating Young People – Showcasing AI Design to Year 2 and Year 4

Towards the end of the summer term, parents were invited to come into my children’s school and talk a bit out their job and an what they do. I had 30 minutes with two classes of year 4 children, followed by a the same with two classes in year 2.

Part of my “talk” involved an interactive session with the children, where we talked about how AI would impact every part of their lives and jobs and used a combination of Microsoft Designer and Microsoft Copilot to create a class mascot and a story to go with it.

End of School Year – Thank you gifts

As the school year ended for my children at the end of July, we bought small teacher gifts and my eldest (nine), took to Designer to create some stickers we could print on sticker paper and attach to the gifts to give them a personalised touch.

Microsoft Designer sticker creation handled the task nicely. We took the images, dropped into PowerPoint to duplicate, and size them, and printed out the stickers to add to plants and chocolates we’d bought/grown for the teaching staff and assistants.

Supporting my children’s passion for Trains

My wider blog on Designer’s capability, is focussed heavily on how we use Designer to add some flair into my son’s hobby around trains and travel. We spend most weekends riding trains, visiting train museums and doing videos about different trains, train lines and doing little challenges.

As we aim to “promote” his videos a little more, we have taken to Microsoft Designer to advertise his work.

Using Microsoft Designer to promote upcoming videos….

Endless fun creating different train related images on Microsoft Designer.

Improving our promoting skills

Finally, working with Gen AI tools is a skill in its’ own and takes practice and experimenting to get the “perfect image”. There is a great community of people on social media, including some of the @MSFT365Designer team and users. It’s great to get inspiration from others, share your prompts and take on the challenges of creating new and exciting images.

Why not get involved… Don’t forget to #MicrosoftDesigner.

Get involved in the AI Design Promoting Community

Thanks for Reading

Thanks for reading – I hope this gives some inspiration around how you could use Microsoft Designer for work, personal life, hobbies and more.

I have written a wider blog with video guides about how to use Microsoft Designer, which goes into examples of different ways to use it.⬇️

You can read/watch this here.

How to use Microsoft Designer – “free” AI Powered Design Revolution

Cisco Live 2024: Unveiling an AI-powered and secure future

Cisco’s annual event, Cisco Live 2024, has seen a huge number of new AI-powered innovations and investments from a Cisco as they took to the stage in Las Vegas. This year the focus has been about powering the AI transformation and has been particularly impactful with the introduction and expansion of AI-enriched solutions across networking, security, and observability domains.

Here’s my take aways from the event based on snipits I watched and blogs from Cisco I’ve read over night on how these advancements are set to further transform the tech industry across almost almost every vertical.

Digital Resilience Through AI

Cisco talked about how their AI-powered innovations which are heavily focussed on the platform that drives transformation (the network and connectivity) are designed to enhance digital resilience, combining the power of the network with industry-leading security and observability. This integration simplifies adoption and provides comprehensive visibility across the digital landscape.

$1 Billion AI Investment Fund

Cisco annouced a new Global AI Investment Fund in a bold move to foster industry innovation and customer readiness and likely help them fund and invest into future aquisitions which is becoming common in the industry with start up innovation and backing. This strategic initiative supports Cisco’s vision of an AI-powered future, connecting and protecting organisations of all sizes through Cisco innovative networking and secure cloud technology platforms.

New Strategic Initiatives

Cisco’s collaboration with industry giants like NVIDIA, Splunk (who they aquired earlier this year) , and others, showcases its commitment to customer success and growth. Cisco referenced some of their largest clients including Steve Madden and McLaren F1 Racing that see Cisco continuing to play a vital role as a strategic ally in business and technology across their entire portfolio from network, security observability and collaboration.

New certifications to empower partners

Designed to prepare partners and ensure skills for the AI powered future, Cisco annouced new AI Fundamentals for their Partners including a new Certification in AI. Cisco plan to ensure they continue to equip partners and the workforce with the necessary skills to thrive in an AI-driven landscape which shows no sign on flowing down.

New innovations to their portfolio announced

Cisco has also announced new AI-powered features for their contact center solutions at Cisco Live 2024. These include.

  • New capabilities in Webex Contact Center will help organizations design and manage conversational self-service experiences. . This means businesses can automate their customer service to a greater extent, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.
  • An AI Assistant is being provided for contact center agents. This assistant can help agents handle customer queries more effectively and efficiently, leading to improved customer service.
  • Cisco is also enabling the integration of third-party virtual agent solutions into their contact center offerings12. This allows businesses to leverage a wider range of technologies and services to enhance their customer service.

There is no AI without data and networking

With Cisco networking already the motorway for connectivity inside data centres, organisations IT and for connecting people, things and devices: 

  • Nexus HyperFabric AI clusters. This is a “breakthrough” AI cluster solution developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and provides a single place to design, deploy, monitor, and assure AI pods and data center workloads. This means businesses can manage their AI workloads more efficiently and effectively.
  • Cisco Hypershield support for AMD Pensando DPUs and Intel IPUs,which Cisco say will enables enterprises to “realize an AI-driven, distributed security architecture” that seamlessly goes from the cloud to the data centers to the edge while still being highly performing and energy efficient.
  • Cisco will also combine the the power of the Splunk with their AppDynamics Application Performance Monitoring (APM) with the introduction of Splunk Log Observer for Cisco AppDynamics. This integration will enable users to drive faster troubleshooting across on-prem and hybrid environments.

