Zoe and Kevin share the latest news on Copilot with Copilot for OneDrive and all sorts from Microsoft Power Platform Conference and then we play some short interviews with Stale Hansen, Ragnar Heil and Marijn Somers and chat about our thoughts on them.
Useful links:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/unveiling-the-next-generation-of-onedrive/ba-p/3935612
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/powerplatform/2023/10/03/the-ai-revolution-supercharging-low-code-with-the-power-platform-community/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ahmedbouchaala_powerapps-mppc23-mppc-activity-7115462456348393472-HVjQ
https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-GB/blog/announcing-the-data-activator-public-preview/
Zoe and Kevin share the latest news on Copilot with Copilot for OneDrive and all sorts from Microsoft Power Platform Conference and then we play some short interviews with Stale Hansen, Ragnar Heil and Marijn Somers and chat about our thoughts on them.
Useful links:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/unveiling-the-next-generation-of-onedrive/ba-p/3935612
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/powerplatform/2023/10/03/the-ai-revolution-supercharging-low-code-with-the-power-platform-community/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ahmedbouchaala_powerapps-mppc23-mppc-activity-7115462456348393472-HVjQ
https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-GB/blog/announcing-the-data-activator-public-preview/
[Kevin 00:15]
Welcome to Copilot connection.
[Zoe 00:18]
We're here to share with you all the news, insights and capabilities of the Microsoft Copilot pilot ecosystem across the entire Microsoft stack. I'm Zoe Wilson. I'm an MVP and Regional director and a senior director at Avanade, sitting in our modern work business for Europe.
[Kevin 00:35]
And I'm Kevin McDonnell, I'm also an MVP. I'm also at Avanade, a solutions architect over in there, looking in the data, apps and workflow for Modern Workplace. But this isn't an Avanade podcast. This is very much by the community, for the community and we'll be releasing episodes on podcast, on YouTube, says podcast. And we're going to be bringing those experts to bring the insights across the different Copilots that Microsoft are releasing from different people in the community and from Microsoft as well. And we want to talk about the impact they can make to you and to your organization, what you need to do to prepare for them or even to start implementing them now and even how you can extend them as well.
[Zoe 01:22]
So one of the things I've seen over the last few months is that in the world of Copilot, a week is a really long time and lots can happen. And it's only been a week since we recorded the first episode, hasn't it, Kevin? But we've seen even more new announcements. There was a OneDrive event on Tuesday this week or so by Jeff Teeper. And this week there's also the Power Platform conference in Vegas where we've seen more announcements coming out as well.
[Kevin 01:48]
That's absolutely right. And you've completely reminded me that I need to bring the stuff up. So let's add that up and talk about some of that event could make it a bit larger. For those of you listening on podcast, don't worry, you're not going to miss out. We'll put all the links to these articles that have come through. But it was on the 3rd of October and Jeff talked about all these great things. You can see him with his lovely WAVY hands. I did notice actually, sorry from this video I couldn't see if he had any exciting shoes on. This time usually has some kind of on brand converse, but these look like just a standard lovely pair of trainers so we'll we'll have to find have to get some insights into that.
[Zoe 02:30]
Maybe, maybe, maybe we'll see him with some Copilot Converse. That
[Kevin 02:34]
would be nice. Yeah, we're gonna have to ask about that one because he did talk a lot about, there were a lot of great announcements about OneDrive. It's going to be a lot faster, the ability to have offline within the web. But really for us on this podcast, it was the Copilot announcements that jumped out at us. So we're going to have Copilot in OneDrive. So this we're not going to dig into it too much. Do go and watch the video. Have a look at the links that will be in the show notes in there. It's going to bring that world of Microsoft 365 files in OneDrive and SharePoint into your Microsoft 365 chat, which is the, I was about to say the landing point. I'll probably get in trouble for you for saying that, Zoe. It's, it's one of the landing points for Copilot, isn't it? But it really asks you to ask those questions about your files, about your contents in there. And I love to see some of the things that you mentioned there about being able to bring into folders. So say you're working on this case, they're talking about Project Monson. You can bring those related files for project Munson into that one place and share other people working on that. So really powerful way of automating and making things easy and and also not copying things between folders, which is obviously the way that far too many people still do things.
[Zoe 03:51]
What are the others that you've got on the screen at the bottom here as well, which I think will be really powerful, is being able to use Copilot to generate summaries of the document to include with the share links when you send them to colleagues so that they've actually got more context. I think that's going to be really helpful.
