Olive + Goose has attended Microsoft Ignite both onsite and virtually this past week; we are excited by key announcements made by Microsoft in areas that we focus our consulting efforts on including Security, AI, and migrations and implementations of Microsoft 365 (Copilot and Teams!).
Key Announcements at Microsoft Ignite 2024
Microsoft Ignite positioned the company at the forefront of AI by spotlighting exciting advancements in AI, security, and collaboration technologies. During his keynote, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described 2024 as “the age of Copilots,” emphasizing Microsoft’s deep investment in generative AI across its ecosystem, with over 18 million users globally leveraging Microsoft Copilot, driving up to 40% efficiency improvements in tasks such as project management and invoice processing.
A whopping number of 80 new features and products were announced at the event, aiming to improve workplace efficiency.
Strong emphasis on security
Security remained a cornerstone of Ignite announcements, with an emphasis on integrating AI to combat evolving threats. Microsoft announced the Zero Day Quest, a new hacking event featuring a $4 million reward pool—the largest ever for a public hacking competition.
As data security becomes increasingly critical, Microsoft has significantly enhanced its security features, particularly through updates to Microsoft Purview, its robust data governance platform. The latest improvements focus on:
- Enhancing AI-powered governance: Enabling more efficient and intelligent management of data.
- Expanding data protection and management: Strengthening the capabilities for securing sensitive information.
- Ensuring alignment with changing compliance requirements: Helping organizations stay ahead of evolving regulatory standards.
These updates aim to empower businesses with stronger control over their data, ensuring they meet both security and compliance demands.
Security Copilot in Intune for workflow management will be expanded allowing it to support a wider variety of scenarios across Intune, the Intune Suite, and Windows Autopatch. This new functionality enables Security Copilot to provide insights and management capabilities across a broader spectrum of devices and workflows. Additionally, Intune administrators can now include iOS, Android, macOS, and Linux devices in their hardware inventory management. Other announcements include (but are not limited to):
- Defender AI Enhancements: Microsoft’s security suite now includes AI-driven analytics to proactively identify and respond to vulnerabilities in real time.
- Zero Trust with Copilot: A Copilot-integrated dashboard simplifies the adoption of Zero Trust principles, providing businesses with actionable insights into their security posture.
- Unified Identity Management: Updates to Entra ID aim to streamline identity governance, ensuring secure, seamless access to enterprise resources.
For more security announcements from Microsoft, check out the Book of News. At Olive + Goose, we offer holistic consulting engagements from quick-touch Security assessments to full implementations. Contact us to learn what these latest announcements mean for your organization and the next steps you should take. Learn more here.
AI: The Age of Copilots and Intelligent Agents
The expansion of the Co-Pilot ecosystem signifies a major step forward in AI-enhanced productivity tools. New features include:
- Co-Pilot Actions: Optimizing intricate business workflows.
- Co-Pilot Studio: Enabling tailored AI solution development.
These tools aim to automate everyday tasks, freeing up time for more strategic, high-priority work. By incorporating AI-driven agents into your processes, you can boost efficiency and cultivate a culture of innovation across your organization.
Another significant highlight was Copilot AI, which is revolutionizing workplace productivity as an AI assistant across Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, Outlook, and PowerPoint. The aim with such intelligent agents is to simplify tasks, improve efficiency, and free up time for more strategic initiatives.
Another notable update was the launch of five new AI agents, designed to automate routine tasks and boost team productivity, enabling employees to dedicate more time to high-impact work. New additions to the Copilot Agents include:
- Facilitator Agent in Microsoft Teams: This agent can be added to meetings in Teams to function as a Facilitator, guiding discussions and maintaining focus on key topics to ensure meetings are productive and efficient.
- Project Manager Agent in Microsoft Planner: Consider this your AI project manager; this agent can create project plans from scratch, monitor progress, and ensure projects stay on track.
- SharePoint Copilot Agent: Every SharePoint site will now feature a Copilot agent to help manage content and site administration, enhancing usability and efficiency.
- Interpreter agent in Microsoft Teams: This agent can replicate a user’s voice in up to nine languages for real-time translation. (Will be available in preview starting in early 2025)
These agents represent a major advancement in incorporating AI into daily workflows. “The best way to think about these are just as your teammates,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, of the new agents during his keynote speech.
Microsoft also announced Copilot Analytics, a way to help businesses understand the impact of AI and optimize its utilization. This tool offers insights into how Copilot usage drives tangible business results across departments like sales, marketing, and finance. It features a dashboard displaying metrics on Copilot readiness, adoption, impact, and learning. Additionally, it includes a reporting tool for IT administrators.
Not sure where to start with AI? Engage one of our expert consultants to understand how and where to leverage AI at your organization. Not using Microsoft 365 yet? We can also help with migrations and implementations so that you can start experiencing all that Copilot has to offer. Learn more here.
Teams Innovations: Redefining Hybrid Work
Microsoft Teams continues to evolve as a critical tool for hybrid work, integrating AI and mixed reality to enhance collaboration. With hundreds of millions of users, any significant update to Teams impacts a vast number of people, particularly considering the global scope of the upcoming changes.
- Microsoft Teams is set to introduce several new translation features. Meeting transcription will soon support 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages, significantly enhancing meeting accessibility. Teams will automatically transcribe meetings in any of the supported languages without requiring users to choose a specific language for the app to listen for.
- Along with transcription, live translated captions and live translated transcripts will also be available for multilingual meetings.
- Intelligent meeting recap translation – a new feature coming in 2025 for Teams desktop, web, and mobile will automatically generate meeting recaps in the translation language chosen by the user. Additionally, users will have the option to change the translation language of a meeting recap after it has been created.
Microsoft Teams will integrate with Storyline, a feature that offers a central platform for employees across an organization to share stories, videos, text, and other content. While Microsoft’s Viva Engage already includes a Storyline feature, this concept will soon be available in Teams, with a preview set for early next year.
An upcoming enhancement for Copilot in Teams is also on the way. This feature will analyze visual content shared onscreen via PowerPoint to the web and provide answers to questions related to that content. The new Copilot features in Teams are expected to enter public preview in early 2025, so most users will need to wait a while before gaining access. To read more on this and other announcements around Microsoft Teams, check out the official Microsoft blog.
Looking for advice on next steps? Let Olive + Goose help envision your roadmap to success through usage of Microsoft Teams. We can assess the current state of your organization, provide a roadmap, and drive implementation. In addition, our consultants are experts in creating processes and tools to enhance efficiency in work. Learn more here.
Final Thoughts
The announcements at Microsoft Ignite 2024 were laser-focused on how AI and security innovations are reshaping industries, while Microsoft Teams remains a leader in collaboration technology. As Nadella aptly stated, “We are building tools not just for productivity but for the next generation of problem solvers.”
Whether you are looking to improve your Security posture, determine the best ways to implement AI, or are interested in driving efficiencies in your organization, Olive + Goose is committed to being your partner in defining next steps through assessments, strategic roadmaps, and implementations. To learn more, reach out to us at [email protected].