Excitement overdrive

As a leading UK Cisco Partner, Cisco Live brought excitement to our teams and will give new innovation enablement for Cisco customers.

Cisco’s innovations will help us continue to help out customer build a more resilient, intelligent, and secure digital environment.

We’re thrilled to share incredible innovation and new AI-powered capabilities for our customers this week at Cisco Live… Cisco is uniquely positioned to revolutionize the way infrastructure and data connect and protect organizations of all sizes, and we are confident we are the right strategic partner for our customers in this era of AI.”

Chuck Robbins |Chair and CEO | Cisco.

For Cisco, it represents a step forward in leading the industry towards an inclusive AI-powered future. And for partners like Cisilion, it’s an opportunity to leverage these advancements to deliver cutting-edge solutions to our clients.

It’s not over yet.

Stay tuned for more updates from Cisco Live 2024, as we continue to explore the possibilities of AI and its impact on the world of technology.

Read more at Cisco

What are you most excited about for Cisco Live and what were you hoping they annouced and didn’t?

Microsoft “Team Copilot” – what is and what does it do?

At Microsoft Build this week (May 2024) Microsoft set out their vision for the next stage of Copilot within Microsoft 365 with the announcement of Team Copilot. With the usual sizzle videos, blogs and presentations on this, the vision for the future of Copilot in Microsoft 365, whereby they see Team Copilot as a meeting moderator, group collaborator, or project manager – making it a “valuable team member” as Microsoft put it.

What is Team Copilot?

Team Copilot is the latest iteration of Copilot for Microsoft 365, designed to assist with tasks and activities across various aspects of team collaboration, projects, and meetings through AI support.

Microsoft say that Team Copilot expands Copilot for Microsoft 365 from a behind-the-scenes personal AI assistant to a valuable new team member, improving collaboration and project management. Team Copilot will act on behalf of a team, a department, or an entire company and you’re always in control – assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative, together. Team Copilot will be available where you collaborate – in Teams, Loop, Planner, and more.

Microsoft showcases capabilities where Team Copilot can serve as a meeting moderator, group collaborator, or project manager, undertaking tasks such as:

  • Manage meeting agendas, meeting flow and also take notes in the Teams app;
  • Support employees in better performing their duties and solving problems through proactive notifications, suggested actions and guidance
  • Oversee project execution by assigning tasks, tracking deadlines, and informing team members of their required contributions.

Like Copilot for Microsoft 365 in the “personal assistant space”, The Team Copilot service will be tightly integrated across Microsoft’s core Office applications, such as Teams, Loop, and Planner.

The need for Adoption & Change Management has never been higher

We love the pace of innovation and change coming across the digital technology eco system. Services like Microsoft 365 have always have a rapid release and new feature cycle with literally hundreds of changes and improvements in development and rollout at any time.

Team Copilot – Image (c) Microsoft

In this rapidly evolving landscape of the AI powered workplace, the integration of Microsoft 365 and Copilot represents a significant leap forward. However, to truly harness the potential of these innovations, organisations need to ensure they have a robust and proven Adoption and Change Management (ACM) service in place. Training and coaching in line with this ACM, ensures that employees are not only aware of the new tools, their potential and how to use them, but also that they are coached and mentored to use them proficiently and to their full extent in order to release the value they offer.

This strategic approach mitigates resistance, fosters a culture of continuous learning, and aligns technological advancements with business objectives, thereby maximizing the return on investment.

Being on a Copilot journey ourselves in my organisation (Cisiilion), I see three paramount reasons why we invested in ACM for our Copilot deployment – these apply to almost all of the organisation we are working with today.

  • User Competency: Simply providing tools is not enough; employees need guidance to use them effectively. If you don’t have a dedicated ACM team in house, the importance of ensuring there is budget to use ACM services from your technology partner is critical to sccess and bridges the gap between access and ability, leading to increased productivity.
  • Cultural Integration: Tools like Microsoft Copilot are most effective when they become woven into the organisational fabric. Paying for professional ACM services (or leveraging your own in house team) facilitates this integration, ensuring that new technologies enhance, rather than disrupt, workflows.
  • Optimised Utilization: Without ACM, there is a risk of underutilization or incorrect use of sophisticated tools, which can negate the benefits. ACM services ensure that organizations extract maximum value from their investments.

In essence, simply dropping a license to a user (we did try that first), without support is akin to providing a car without any driving lessons or road to drive it on – it is the mastery and understanding fostered by ACM that truly puts an organisation in the driver’s seat of innovation and supports their employees in understanding, adopting and getting the best our using these technologies to improve the ways they work and get work done.

When will Teams Copilot be available?

Based on the information shared at Build, a preview version of Team Copilot will be available to Copilot for Microsoft 365 license holders before the end of the year.