[Kevin 04:06]
Yeah. Yeah, really useful. Some of the the different contents on there, you know what we should have done. Sorry, we should have asked Copilot to summarise this document to to pick it up for us and let me share that, but it's it's too late now. Sadly, as you mentioned, the other big news was the the Microsoft Power Platform Conference. For those of you who've been on social media have probably seen quite a few posts and if you're like Zoe and I have been sat there go, I want to be in Vegas. It looks like they're having far too much fun over there. But I am, I am assured by some of the people I need to speak to. There has been some work going on as well and certainly the the good folks on Microsoft have been very busy making announcements with that. So I know some more announcements about Copilot and Power Pages. There was Copilot Pilot and Power BI. I don't think we're going to go through through all of these, but do have a look through the different announcements. I think one Zoe you noticed that came through from who was it Ahmed Buchala, it was not on there and we've shared this on the Copilot connection LinkedIn Big plug for that do go and follow us on there. But he made a notimate from what's it April Dunham and Donna Sarka session about the number of Copilots that are coming.
[Zoe 05:25]
Yeah, I mean, if you look at what he's saying here, so 155 Copilots across 89 unique Microsoft products. I'm already what are the first questions I ask colleagues, our customers when they start talking to me about Copilot is which Copilot are you talking about because there are so many and we're probably we've probably only got about a fifth I think of of the number that you've got here. So it's going to be a really interesting time trying to keep track of all of those.
[Kevin 05:56]
Yeah, it was, it was in shape and we'll come on to Prague in a minute. But I know one of the the sessions I saw there was around ask the usual Kubernetes service and there's going to be a Copilot for that as well. And there's a lot of these small ones coming through. It's it's the kind of new CLI, isn't it? It's the the trendy thing to have.
[Zoe 06:16]
Yeah, 100%. So like you said, Kevin, major firmer from not being in Vegas this week and talking a firmer, Let's talk about Experts Live Europe, which I think this time 2 weeks ago you were just getting back from from a few days in Prague at a really great event. I was so gutted that I couldn't be there because we were meant to be presenting together. But I'd love to hear from you. You know what? What was the week like? What was the event like? What were the highlights?
[Kevin 06:44]
Well I I think the low lights was when we found out you weren't able to come so that was not fun at all. But we did manage the rope in Moraine Summers who came and helped out with the thing. So a big thank you to Marine and if you are listening I hope so. He sounds better this week. Stop your complaining. Just just calm down on there. But yes, Ryan jumped in so it arrived there on the Monday. Had a whole half day talking about Vivo, one of my other favorite subjects on there, a lot of different people. It's quite a an Azure and security heavy conference. There were a lot of people from there which isn't my usual background and I actually quite like that. For a conference to be able to kind of stretch and learn from things much as I love hearing about Viva, it's often quite a lot of things I know already. And yes, there's always different takes. Nikki Chapel had a lovely session on Viva talking about the compliance side of things and she's expanded on that talk. So I always enjoy that one, but it was good to hear from from some of the other elements the the Ask side, Nick Chang over from Kanos give a really lovely session on there. But bringing this way back into what we're meant to be talking about in the show, I think it was 22 big elements for around for me around Copilot, there was an ask the expert session that we had. We had a few people come over and chat to myself. Carolina Katakari stole a Hanson who will hear about in a minute. Who else was there? Moraine and Ragnar Hoyle who will hear about as well. And we were there unfortunately during lunchtime. So I think the attendees had a slightly different focus and we didn't necessarily have a big banner, which I think next time I'll make sure we bring along because there weren't so many questions. But I did get the opportunity to demo some of Copilot to the people who came along to the the workshop. And I basically said, look, this isn't part of the workshop. I'm not going to use up the time for the workshop but at the end if you want to stick around for 1520 minutes and not one person left so everyone really interested in seeing that about copilot that it it came up with a lot of the conversations that I was talking to with other people in in a lot of different aspects. I mentioned that ask one was talking with Ragnar and will show this more in a SEC. But talking a lot about governance and this came into it with Nikki Chapel about compliance and things. So a lot of the areas of conversation or around what's needed to prepare for Copilot, what's getting ready with that as well. Just before we the what I did was a set of interviews which we were going to do together but sadly did those solo and what we thought we'd do is play those back. They're just three or 4 minutes apart from Stoller who kept talking and kept talking, kept talking, which was great chat before I get in trouble from him and really loved it, but slightly longer with that one and we're going to run through those. But just one thing I thought we probably should have mentioned the news. I've noticed a lot of people Zoe are going through the Preparing for Microsoft 365 Copilot course that's available on Microsoft Learn. I think it's the it's the MK102 or MS-102 off the top of my head and we'll put a link to that in the showing notes. So if you are thinking about how to get prepared for Copilot, it's a really nice introduction looking at the technical aspects, the the kind of change in adoption side within there as well. So well and even the security and compliance how you kind of reassure people that you're you're not going to be doing a new delve to people there as well?
