Microsoft Ignite Day 3 Recap

Welcome to ECI Pulse, our exciting new podcast series! In this episode, Julius Damato, Director of Microsoft One Workplace and AI Solutions at ECI, recaps day three of Microsoft Ignite 2024 and provides insights on the latest announcements from Microsoft. This episode focuses on the exciting enhancements to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Agents, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Loop. Discover how these innovations are set to transform the way we work, collaborate, and leverage AI across the Microsoft ecosystem.

Transcript

Welcome to ECI Pulse, our new podcast.

This series is our wrap up from the Microsoft Ignite conference. In this episode, Julius D'Amato recaps day three and offers his insights from today's announcements from Microsoft. Enjoy the episode.

Hello, everyone. My name is Julius Damato, director of Microsoft Model Workplace and AI Solutions here at ECI. Today, we'll be covering the updates from day three of Microsoft Ignite twenty twenty-four, and we saved the best for last. We'll be covering these updates for Microsoft three sixty-five Copilot, Copilot Agents, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Loop. These innovations are set to transform how we work, collaborate, and leverage AI across the Microsoft ecosystem.

Let's explore the key highlights.

Microsoft three sixty-five Copilot has received several significant enhancements aimed at making it more powerful and user friendly. One of the long-awaited updates is Copilot and Excel. The new updates enhance data analysis capabilities in Excel where Copilot can now provide deeper insights and suggest advanced formulas and visualizations to help you make better data driven decisions.

Copilot has also received updates to enhance its usability and accessibility.

The new natural language processing improvements mean that Copilot can understand and respond to more complex inquiries and commands, making it easier to interact with. There are also new customization options allowing users to tailor Copilot's behavior and responses to better fit their specific needs and workflows.

Microsoft announced new out of the box purposeful agents in Microsoft three sixty-five Copilot designed to support teams and organizations with a wide range of tasks from basic to complex business processes. These agents include agents in SharePoint to assist users in rapidly acquiring insights and making informed decisions based on SharePoint content. Users can develop customized agents tailored to specific files, folders, or sites adhering to existing permissions and sensitivity labels. These agents are now generally available.

The employee self-service agent is integrated into BizChat. This agent provides prompt responses to workplace policy related inquiries and manages HR and IT tasks. It enables users to access benefits and payroll information, initiate leaves of absence, and request IT support efficiently.

This agent is in private preview.

Next, the facilitator agent operates within Teams meetings and chats, enhancing collaboration by taking real time notes and summarizing key information. It facilitates seamless co-authoring of meeting notes along all participants.

This agent is now in preview. The interpreter agent offers real-time interpretation services and teams meetings across up to nine languages. This agent allows participants to communicate and listen in their preferred language, simulating their voice. The agent is in preview early next year.

Lastly, the project manager agent is embedded within Planner. This agent automates project management activities ranging from task creation to execution. It manages task assignments, monitors progress, and sends reminders and notifications, and generates status reports. This agent is an early preview.

One of the most impressive features of the Copilot agents is their ability to learn from user interactions. Over time, these agents become more personalized and can anticipate your needs, offering proactive suggestions and automating repetitive tasks. This will not only save time but also enhance productivity by allowing you to focus on more strategic activities.

A major update to Copilot agents is Copilot actions, which automate everyday tasks with simple fill in the blank prompts. These actions can be set and forgotten, allowing you to delegate tasks such as summarizing daily action items, preparing for meetings, and compiling weekly reports. The customizable templates can be automated, used on demand, or triggered by specific events, making it easier than ever to manage a workflow. For instance, you can create an action to automatically gather input from your team for a weekly newsletter or set up a reoccurring action that summarizes your last few interactions ahead of your next customer meeting.

In addition to close the in addition to Copilot actions, the new Copilot triggers features allow you to automate responses based on specific events or conditions. This means you can set up triggers to perform actions when certain criteria is met, such as sending a follow-up email after a meeting or generating a report when new data is added to a spreadsheet. These enhancements are designed to save you time and increase productivity by automating repetitive tasks and ensuring that important actions are taken without manual intervention.

Copilot Studio now features a comprehensive authoring canvas. This powerful tool allows makers to design, test, and publish generative AI enabled conversations and workflows seamlessly. The integration with OpenAI's custom GPTs is another game changer, enabling enterprises to import and configure their GPT models from the OpenAI store directly into their Copilot. Additionally, new prompts and plug in capabilities have been introduced, allowing Copilot and plug in authors to pull data from external sources using numerous power platform connectors.

This enhancement significantly boosts the accuracy and context specificity of AI responses, making your Copilot smarter and more reliable.

Copilot Studio has also enhanced its governance and administration features. With more granular AI management controls and audit logs in Microsoft Purview, enterprises can now enjoy better oversight and security for their data. The platform also supports software lifecycle management capabilities, including topic level import and export and role-based access controls. These updates ensure that makers can build and deploy custom Copilot safely and efficiently. Moreover, the integration with AI Builder models and the introduction of generative actions, which dynamically create conversations by connecting the appropriate plugins in real time, further expand the platform's functionality and versatility.

These updates are set to empower developers and enterprises alike, making Copilot Studio a more indispensable tool in the landscape.

Microsoft Loop has received significant updates making it an even more powerful tool for real time collaboration and content creation.

Microsoft Loop has received significant updates making it an even more powerful tool for real time collaboration and content creation. One of the most exciting enhancements is that you can add a Loop workspace tab to a Teams meeting in early twenty twenty five. This feature allows teams to brainstorm, co-create, collect, and organize content together in real time. By adding a loop workspace tab to channels, everyone in the team can access and contribute to the workspace, even as team membership changes. This ensures that all team members stay aligned and can collaborate seamlessly adhering to governance, lifecycle, and compliance standards set by the Microsoft three sixty-five group backing the team. Another significant update is the integration of AI generated insights into shared workspaces.

This enhancement leverages the power of AI to provide real time collaborative content creation and seamless sharing of dynamic, interactive documents. With these updates, Microsoft Loop continues to foster a more interactive and efficient way of working, enabling teams to generate AI generated insights directly into their workflows.

Looking ahead, Microsoft has an exciting future planned for Copilot aiming to revolutionize AI interaction across its ecosystem. The roadmap includes enhancements in natural language processing for better accuracy, integration with Microsoft tools for seamless workflows powered by AI. These innovations are set to enhance user experience, driving efficiency, and fostering innovation.

Microsoft is enhancing Copilot with new AI driven features to boost enablement and collaboration.

Future updates will improve the user interface and functionality across the Microsoft ecosystem.

By continually re-refining Copilot, Microsoft is ensuring that they're on the forefront of AI productivity.

That's the end of the highlights from day three of Microsoft Ignite twenty twenty-four and the end of this series. Thank you for your time.