You can read more from Microsoft on their official blog –> here <–

Balancing Act: Microsoft’s “Recall” Feature

The day before Microsoft Build 2024, Microsoft unveiled the future of Windows and the PC with what they dubbed “Copilot+ PC”. The build conference (as expected) has unveiled a plethora of innovations aimed at developers and of course AI has at heart of everything.

One of the key pieces of innovation announced at Build and at the Copilot+PC launch was the new AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature which will be coming soon to Windows 11 and will be enabled on devices with the new Copilot+PC powered by the new SnapDragon Elite processors.

This new AI powered feature promises to revolutionise how we interact with our digital histories, but it also raises important questions about privacy.

What is Microsoft Recall?

Recall is designed to transform searchability and predictive search within Windows 11 by recording / snapshotting user activities on their device. It captures snapshots of your screen every five seconds, allowing you to search and retrieve past activities, including app usage, communications in live meetings, and websites visited – giving you (and it) the ability to rewind time to any point (subject to configuration) to help you find what you need or pick up from where you left off. Your snapshots are then locally stored and locally analysed on your PC.

Microsoft Recall – Image (c) Microsoft

Recall’s analysis allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using natural language. Nothing is shared with other users or used to train their AI models. Privacy, Microsoft say is key!

The Promise of Recall

The benefits of Recall are immense. Imagine being able to revisit any moment of your digital life (work or personal), retrieve information from a past meeting, or recall a website or document you reviewed yesterday, last week or last month. This could significantly boost productivity and ensure no detail is ever lost in the digital ether. To “recall” this information, you simple “describe how you remember” using natural language, and Recall will retrieve the moment you saw it. In Microsoft’s blog post around this, they use this example:

Trying to remember the name of the Korean restaurant your friend Alice mentioned? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even take you back to the exact location of the item you saw.”

Do we need Recall – what is wrong with search and history?

Recall does sound awesome and very clever – but are Microsoft is creating a solution for a problem that isn’t really there?

Microsoft said in the announcement “We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we have seen before on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails trying to find it.”

Personally, I think search works pretty well on Windows 11 anyway and Edge has a great history, favourites and collections feature to help me find stuff I was browsing (they even work across devices). So why do we need recall?

Well…Recall will definately build on this make it much mich easier to find things and “go back in time”, essentially giving Windows 11 a “photographic memory,” as Microsoft explains it. The reason I think this will be a really awesome feature is less because I can never find something, but is more about the experience I want and am starting to expect from AI.

A webpage, image or document we are looking at doesnt paint the whole picture and with search these things are isolated. Recall brings this all together. Maybe I was researching a trip or a topic – with recall it can colate the whole story, bringing together context, images, notes, documents, searches, websites together.

Privacy Concerns

Recall’s powerful capability to record and store every action poses significant privacy concerns and social media has been rife with this (no such thing as bad press right). The thought of someone else accessing this data is unsettling, yet Microsoft assures us that the data remains fully encrypted, local, and linked to that user’s profile. It is not shared with anyone, accessible by anyone or used to train their Large Language Models or dor advertising purposes.

Of course, despite this, the potential for misuse cannot be ignored, especially if sensitive information like passwords or financial details appear on-screen so people I guess are rightfully concerned and since this is not actually “available” yet many of the concerns, assurances etc., are not yet “proven” either way.

Microsoft has a FAQ section that explains how Recall works. This is something everyone panicking about Recall should read.

Microsoft’s Safeguards

The integration of Recall into Windows 11 by Microsoft is designed to keep user data secure and private. Personally and knowing how Microsoft always put the user in control of what is and is not enabled in Windows 11, I am personally not concerned, but understand why some might be initially.

Secondly, Recall works on-device and not across the cloud. This means, no data leaves the PC to Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft will not improve its large language models using this particularly sensitive data. Microsoft say that they will also not use the data for targeting advrtisments. Recall data isn’t available to other applications.

To mitigate these concerns, Microsoft has implemented several safeguards:

  • Recall will not capture InPrivate browsing or DRM-protected content.
  • Users can pause, stop, or delete captured content at any time
  • Users can exclude specific apps or websites from being recorded
  • Users can disable recall and not use it at all.

I also wanted to share directly from Microsoft’s post around this – their approach around privavcy and responsible AI

Microsoft has been working to advance AI responsibly since 2017, when we first defined our AI principles and later operationalized our approach through our Responsible AI Standard. Privacy and security are principles as we develop and deploy AI systems. We work to help our customers use our AI products responsibly, sharing our learnings, and building trust-based partnerships. For more about our responsible AI efforts, the principles that guide us, and the tooling and capabilities we’ve created to assure that we develop AI technology responsibly, see Responsible AI.

Recall uses optical character recognition (OCR), local to the PC, to analyse snapshots and facilitate search. For more information about OCR, see Transparency note and use cases for OCR. For more information about privacy and security, see Privacy and security for Recall & screenray“.