[Zoe 10:20]
Yeah. And just to be really clear, that's how to prepare for Microsoft 365 Copilot, isn't it? Because there are so many of them We need just just just be really clear. But we'll pop that link in the show notes so that you. You can access that afterwards if you've not seen it already.
[Kevin 10:36]
Absolutely. So should we go on to the first interview? I I have a little apology for these interviews. So I bought, especially for Prague, this lovely media mod kit for my GoPro for those looking at the video on there. But I didn't have this lovely Rd. mic then, so I had this directional one because it said it's going to make sure that it only picks up noise from where it's pointing. It lied, is the answer. So if you think about buying one of those, you do need it, but don't expect to use it in a noisy conference hall that didn't actually sound that noisy till I played it back. So the first interview we've got, I managed to speak to Ragnar. He gave me some lovely lapel mics that that we could use that sounds a lot better. The others do get a little bit noisy and so he's always already been complaining at me before we did the recording on that, so we hope it's not too distracting from there. But rest assured, this first one go go through and I have some lovely new facts ready. We'll talk about this at the end. Ready for South Coast Summit. I have my little roving reporter Mike ready, so it will all sound a lot better next time as we go out interviewing people. But should we hand over to Stoller?
[Zoe 11:51]
Yeah, sounds like a plan.
[Stale Hansen 11:54]
And I'm with the Vivo Explorers together with you.
[Kevin 11:58]
Absolutely. God, I thought Zoe had the longest intro. I think you've you've even outdone hers on that. One,
[Stale Hansen 12:02]
so we're talking
[Kevin 12:03]
about Copilot today. What does Copilot mean to you?
[Stale Hansen 12:09]
I think. Copilot for me means. The change of how we're gonna work, having Copilot in the flow of work I think will be a big deal. For instance, if you get Copilot in Excel and you get tips for how to do what you want to do in Excel, you have a compensation in context of what you want to do and get accomplished. I think that's gonna be a big deal for a lot of people. So that's that's what Coppola is for me
[Kevin 12:42]
and and what do you think will be the biggest transformation that it will bring?
[Stale Hansen 12:46]
So I talk a lot about coal pilot and Copilot reading. And I think. What's what's the biggest deal is a change in the creative process because it's cognitively heavy. In order to get started with something like you have a blank Word document and you need to, like, write something that you already know. You write something that you need to combine information, and so on and so forth. Now if you then get a draft that you can start editing instead, that's a huge change in the creative process. So I do think that we will turn that on the head and and say that hey let's get started now you don't have to procrastinate. You don't have to do the same spend equal amounts of research because you can like get that information and then you can spend more time making it better maybe even. And I I I do think that in time we can spend more time on communication skills and study because if you are making a PowerPoint and and you have it like. Roughly done. Now you can talk about like, OK, how can I improve the message? How can I deliver this in a better way? How can I make sure my my ideas get across? I think that's a big deal.
[Kevin 14:04]
I love that description of that. That kind of cognitive hit when you have that blank page I think is a great example. Number of times I've sat there and just looked and come, how do I start? Be able to go over that is fantastic. So what should people do to prepare for Copilot?
[Stale Hansen 14:20]
I think. It's of course multiple things. What I focus on is the productivity side of things. What we see is a lot of companies they are still using modern technology in an old way, so they you learn how to. Communicate internally in in the early 2000s in e-mail and outlook and so on. Now you have like force that into teams, into teams chat for instance. What I then say to my customers is that hey, we need to now move to work out loud in teams and channels because that's where the organization is going to get the benefit of Copilot that you go in into the Copilot chatting teams and say hey what happened last week in that project. The thing is I don't have access to your chats. So if you have sold everything around the run the process in chat. I don't know that and Copilot doesn't know that because it uses my rights. So that's I think is the biggest change that needs to happen. Now we talked about it for a long time, but we are seeing customers actually wanting to take that step now and of course data quality is important and making sure that you have have the correct type of data
[Kevin 15:31]
absolutely and and the right people can access that data as well. So it's it's working out loud, but as loud as you need to, not necessarily everywhere you don't.
