Microsoft Ignite 2024 took place from the 18th – 22nd November in Chicago, bringing the industry together to explore the latest innovations from Microsoft.
While we couldn’t head to Chicago for the event, we’ve been closely following the announcements from our offices. Below, we wrap up the biggest takeaways from this year’s conference. Expect to hear lots about AI – including new Copilot capabilities, autonomous agents and an improved control centre.
You can also listen to our Chief Innovation Officer, Tristan Shortland, talk about the announcements here:
Copilot Agents
Copilot Agents were announced earlier in the year by Microsoft, building on the existing Copilot tool and allowing businesses to access AI bots that automatically complete tasks.
At Ignite, much attention was paid to the pre-built Copilot Agents Microsoft have produced. New agents announced include:
- The Interpreter agent: Providing real-time speech-to-speech interpretation during meetings within Teams
- The Employee Self-Service agent: Quickly answer common policy questions and makes it easy to complete key tasks, starting with HR and IT
- The Facilitator: Taking real-time notes in Teams meetings and chat
- The Project Manager: Automates plan creation and even completes tasks in Microsoft Planner
On top of this, agents can work within SharePoint to quickly summarise and find information, saving time on manual searching.
More Copilot capabilities
Alongside agents, there have been more announcements around expanding Copilot’s capabilities. One of the most exciting is the ability for Copilot to analyse content shown on screen during a Teams meeting. It can also summarise information, making it easier to catch up on everything that happened in the meeting with no context missed.
Copilot Actions were also announced, automating tasks like daily action items or weekly summaries. This can be done easily with simple prompts that you can get Copilot to do on the repeatable basis.
Next, we have Copilot in PowerPoint. Microsoft had already announced greater capabilities via Copilot to keep presentations on-brand, but it will soon also be able to translate presentations into different languages.
Finally, Copilot in Outlook can now help you schedule focus time with colleagues, including finding the best time based on both your calendars and drafting an agenda, making it easier to get together and collaborate.
Copilot Control Centre
One of the common challenges of adopting AI is empowering IT administrators to control it, ensure security and report on its usage. The Copilot Control Centre helps businesses to do exactly that.
Copilot customers will now get SharePoint Advanced Management at no additional charge to improve data protection. This allows you to safely adopt AI, without risk of sensitive data being shared where it shouldn’t.
There are also new management controls to govern access and usage of Copilot and agents. This will enable you to limit who can access Copilot and get better insight into how your Copilot agents are performing – including controls over which users can use Copilot and agents.
Viva Insights will also be coming together with Copilot for improved analytics. This enables you to track who is using Copilot and how, enabling you to see where there’s opportunity for greater ROI across the business. You’ll also be able to better track the impact of AI usage against your KPIs.
Microsoft Places
Another new announcement is Microsoft Places. This is an AI-powered workplace app designed to enhance flexible work environments and enable you to utilise your spaces better.
Key features include:
- Work plans: Set and share your work location schedule.
- Desk and room booking: Reserve individual desks or meeting rooms.
- Hybrid RSVP: Indicate whether you’ll attend meetings in person or virtually.
- Space analytics: Visualise and analyse space usage data.
- Intelligent suggestions: Get recommendations for in-office days and room bookings.
Microsoft Places integrates with Microsoft Teams and Outlook, making it easier to stay connected and productive.
The best of the rest
While Copilot took the centre stage at Microsoft Ignite 2024, there were plenty of announcements across the rest of Microsoft’s technologies. These include:
- Azure infrastructure: Improved data management and integration capabilities, and more options for deploying cloud solutions
- Microsoft Fabric: Advanced AI capabilities within Microsoft Fabrics, plus some new data analytics tooling as well
- Power Platform Admin Centre: Simplified security and governance tools for easier management
- Security: Improvements to Purview for easier management of data governance and data loss prevention policies
- Windows OS: Improved search, better virtual desktop features and updates around encryption
If you’d like to find out more what these announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2024 could mean for your business, or understand how to apply the latest innovations, get in touch. Our team would love to speak to you.