The Future of Recall

As we move forward, the Recall feature will likely evolve, based on feedback from the Window Insider Community and MVPs. Microsoft will need to continually balance AI innovation with user trust, ensuring that privacy is not sacrificed for convenience and that users are given choice with regards features that record and track usage and interactions. The conversation around Recall is just beginning, and it will be fascinating to see how it shapes the future of digital interaction and privacy.

In conclusion, Microsoft’s Recall stands at the crossroads of technological advancement and privacy. It’s a powerful tool that promises huge benefits but also requires careful consideration and management of privacy concerns. As with any new technology, it will be up to both Microsoft and its users to navigate these waters responsibly.


Would love to hear your views on this? What do you think, excited for this new feature (on the new Copilot+PC hardware) or will you be turning it off or jumping OS!! 🙂 

For more detailed information on the feature and its capabilities, please refer to the official announcements and resources provided by Microsoft.

Copilot+PC – Fastest, most AI-ready Windows PCs ever built.

Today (20th May 2024), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a new category of PC that features the latest generative AI tools built directly into Windows and powered by the latest generation of AI computing hardware. Microsoft say this is “the most significant change to the Window platform in decades“.

Microsoft said this entirely new class of Windows PC is engineered to unleash the power of distributed AI in conjunction with the latest generation of AI-Powered chip sets from Qualcomm which bring new AI hardware which will power these new AI features which will be “part of” the Windows OS.

Microsoft call this new category ‘Copilot Plus’… which will see the creation of the latest, fastest, most AI-ready Windows PCs ever built. Copilot+ PCs represent a significant advancement in computing, offering powerful performance and pioneering AI capabilities. Equipped with Snapdragon® X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors, these PCs are engineered to provide peak processing efficiency and swift response times.

Copilot+ PCs can run AI workloads up to 20x faster and 100x more efficiently than traditional PCs.

Microsoft have also announced today, their first Copilot+ PCs, in both the new Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 – both powered by these new AI Chipsets. They are also working with Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung who will also be bringing their Copilot+ PCs to market.

Here’s the Sizzle Video.

Copilot+PC – Microsoft (c)

As Microsoft took to the stage in front of the world’s tech press, they said that they estimate more than fifty million “AI PCs” will be sold over the next 12 months, given the appetite for devices powered by ChatGPT-style technology.

“…more than 50 million AI PCs will be sold over the next 12 months”

Satya Nadella | Microsoft.

The Copilot+ PC is here

The concept of Copilot+ PC is not merely to offer a handful of AI features. Instead, it is about having a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on a Copilot+ PC that continuously runs multiple language models in the background of Windows 11. These models will monitor all your activities on your PC to provide contextual information whenever you need to prompt Copilot effectively. Microsoft refers to this functionality as Recall, describing it as a “sensor for AI.”

Satya Nadella announcing the Copilot+PC
Satya Nadella announcing the Copilot+PC

As suggested in the sizzle video above, this implies that a Copilot+ PC can retrieve a line from a document you write or reviewed days earlier, remind you of a commitment or action you made in an email last week, or monitor your web browsing to suggest frequently visited websites and services based on your current activity or “intent”. Whilst there are clear privacy concerns, Microsoft claims that Copilot+ becomes an AI superpower when fully operational and respects your privacy at all times – helping you to do more.

Constant monitoring will be at the heart of a Copilot+ PC, but Microsoft say that it’s substantial AI computing power can do much much more. For example, there will be many creative tools that leverage AI, ranging from Photoshop’s generative AI fill to Microsoft’s AI image generation, to AI video and voice effects in meetings. With a Copilot+ PC, these functions are executed locally on the device – saving time, reducing the need to rely in cloud services and reducing CPU workload and power consumption.

Microsoft have said that users will always be in control and will have the option to disable the always-on AI tracking and to be able to review and delete these AI snapshots individually.

To be classed as Copilot+ status, PCs must be able to deliver at least 40 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of AI processing power from the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This represents a significant increase from previous offerings, such as Intel’s Meteor Lake, which provided only 10 TOPS from the NPU.

Under the Hood of a Copilot + PC

So, what is powering these new Copilot+ PCs? Despite Microsoft announcing the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for business earlier this year, the new Copilot+ PCs are not powered Intel or AMD chips.

“Over the past year, we have seen an incredible pace of innovation of AI in the cloud with Copilot allowing us to do things that we never dreamed possible…..

Now, we begin a new chapter with AI innovation on the device…..

We have completely reimagined the entirety of the PC, from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud, with AI at the center, marking the most significant change to the Window platform in decades”

Microsoft (May 2024)

Instead, the initial series exclusively features the Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus chips, each boasting more than 40 TOPS of AI power. According to Qualcomm, these chips provide over four times the AI power of their competitors‘ chips and have more than enough power to run the latest AI infused games.

The Copilot+PC also include the dedicated button to prompt the Copilot AI assistant at any time.

Security is also AI Powered

Microsoft focussed heavily on Security. As with the current ARM powered devices such as the Surface Pro X and Surface Pro 9 5G, every Copilot+ PC comes secured out of the box.