[Stale Hansen 15:41]
Need to shout and you don't need to send to all. That's not what I mean, Right. Yeah,
[Kevin 15:45]
yeah. It's getting it's understanding that bit in between yeah absolutely. So what would you like to see next in Copilot what I.
[Stale Hansen 15:54]
Would like to see next in Copilot. I didn't do you know what I want When Copilot releases I wanted to go into my to do Microsoft to do because that's my main list of everything that's important to me in my life And it also has access to my mailbox. It has access to my team's messages and say what's the most important thing I can do right now for me And then call me on it is going to tell me, hey, you know what? You thought you were going to do this, but actually I think this is more important for you right now. Based on the discussions you've had based on what you have in your captured in your to do and and so on, so that's what I'm looking for. I haven't seen anything around that. I'm guessing it will be possible but I think that will be a game changer for me. But that depends of course, if you're using Microsoft to do which you should and and capture everything there. Not just e-mail, not just Teams messages, but your thoughts, your ideas, your, your. Conversations that we have like OK, let me note that down. So that. I have it in my to do and so on and asking what should I do right now if I have 10 minutes, what should I do? Yeah,
[Kevin 17:03]
all right. I love that description. I'm trying not to debate too much because I know Zoe and I want to talk about this afterwards, but as soon as we stop filming, I've got more conversation with you with that and maybe we'll get you on the show properly for a full recording at some point.
[Stale Hansen 17:15]
As well.
[Kevin 17:16]
So it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, that was quite entertaining, watching it back and remembering what I was thinking and sort of making sure I came back to the time. But Zoe, you you first. Any any thoughts on things he said there?
[Zoe 17:34]
Yeah, there was some really interesting things that Sala shared with us, and I think a lot of these I should
[Kevin 17:40]
say. Any thoughts that don't involve swear words? Hopefully you'll remember going to bleep those out, but apologies anyone offended on that.
[Zoe 17:47]
Yeah, so I I use Garbage in, Garbage out, which is a little bit more family friendly. But I think it's a really important, I think it's a really important principle and for me, I think that focus on working out loud. Changing the way that people work and collaborate is is super important and Stella's absolutely spot on there. Yeah I think, I think that's going to be super important.
[Kevin 18:14]
Yeah I I think the the phrase I remember the time that I love was that cognitively heavy that ability to Copilot just to take that load of lots of different things or even that that getting started with a blank page that kind of makes everyone feel overloaded. Reduce that strain so that your your kind of brain's there to focus on the good things, the things you're good at, the things you can share. I'd I'd love to that notion of it as well.
[Zoe 18:40]
Yeah, I think. I think that's going to be super important. I think we'll see. Some really interesting benefits from removing that blank page. Fear or paralysis for people and helping them get to good faster.
[Kevin 18:55]
Yeah, absolutely. And and talking and getting to go first. I loved his final one. You know we've asked everyone the same question. So you're you're here. The kind of same questions but different takes that others have had. But that one I've been able to help people prioritise, I think will be so, so important. And whether with a Copilot can do that from day one or it's something it will learn from and evolve, I think that what should I do next to me is something you well know. I love either goals and that view of OK Rs because it gives that focus and helps people understand what should I do next, which takes away from that paralysis as well. If Copilot can help that and say I've got all this stuff what what is most important based on what, you know, I usually do, it'd just be fantastic for certain people who may be in meetings all the time and have a deluge of messages about all sorts of things. Is that right? Sorry.
[Zoe 19:48]
Yeah. Well, I think the deluge of messages and meetings, it's all about Copilot. The other thing that, yeah, the other thing that Sally said, which I thought was super interesting was around Microsoft to do. And I've been saying for a while that I I think when we start to see this integration from the M365 Copilot that actually integrates with, with tasks with to do. With planet that will start to be super powerful when and this this is all that you know theoretical and and me talking about what I'd like. But if it can get to a point where it can summarise meetings and identify the actions and then actually create those as tasks with people assigned to them, with the time scales that are talked about in meetings, that that will be a complete game game changer from a productivity perspective.
[Kevin 20:40]
I I know a lot of people will hate that. It's like, did I really promise to give you that next week? Yes. Yes. Because it's there in the transcript and we've got the task from it. But yeah, I I think that you know, the non joking side about that is people will commit to things that they can realistically do and it gives a baseline to have that conversation at least. So yeah, really enjoyed that. Should we go on to Mr. Oh, I forgot to say I've noticed just as that started playing on the video, that hadn't rewound it, so we we missed the introduction of Stoller, which included probably him spelling his pronouncing his name right. So hopefully, yeah, we will really play that at some point and put these videos once we've spoken to them and got the OK up there. And Stoller is the CEO of a company in based in Norway, but operating I think globally really with a whole host of MVPS that work there called Cloudway. So do do check them out
[Zoe 21:41]
onto onto Ragnarok.