The Microsoft Pluton Security processor (which goes way beyond TPM) is activated by default on all Copilot+ PCs, and they are introducing several new features, updates, and defaults in Windows 11 24H2 that will simplify, yet enhance user security. Additionally, Microsoft are integrated additional personalised privacy controls to safeguard personal and sensitive data.


Microsoft’s vision is to ensure this new AI standards for PCs will enable the next generation of AI development which is timely given their annual Build Conference runs this week in which they will be driving new development capability to develops eager to ride the AI gravy train for Windows system and application development.

As the primary investor in OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, Microsoft also confirmed that the newly announced GPT-4o model, which powers the chatbot, will also be integrated into Copilot+ PCs “soon”. GPT-4o is currently available in preview in Azure AI.

Microsoft Surface – What’s coming in 2024

Next week is Microsoft Build, and the day before (that’s Monday 20th May), Microsoft is set to host a significant event in-person in Seattle about the the future and of Windows, Surface and Copilot.

The event (which is not being live streamed unfortunately) takes place at 17:00 UK Time (10:00am Pacific Time) and will showcase (I hope filled with the famous Microsoft sizzle videos) the next wave of innovation for Surface, Windows and Copilot powered by new AI powered chipsets.

As usual Microsoft has not disclosed specific details about what is being announced, but there have been many “suggestive” leaks, predication’s and teases about what is coming. What we do know is that this will be a big and “special” announcement.

This year, Microsoft have already launched the first generation of new AI PC with the release of the Surface Pro 10 and The Surface Laptop 6 which were built on the new Intel AI Boost technology – which you can read more about here.

So what is being announced?

We know this is a pretty big announcement and we do know that this is the year of AI and the year of the AI PC, so we can expect some pretty exciting announcements. Despite the various leaks, we won’t know until Monday what is actually coming, but we do know that Microsoft’s previous product updates were only around the Intel based devices and their ARM powered devices haven’t yet received an update.

Windows Insiders will be well aware of the all the AI innovating coming to the next generation of Windows 11 so we can expect some new AI wow to be announced for Windows 11 as Microsoft gear up for the 24H2 update coming later this year.

Next Generation of Windows and Surface (and Copilot)

Given the new Qualcomm chipsets such as the Snapdragon Elite X, it would make sense for this to feature in the announcements. These new chipsets (which I discussed here) provide huge NPU capabilities which are needed to process AI workloads efficiently without sloooooooowing down the device so it will be exciting to see if these feature in the future of Surface and Windows!

Will Copilot work “locally/Offline?

What? Well today, all the AI and Copilot experiences we have seen with Windows 11 (and Microsoft 365 Copilot) take place in the cloud, but I also wonder if Microsoft will discuss their plans and advancements around local/on-device Generative AI experiences. With the newer AI Boost PCs from Intel, what is now available with Qualcomm and what Microsoft have in their arsenal with Copilot and OpenAI, it will be interesting to see what Microsoft can tell us about how they could de-couple the AI experiences, providing the ability to run local LLMs “on chip”. This of course is as much about the software (Windows OS) as it is the hardware that powers it.

What about Windows 365?

I hope so – since Windows 365 is very much part of the Windows story and I’m hoping we will hear some updates about what is coming to Windows 365. We have seen huge performance and boot time increases this year, innovation with Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch (i have covered this in another blog) so be great to see what is next for Windows 365. There were also many things announced over the past 12 months such as offline mode that haven’t yet made it to market – could this be finally coming?

Microsoft Places now in Public Preview

Microsoft have finally (after a long wait), released the much-anticipated Microsoft Places into Public Preview. When it launches later in 2024, Places will be licensed as part of Microsoft Teams Premium.

What is Microsoft Places?

Microsoft Places, is Microsoft’s “AI-powered” (of course it is), connected workplace app that has been “designed to revitalise flexible work by helping employees coordinate where they work, modernise in-person connections, and provide valuable data for IT, Real Estate and Facilities Management to optimise the workplace.

Microsoft Places Promo (2024)

What’s included in the Places Public Preview

At launch of the public preview, not all features will be available, but more features will roll over time based on feedback on those in the private preview and MVPs. The following is included initially.

  • Location Plan: Allows people to share their proposed location schedule and see who else will be attending in-person – this makes in-person huddles, team lunches and “working together” easier.
  • In-Person Meeting: Sounds like an odd one, but provides updates to meeting invites and calendaring to communicate the organisers “intention” for people to work together with an in-person meeting invite (no Online Meeting) – this is good for team meetings, workshops etc.
  • New Hybrid RSVP: Intended to help us plan better – this shows a collated view of who is coming into the office, allowing people to adjust their location plan directly from their Calendar.
  • Expanded Presence: Provides the ability for people to easily add their location to your presence state, indicating when they are in the office, working at home or from another specific location.

What won’t be available in the preview?

As discussed above, there are some features that Microsoft spoke about when they first announced Places back in 2022. These include:

  • Access to the Places Directory: This will not be available yet as part of the public preview
  • As such the following sub-services that this enables will also not be available including
    • Space Analytics and occupancy data
    • Ability to find rooms by buildings in the Places Finder
    • Ability mention @nearby in Teams

Microsoft have also said that the integration of Places data into Microsoft Copilot will make coordination even easier. Coming in the second half of 2024, you will be able to use Copilot to understand which days are best to come into the office.