[Kevin 21:43]
Yeah, I will remember to make sure I've gone back to beginning, so we'll let Ragnar introduce himself. Hello and welcome to the Copilot connection. I have another guest. With
[Ragnar Heil 21:54]
me?
[Kevin 21:55]
Would you like to introduce yourself?
[Ragnar Heil 21:56]
I am Microsoft, MP, Office Services and then also Global Director of Partners, Alliances and Rancor.
[Kevin 22:06]
Fantastic. Thank you. So we've been asking people a few questions about COPE on it. And first one, I'd say maybe an easy one, but what does Copilot mean to you?
[Ragnar Heil 22:18]
So I have to use this this word. I don't like to use it, but it's a game changer. I love it so much. I'm currently using it only for three different workloads, Visual Studio, Power Apps, Automate. It's just crazy. So I'm so into the whole Copilot and I experience I've got a lot of other subscriptions like HGBT you're going to use everyday to to really get better answers. Also to to use my exercise, get better visualizations, understand data. So for me it's all about learning. Understanding, improving data quality, and then getting things done every single day.
[Kevin 22:58]
Thank you because you're the first person to realize, can you just mean M3 Seats 5 Copilot? It's all of them together like this. So, and what do you think the biggest transformation will be for people?
[Ragnar Heil 23:11]
I think it's very easy to use, so it's a check on a help board, who knows since many years, but the kind of questions you can use in corporate are so different to the usual questions when when chat windows are opening. So I think people, it's going to be very different to ask me talk questions. So for example, using Copilot work you can ask how many minutes it would take me to read it loud.
[Kevin 23:35]
That's a lovely example.
[Ragnar Heil 23:36]
For that one as well.
[Kevin 23:38]
And what do you think people will need to do to prepare for copilot as well?
[Ragnar Heil 23:43]
Yeah. So my number one recommendation is go back into your security reviews, audits, trimming because you have to take care of that, especially OneDrive.
[Ragnar Heil 23:57]
I love to share and I also share every single day internally, externally, but all these sharings and Commission changes have to be reviewed otherwise. Many documents content is going to get on the surface which should not be visible to anybody outside of the special group.
[Kevin 24:17]
And what do you want to see next?
[Ragnar Heil 24:21]
I'm also strong in the Appen part, a Hebrew part, so backhand capabilities. So we have so many different ethnic centres in M-65. Would like to see more corporate integrations in each single admin centre. Not only the end user story but our support IG close more value and.
[Marijn Somers 24:38]
[Kevin 24:39]
That would be fabulous. We're ipening up to people to, you know, don't know where they need to click and need to go. They just.
[Ragnar Heil 24:45]
Because we have so many reports, adoption reports and all the. Reports. So there are so many reports where I don't see sometimes value. Sometimes the reports are too, too official. And then you said OK, they look nice, but actually when you look OK, I read luxury report but I don't understand what should I change, what is my actual, what I need to do as many people to create a change and to optimize things. And here I can definitely ask, Hey Mr. Copilot, what should I change to increase my adoption of? Well.
[Kevin 25:21]
Thank you very much for your time and.
[Ragnar Heil 25:23]
My pleasure.
[Kevin 25:23]
Enjoy the rest of the Conference.
[Kevin 25:28]
Well, First off, apologies for the interruption. Halfway through where I thought I could sneakily re upload the video so I knew which one was which and it decided to start playing straight away. So a sneak peek of Marine summers came up there. But I want to start off that Realist didn't say it from the first video that I intentionally didn't say Microsoft 365 Copilot. And I know at least half of you listening and laughing going and now you're saying that. But no, it was an intentional thing to see what people brought up. And I love the fact that Ragnar noted that there is more to Copilot than just the M365. And coming from a SharePoint background, you know, we get slightly obsessed with that, that side of the fence. So it was good of Frank now to bring them up there, but Zoe,
[Zoe 26:13]
I love the fact that he's actually already using it in some of the apps where it's available as well, and that is finding it really easy to use and he's he's actually getting things done with it.
[Kevin 26:25]
Yeah. No I thought you know getting getting things done Sir. Lovely book and a great thought of it and the the reality of that I I kind of find it interesting that easy to use because yes there's an element of it being easy to use but there's definitely a a change in habits that you need to I've found this with ChatGPT as well that you can get the very basics quickly but to to get some of the things out you you need to think about how you phrase things and it's not a it's not like you have to go on a three day admin course but there's definitely a little bit of getting used to that way of asking questions and and interacting with it though.
[Zoe 27:05]
Yeah. And that's a really good point actually. So Jeff Tipper started a new LinkedIn newsletter this week. I don't know if you've seen that one, but he was actually talking in that about, Oh no.
[Kevin 27:17]
Sorry
[Zoe 27:19]
Jared, yeah, he was talking about the the importance of how you craft the perfect prompt for Copilot and I know he's talking in the context of M365 copilot, but I think that that guidance.
[Kevin 27:32]
Around how to provide?
[Zoe 27:33]
Yeah, it's it's the same thing like making sure you provide the context and be detailed in the instructions that you give it to get that better output.
[Kevin 27:43]
And the other thing that regular, sorry,
[Zoe 27:44]
the other thing Ragnar mentioned that I really like to saw was that back end admin copilot capability. Imagine how powerful it would be if you could ask the usage analytics report what what you're actually seeing, Like what are the actual trends in usage and what does it mean?
[Kevin 28:01]
Yeah, absolutely. I think of those days of delving through logs trying to find out the answers to things to be able to answer that in natural query. I know, I know, you and I have spoken a bit about. Between us about the Excel capabilities of creating conditional formatting because I always find that fiddly to saying we're going through logs to be able to go through and say can you find a pattern. Can you find all the times this is mentioned without building up filters? We very very powerful. And really helpful for those admin people as well, definitely. I think there was something else I was going to say, but I've lost on there. And I think it was interesting when he started talking about backends that I made a note that I was also thinking that he was talking about how you would administer and look after Copilot on the back end. And and I don't think that's something we've heard much of in different areas. So I'm going to be careful that I don't say anything at this point. So I'm not going to give away too much, but I think that would be an interesting area and something something I'd love to explore on this podcast. That if we can talk about how how you look after it, you know, what are the considerations you need to make, What can you do, what can't you do in terms of keeping it running across the different Copilots as well?
[Zoe 29:21]
Yeah, I mean, at least from a Microsoft 3645 Copilot perspective that will get a little bit easier after the 1st of November.
[Kevin 29:29]
Yes, in terms of talking about it, yes, yes, absolutely. So yeah, I'm going to move on quickly before we get ourselves in trouble. Now this last one, Rain summers, I've got two recordings of this. We're going to play the main one because again, bit like Ragnar's, there was quite a lot of background noise. I think it was even worse with during Marines recording. So apologies for that. With Marines, I did try and reduce the noise with a bit of AI. So I'm going to play that version at the end and you'll understand why we we couldn't use that one particularly well. So it'll be an interesting discussion on where AI helps and where maybe it's got a little bit of time to go. But let's hand this over to Marine first. Connection. We're here live in beautiful Prague at experts live, just to check that that is a picture behind us. Not the real one, but the real Prague is just out that way looking there and I'm joined by Marijn Somers..
[Marijn Somers 30:25]
Hey.
[Kevin 30:28]
Would you like to quickly introduce yourself?
[Marijn Somers 30:32]
And it's always fun. So yes, my name is Miranda, I'm from Belgium and I've been a Microsoft MVP for SharePoint and Microsoft 365 for five years now. And I mainly do productivity coaching, consulting, training and end users, stuff like that.
[Kevin 30:50]
So does clip pilot mean?
[Marijn Somers 30:54]
To you. God buyers for me means like the new wave like 100 years ago we have for example Henry Ford with the with the first belt or compare belt or whatever you call that and that was like a big change in like a new industrial revolution. So I think that Copilot is going to be our industrial revolution. So it's going to change the way we interact with. Hold the data and all the systems and all the knowledge.
[Kevin 31:25]
And what, what do you think will be the biggest transformation? For
[Ragnar Heil 31:29]
people that it will bring.
[Marijn Somers 31:33]
I think on the one hand more insight into. No, not no. I knew you were going to say that. No. Well, maybe as well into how we are working and the things that we're doing. Because we will not be doing boring repetitive tasks anymore, like creating meeting notes for example, or what we need to start drafting a text or whatever we it. It will just be so much faster. So all these tedious. Non important things will just be better.
[Kevin 32:09]
And what would you like to see next?