To me, personally, we will be playing with this in a demo environment as many of the key benefits I see are in the Places Directory.

Keep an eye on the Places Space to keep up-to-date with updates and changes as the public preview progresses.

Integration with Building and FM Providers

Microsoft are partnering with a wealth of FM and building companies across this market. With Microsoft Places, they have built a ecosystem of partners (listed below) who will build on top of the Places platform with new and existing solutions, leveraging, and enhancing data related to people, location, and space. Microsoft have listed the following launch partners but have said that more are coming rapidly.

  • Avanade
  • AppSpace
  • AVI/SPL
  • CBRE
  • Cisco Spaces
  • Chestron
  • Eptura
  • ISS
  • JLL
  • Service Now
  • Verge Sense

I’m super excited by the integration into App Space and Cisco Spaces 🙂


How do I get on the Microsoft Places Public Preview?

The Microsoft Places public preview is available on request and IT need to sign up using the link below. You can register your primary “live” environment or demo/dev environment (we did both). To sign up follow this link here:

“AI at work is here – Now comes the hard part” – Microsoft & Linked In WTI.

Microsoft and Linked In have just released their first joint 2024 Work Trend Index Report, which is titled , “AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part.”

The report is based on a survey of some 31,000 people across 31 countries, global and regional employee and hiring trends on LinkedIn, trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals from the Microsoft Graph, and detailed research across many of the Fortune 500 organisations. 💬I’ve also added my thoughts and experiences at each section.🗨️

“AI is seen as a tool that saves time, boosts creativity, and allows employees to focus on their most important work”.

Microsoft and Linked In – Work Trend Index Report (2024)

The WTI report deep dives into how AI is influencing the way we work, lead, and hire. Here are some key takeaways from the report – I’ve included a link to the whole report and resources at the end of the post too. Here’s the highlights.

AI Adoption and Its Impact

The report states, rather to the point, that “Employees want AI at work — and won’t wait for companies to catch up“. The is backed up by research that reveals that 75% of knowledge workers are now using AI at work.

Image (c) Microsoft May 2024

It says that “AI is seen as a tool that saves time, boosts creativity, and allows employees to focus on their most important work”. It also talks about the fact that there is a disconnect between employees and leaders when it comes to AI adoption. it also reveals that while 79% of leaders agree that AI adoption is critical to remain competitive, 60% express concern about their company’s lack of vision and plan to implement it. This has led to a new trend of Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI), where 78% of AI users are bringing their own tools to work.

💬This is something we / I have seen at Cisilion. When running workshops with customers. many say they are not ready, only to later discover that many many employees are already using BYOAI without the business knowing, in an uncontrolled, non-sanctioned way…

The AI Skills Gap

The use of generative AI at work has nearly doubled in the past six months. This is not surprising given the general availability of Microsoft 365 and the rapid go-to-market of almost every SaaS company offering “new AI expertise”. LinkedIn are seeing a significant increase in professionals adding AI skills to their profiles. However, only 39% of users have received any form of official AI training from their company, and only 25% of companies expect to offer it this year. – This has led to professionals taking the initiative to skill up on their own. As of late last year, there has been a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills like Copilot and ChatGPT to their profiles.

💬This is also interesting and in our/my experience, we have seen many organisations “stumble” at the first hurdle of a pilot with tools like Copilot due to not investing in training. Those that have (and Microsoft are helping their customers through partners like Cisilion), get started with tools like Copilot. Working with Gen AI is very very different way of working and training and adoption services make a huge difference to success/failure and business benefits of this technology.

The Emergence of AI Power Users

The report identifies four types of AI users, from sceptics who rarely use AI to power users who use it extensively. The report says that Power users have reoriented their workdays in fundamental ways, saving a minimum of 30 minutes per day. Over 90% of power users say AI makes their overwhelming workload more manageable and their work more enjoyable.

Image (c) Microsoft & Linked In

💬Personally I think this is just the beginning, as more us get used to working with AI tools like Copilot, we will redefine how and what we use it for and this will give us time back to focus on more of the right stuff.

I also see the other side, many that dabble (without training or coaching or time to experiment and test) often turn their noses up as they don’t see the value. It takes time to get the hang of it, get the prompt write (the below will help) and share successes. AI is not perfect either and the experiences are not always “predictable”. Teams need to work together – ideally led by a coach or adoption expert to get over the hurdles, support employees and measure success.

New Capabilities in Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft also used this report to officially announce some new capabilities that are coming to Copilot for Microsoft 365. These include: an auto-complete feature in the prompt box, a new prompt rewrite feature that turns a basic prompt into a rich one, a new chat interface called Catch Up that surfaces personal insights based on recent activity, and new capabilities in Copilot Lab that enable people to create, publish and manage prompts tailored to them, and to their specific team, role and function.

💬We/I have seen the benefits of using Copilot in Microsoft 365 both in internally within Cisilion and with our customers. There is so much value in Copilot “just” in Teams and Outlook alone. This stat from the report definitely resonates with me.

💬It is also worth checking out the official Microsoft 365 Roadmap for all the latest Copilot features – there are a lot of them and they are coming thick and fast!

New AI Tools from LinkedIn

LinkedIn is also providing going to be providing more AI tools to enable employees to stay ahead in their career. LinkedIn Learning offers more than 22,000 courses, including more than 600 AI courses, to build aptitude in generative AI.

These new courses are free and will be available for everyone to use through July 8. Additionally, AI-powered personalised takeaways on LinkedIn Feed can help employees or work seekers daily in their career with personalised, relevant insights and opportunities.


Thanks for reading – if you liked what you read, considering subscribing or leaving me a comment.


Read More

You can read the full posts and reports from Microsoft and Linked In below:

AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part (microsoft.com)

Microsoft and LinkedIn release the 2024 Work Trend Index on the state of AI at work – Stories

Prompt-a-long with Copilot in Word

Goal: Perfecting Prompting in Word

The goal of this blog post is to provide some field experience tips and coaching to help you get the best out of using Copilot in Word. For this you need to have either a Copilot Pro license or a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license and be signed into Word (or Word Online).

In this example, our Goal is to take a Marketing Analysis document we have been sent, and to draw out key information we can use in a “sales meeting” that we have coming up. The document contains lots of information relevant to different parts of the business.

I have provided a link to the document I used (courtesty of Microsoft) so you can either follow along or reference the videos included in this post. Welcome your comments – so please let me know how you get on.

Scenario: Using Copilot to pull key info from a Marketing Report

Instructions:

To work on this example with me, speak to your marketing team and obtain a Market Analysis Report for other similar document. For this example, I am using a public sample document Microsoft have shared called “Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea.docx” which you can access here. The password for the link is “Copilot”. Once you have done that, save the file to your OneDrive so you can use it to test out and experiment with these prompts.

  1. Open the document you obtained (or use my link above) in Word and then
  2. Open the Copilot pane by selecting the Copilot icon in the top right of the “ribbon”
  3. Enter the prompts below and follow along.

The Starting Prompt

Enter the Starting prompt Summarise this Word Document” or click the suggested prompt to do the same thing…

In this simple prompt, we have started with what I call the “Alexa Prompt” – we are asking a simple question with a basic goal “to summarise the Word document”.

Using a standard/simple Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.

This has done we asked but since we gave no context or information about what we wanted and why we needed it, Copilot has just read throught the document a pilled out key bits of information from each section.


The “better” prompt

To improve on this, we are going to repeat the prompt, but this time, we will add some more context to help Copilot understand the purpose of the summary and tailor the response for us accordingly.

Write a new prompt: “Summarise this document and create a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting“.

Here we are giving Copilot some more context specific about what information we want. It now knows why we need the information (for a sales meeting) and it knows to keep the ouput brief.

Using a more specific Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.

If you run the prompt yourself (or check the video above) you will see that this time Copilot has pulled out specific around Market Trends and Demand inluding stats around CAGR. It has told us about the key competitiors, distribution and sales channels and also Sales Strategy, Outcomes and the Challenges in selling.


The Super Prompt

For the final prompt (I call it the “super prompt”), we are going to be even more specific with the ask to get just the information we need.

Use this prompt “Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language.”

If you compare the output of this prompt to the previous ones, you will see that since we have been specific about where we want Copilot to focus, the response we get is specific to what we have asked. It’s still a summary, but it is focussed on the just the Competitor Analysis section and we have kept the response concise and in simple language. It knows to keep this simple and make it relevant to sales…

Follow along – or check out the video below where I run the prompt.

Our “Crafted” Super-Prompt in Copilot in Word

So there you go – we have started with a simple prompt and I have hopefully shown you that by thinking about what and why we want the information and also the audience the response is indended for, Copilot can produce information just the way we need it.

Summary and Lesson

So, I am pretty happy with that result. To recap – here is what we did to perfect our prompt…

  1. We started with our Goal (which was to summarise the document)
  2. Added some Context (that we want the information for a sales meeting)
  3. Specified the Source of the information (we asked to focus on competitive analysis), and
  4. Set clear Expectations, (we asked for five key points using simple language).
Our Final Prompt: 

"Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow's Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language".

This prompt has all the details it needs to give us the results we need. It has a Goal, Context, Source, and Expectations.

Microsoft to open new AI Hub in London

Microsoft has announced plans for a new artificial intelligence (AI) hub in London, which will be focused on leading edge product development and research. This will be led Microsoft AI Lead Mustafa Suleyman (confounder of DeepMind) who Microsoft hired last month.

This annoucement comes less than a month since Microsoft unveiled a new consumer AI division.

There is an enormous pool of AI talent and expertise in the UK, and Microsoft AI plans to make a significant, long-term investment in the region. (London).

Mustafa Suleyman

This is great for the UK and for London and will help both Microsoft and the UK become an AI  and technology superpower leveraging the hub of tech talent, access to leading and world class universities and research centres with ability to attract the best talent for the next generation of development of AI.