[Marijn Somers 32:11]
With Copilot, what I would love to see next is instead of. Me
[Kevin 32:16]
asking a. Question
[Marijn Somers 32:18]
that the system would automatically ping me when something was going on, for example. And you can set like your own automation that when it's going to rain today at 8:00 in the morning, ping me to say don't forget your umbrella. Nice stuff like that. But then maybe for the workplace, so oh, we've seen that somebody added a new customer and this is going on with the customer and they're in the news or whatever, so do. Something
[Ragnar Heil 32:46]
with that and.
[Kevin 32:48]
Not you having to program it upfront having. Exactly.
[Marijn Somers 32:50]
No. As a as a as a smart self thinking system to just go. Hey, this might be important.
[Kevin 32:58]
It's really interesting. Well, thank you very much. So we know a little picture about that. Thank.
[Ragnar Heil 33:03]
You.
[Kevin 33:10]
Well thank you for Marine on that one and thank you all of you for bearing with the noise and the background of that one, the the poor people. Thankfully it wasn't the day where they managed to knock over a whole rack of trays, were full of plates and smashed the whole lots because that really would have been a lot of background noise. But. We'll move on to that one, Zoe. Any thoughts on those?
[Zoe 33:32]
Yeah. So I think there was some really interesting things. I really liked what Marine ended with there around it being more of a proactive system rather than needing a prompt or a question. Yeah, I mean, there's some of this, you know, you kind of have little things like this that happen anyway, don't you? So you get suggested replies and things like that, which is using AI that's been there for quite a while, but it feels like this is it's taking it to the next level.
[Kevin 34:00]
They're only really there when you're using Copilot. They don't kind of jump in separately. And you know, like as Marine noted, don't forget your umbrella kind of thing.
[Zoe 34:12]
Yeah. But I like the fact he was thinking about it in a workplace context as well. So you've got a new customer. This might be interesting or important for you. So it will be, it will be interesting to see what whether we see kind of you know the products maturing in in in this way and and how it continues to evolve because some of that I think will require that cross-platform, it'd be the cross ecosystem stuff won't it. So you know if he's telling you about a new customer, presumably that's coming from ACRM or something like that rather than M365 S, So understanding the things that are important to you and meeting you where you are as well.
[Kevin 34:53]
The Copilot of Copilots. It's a interesting thought and I think the the other thing about that is that is the flip side is I don't want to be bombarded left, right and centre by all these annoying notifications. I'm hoping we'll have that intelligence to know the kind of things I click on. If I kind of dismiss these on a regular basis, it will learn what I want to see, what I don't want to see. So I'm not getting. Distracted by that? Too much as well, so. You know, finding the right blends for that. It was also interesting. I didn't put this in news, yeah, because I forgot about it and it's not quite Copilot, but I noticed that the Fabric data activator is now out. So that has the ability to kind of notify via teams and other things when a bit of data changes. So you got a Power BI report, you have KPI goes above or below a certain level. You can get those triggers. Now if you can have Copilot linking in with that as well that that would be very strong to bring those to bring those kind of. You know, it's almost those curated notifications versus the ones that Copilot suggests as well. So that that could be really interesting to bring together.
[Zoe 36:01]
Yeah, it's going to be an interesting few months, isn't it? Well, probably like the next 12 to 18 months as all of this becomes generally available. As it all starts to mature, it will be a really, really interesting time for for for how work gets done.
[Kevin 36:18]
Absolutely. And we're going to see that, you know this, that classic Gartner Hype cycle. Everyone's excited about it. Now we'll get the 1st of November when people. Or more people get their hands on it. I'm sure we'll see a little bit of that deep as people have kind of assumed it's going to do a lot of things and find out it can't necessarily or not in the same way that people think. Then they're going to discover what it can do that they like, and we'll see that acceleration again as well, so. Certainly exciting time. And as Moraine said, you know, is this the new industrial revolution? I've heard that said a few times about Gen. AI generally. And it's always hard, because I've heard that phrase used a lot of the next Industrial revolution a few times, Metaverse and things like that, which maybe haven't always jumped quite as far ahead as people think. But. This genuinely feels different. It feels like there is reality to this now. It's not just. Ideas. There's real things coming from it and we're seeing that with Copilots. So this does feel like the most realistic one as well.