Microsofts AI Future in the UK

This announcement builds on Microsoft’s recent commitment to invest 2.5 Billion into data centre infrastructure and improving AI skills across the UK.

Microsoft’s AI investment in the UK includes building a major new data centre in West London and installing 20,000 high-powered processors in the UK by 2026.

Microsoft’s new UK hub will be run by Jordan Hoffmann,  (another former employee from DeepMind) and will collaborate closely with OpenAI which powers Microsoft’s AI driven Copilot System framework.

New Windows Insider Build brings AI features to non NPU PCs

The Windows Insider team have released Windows 11 Build 26040 to Insiders in the Canary Channel, which is the first new build for this channel in 2024.

This build is full with improvements and fixes, but the main call out feature of this build is the addition of support for Voice Clarity on PCs that do not have dedicated NPUs. Until now, this was a feature that had been exclusive to select Surface devices with NPUs, but Microsoft are now making this available across all Windows 11 devices.

Voice Clarity uses advanced AI powered audio processing to help your voice be heard more clearly on online calls, and voice recordings even in noisy environments or when you move around the room. Voice Clarity also improves the quality of the voices you hear, making them sound more natural and realistic using a combination of echo cancelling, background noise suppression and removal of reverberation all in real-time.

Note: My understanding is that this new native OS based Voice Clarity will only activate "when the OEM device does not offer Communications Mode processing.". This means that if your device already has a noise-reduction technology (such as the Surface Pro 9) compatible with Communications Signal Processing Mode, the Windows 11 software-based Voice Clarity will not be activated and it will instead use the technology enabled by the NPU. 

Other changes in Canary build 26040

Other noticeable changes in this build include:

  • Changes to the Windows Setup experience with a cleaner and more modern experience.
  • Improvements to the screen casting services
  • Moving of the Copilot in Windows button to the right side of the Taskbar making it easier to access and closer to where the Copilot pane opens.
  • Support for USB 80Gbps has been added to support the new devices shipping with the newest Intel Core 14th Gen HX-series mobile processors.
  • A New Task Manager icon – that matches the design language of Windows 11. There’s new option to show the GPU temperature in the Performance tab.

Read the full Windows Insider Blog

Full releases notes for the latest Canary Build can be found here, along with release notes for the Dev and Beta builds which also had new builds this week.

Microsoft Copilot Pro: A staggering grand a year for a family of four!

Microsoft need to take urgent action to bring the awesomeness of Copilot Pro to their huge Microsoft 365 Family subscriber base without breaking the bank.

I was really excited to hear that Microsoft had annouced Copilot Pro bringing the power of Copilot into the heart of the consumer version of Microsoft 365 Family or invidual for £19 per user per month

Whilst I’m keen to try this out to see how this could benefit consumer users and families. I became rather shocked when I did the quick calculations on the cost for our family of four!

Family of four – A Thousand Pound a Year.

Yes, you read that correctly..

There is no doubt this will be an awesome addition to anyone using Microsoft 365 apps, but one thing you need to be aware of is how Copilot Pro is licensed for Microsoft 365 Family subscribers.

Firstly, let me say that Microsoft 365 Family is a bargain. For just £79 per year (I actually paid £59 on) for a family subscription which covers up to 6 people with full access to Microsoft 365 apps (online and full desktop and mobile apps which can be used in up to five decives each), 1TB storage for OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Family Safety and more. It’s great great value.

On a previous blog, I showed how you can add Copilot Pro to this subscription for £19 a month (which is £228 a year) which is a multiplier of X3 based in the £79 RRP price) which sounds staggering but could “probably” be justified….

But it gets worse…

Why… Well if you want all your family members to have access to the features of Copilot Pro (for example your kids for school and uni), you need to buy a Copilot Pro license for every member of your family you wish to use Copilot Pro.

This means an extra £19 per month for every family member on top of the Family Microsoft 365 subscription. We are a family of four!

12.5x the price

In my family of four, assuming my wife and two children needed / wanted a Copilot Pro license, our £79 a year subscription would increase by 12.5x to a staggering £991 a year

Wow…. Just wow.. That’s a lot of cash.

Of course not all the family may need a Copilot Pro subscription and at this price I imagine just the primary user would buy a license and then “use the same account” to access Copilot Pro.

Whilst this would t work in a corporation, as a family this is much viable.

Microsoft – please make this affordable for Families.

I get the hype and excitement about Copilot in Microsoft 365. I have been using it for a week where I work and beielve me, it is truly remarkable.

In the consumer world however, I just cannot see a Microsoft 365 Family subscriber adding a Copilot Pro license for any more than one user.

Of course not all may need it, and of course the free version of Copilot is brilliant for anyone that needs the power of ChatGPT in Windows and the web browser, Microsoft need to think about this key subscription and make the price for Families much much lower…

Microsoft…. Please look at an affordable price for these Family subscriptions.. I’d happily pay a small price per addiotnal user above the primary user but £1,000 for a family of four (in my case) is crazy….


I welcome your comments Microsoft 365 Family subscribers….