[Zoe 37:22]
Yeah, I mean, so I I often talk about generative AI and Copilot in the context of that industrial revolution. And when you think about what the industrial revolutions did they they transformed entire organizations and industries and economies and the impact of them had far reaching social and cultural implications. And it's that I think that we will will start to see. And if you look at the impact that the Internet browser had when that was added to all of the computers and the the whole, the whole online and digital community and then the smartphone as well. And the fact that we've got, you know, entire industries that have been based on the capabilities and technology that you have in smartphones, I do think that this will be that next generational shift in how we work.
[Kevin 38:15]
So if you're a grumpy old man, if you're Luddite 2.0, you're not going to like the next two years.
[Zoe 38:22]
So are we going to finish with that? We're going to have a look at the AI version of Marine's video.
[Kevin 38:29]
Yeah. So I was just going to say that we talk about the exciting things we like within this podcast to bring the reality. And I thought I'd heard about Adobe's new podcast platform that had noise reduction. So I thought I'd give it a try. Now, Felicity for Copilot connection with here in Libya at Utah Cargo Experts Live, we are just to check that that is a picture behind us in the real one, but the real useful. Probably
[Marijn Somers 38:56]
is. Just
[Kevin 38:57]
out that way looking. Man. And I enjoy his flying marine summers,
[Zoe 39:02]
hey. Would
[Kevin 39:02]
you want to introduce yourself?
[Marijn Somers 39:05]
To Canada's always fun. So yes, my name is Miranda. I'm from Belgium and I've been a Microsoft MVP for SharePoint and Microsoft 5. And for five years now. And I mainly give it would be a coaching consulting maybe training can do it yourself. I got.
[Kevin 39:25]
OK, I think we'll stop there because you don't need to hear a whole thing again. What I found fascinating, I started listening. I was like wow, that's completely taken away the background noise that is absolutely fantastic and and then because I'm I'm diligent sometimes I actually listen to it and I was like am I saying there and then brain came on and talked about the devotee instead of productivity and and things like that. So it it it's very interesting where it has worked and also where it's it hasn't been able to do it and made it pretty much unusable I'm afraid to say.
[Zoe 40:01]
Yeah, and it was funny because she sent me the video and I was watching it back and there were probably, I think I must have only been half paying attention because I was thinking, this doesn't sound too bad, but there were bits where you were trying to say the word copilot, and it was a couple of just just completely like blurred and messed up the whole word.
[Kevin 40:18]
If didn't tell me, he'd started drinking before that. No, no, I promise.
[Zoe 40:22]
It was drinking.
[Kevin 40:25]
So no. An interesting view of where AI is there, but not always quite there yet.
[Zoe 40:32]
Anyway, brilliant. OK. So it was really good to have the the interviews from some of our guests at Experts Live. And when we look at what we've got coming up over the next few weeks, this time next week, we'll both actually be in Farnborough for South Coast Summit and we want to speak to you if you're there, if you've got an opinion on Copilot, regardless of which Copilot it is, if you've been using it, experimenting with it, if you're interested in it and eager to get your hands on it, we want to know what your view is. We also want to know if you've got concerns, are you worried about the sustainability impacts, are you worried about the people impacts? So if you're going to be SES, let us know and we'll get you booked in for an interview and you can see Kevin's prepared with all the trusty Kate.
[Kevin 41:19]
I do have two of these, Mike Zoe, so you'll be able to have your own as well. I'm sure you're excited to hear,
[Zoe 41:26]
always.
[Kevin 41:29]
No, it'll be great and and I think we're already starting to line up with some people to get some experts in and I think we have quite a few Microsoft people coming down. So we won't give any names quite yet, but hopefully chat to a few of those that we can bring onto the show too.
[Zoe 41:45]
Yeah, absolutely. And we're also looking for experts for future sessions as well, not just at South Coast Summit. We do have an open call for speakers, so if you're interested in joining us on a future episode, fill the form in, Let us know which part of the Microsoft stat you work with, what your views are on Copilot, and we'll reach out to you and get that scheduled for for a future episode.
[Kevin 42:07]
Absolutely. And we got that form, it's up on the website Copilotsorrycopilotconnection.com. So please, please. I know you hear these bits and you can switch off, but no. Please subscribe to us. Follow us on your favorite podcast that follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, X, subscribe to the YouTube channel, Tell your colleagues, tell your clients, tell your friends, even your parents and you joke. I actually, my mum was staying with me last week. She has now subscribed. So she's one of our celebrators gone there. So please, everyone is interested in this copilot. Get subscribing, get listening and then we can start sharing it to more and more people.
[Zoe 42:48]
Thanks very much for listening. It's been an absolute pleasure and we look forward to talking to you again soon.
[Kevin 42:56]
Thanks. Bye, bye.