Microsoft’s AI will be taking the world by storm in the next year. With developments in ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, we are seeing AI play a larger role than ever in the business environment. For many, this is exciting…but the big question on everyone’s mind is “how do we leverage it?”

How do we make it work for us?

We got top Microsoft MVPs and experts together to discuss these lastest developments and what the road to success will look like in 2024.

Jeff Willinger Jeff Willinger, Microsoft MVP & Speaker

Native New Yorker and Chicagoan, now in Southern California, that plays Pickleball in between meetings.​ ​25 years in the M365 ecosystem. Big SharePoint (PREMIUM!) person who is passionate about modern work, creating a culture of collaboration and using Power Platform and Viva!

​

Ryan Schouten Ryan Schouten, Microsoft MVP & CEO

Father of four and technology, developer, and media enthusiast. Working in the Microsoft Ecosystem for 22 years. Long time developer and familiar with the backend of SharePoint. When SharePoint misbehaves I usually know why. I love live content in Microsoft Teams.

​

​Galen Keene Galen Keene, Microsoft Expert & CEO

SoCal native, devoted father and husband passionate about ocean exploration. Over 20 years in IT and a passion for collaboration technologies. Specializing in merging people, communication, and data using Microsoft-based solutions, always emphasizing security and compliance best practices.

​

Looking Forward

  • AI is everywhere and Copilot brand is added to most workloads (Some paid, some included)
  • Bing Chat Enterprise is now Copilot (for the web)
  • Power Virtual Agent is now Copilot Studio
  • To alleviate shortage of GPU, Microsoft is building their own AI Chips (ARM based)
  • Microsoft is adding many Premium licensing on top of existing products. The Premium brand is a common terminology meaning premium features on top of workloads in the M365 platform
  • Teams Premium (Available earlier in 2023)
  • SharePoint Premium (new in November)
  • Power Apps Premium (introduced in August)
  • Power Automate Premium (introduced in August)
  • Power BI premium (available for a while)
  • Planner Premium (will replace project online plans)

Microsoft Azure & AI

  • Microsoft is making their own chips to power AI in Azure and extending its partnership with Nvidia
  • Microsoft Copilot for Azure is now in public preview.
  • Microsoft Copilot for Azure is an
  • AI companion that enables IT professionals to design, operate, optimize, and troubleshoot applications on Microsoft Azure.
  • Azure AI
  • Azure AI Studio: A new platform that integrates pre-built AI services and models, prompt orchestration and evaluation, content safety and responsible AI tools for privacy, security and compliance. It helps organizations explore, build, test, and deploy AI solutions at scale.
  • Azure OpenAI Service: A service that offers access to large language models such as GPT-4 Turbo, GPT-3.5 Turbo, and Dall-E 3, as well as Assistants API for building agent-like experiences. It also expands the Customer Copyright Commitment to protect customers from infringing content.
  • Azure AI Search: A service that combines keyword and vector search, as well as reranking techniques used in Bing, to provide smart and relevant search results. It also supports vectors, semantic ranker, and prompt flow for machine learning professionals.
  • Azure AI Vision: A service that enables applications to see, understand, and make inferences from visual inputs and associated text-based prompt instructions. It also supports GPT-4 Turbo with Vision for multi-modal capabilities.
AI + BPA = iBPA

Windows

  • Unified Windows App is a central place to connect any devices and services across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote Desktop and Microsoft Dev Box
  • Windows 365 & Azure Virtual Desktop support passwordless authentication and Windows 365 now has GPU support for graphic intensive workloads
  • Frontline worker device management includes Shared device mode

Security

  • Microsoft Defender Enhancements
    • Defender for Endpoint and Sentinel are now unified
    • Security Copilot has been extended to Purview, Identity, and Device Management
    • New Generative AI app category in Defender for Cloud Apps
  • Data Leak Prevention
    • Endpoint DLP policy for enrolled devices
  • Label Sensitive Information
    • Auto-labeling for application and services
  • Insider Risk
    • Ready to use indicators for platforms like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and GitHub
  • Data & Analytics
    • Microsoft Fabric is now generally available

Viva

  • Microsoft announced updates to Viva Engage and Viva Amplify
  • Multi-tenant organization communication in Engage
  • Publish from Amplify to Engage (finally)
  • Cross integration of Viva workloads
  • AI Connected knowledge in Viva Answers
  • Copilot in Viva Engage, Learning, Insight and Goals
  • Coming: skills in Viva Insight (2024)

Power Platform

  • New Power Automate Designer and Copilot capabilities
  • Accelerate time to write expressions and create desktop or cloud flows
  • Use Copilot in the COE to get historical information
  • Power Virtual Agent is now Copilot Studio
  • Lots of new capabilities
  • Enable generative AI on your knowledge base

SharePoint Premium

  • Content Experiences
  • Branded Document Portal
  • Content AI (Formerly Syntex)
  • eSignatures
  • Advanced Governance
Let's talk automation in M365

Copilot

  • Copilot experiences are embedded everywhere in Microsoft 365, Power Platform and Azure
  • Some of the copilot features are premium and required additional subscription
  • For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot is $30/user/month, available since 11/1/23 for 300 seats minimum)
  • Viva will have built-in Copilot and some only available when licensed for M365 copilot
  • Copilot requires a significant amount of planning and adoption
  • Be careful of over-permissioning or over sharing
  • Copilot will surface all content the user has access to
  • Make sure sensitive content is labeled and compartmentalized

Project, Planner, To Do, & Tasks

  • Convergence of task management into one place
  • Fueled by Copilot (if you have a premium license)
  • New use case like Frontline workers, PMO, etc….
  • Included in MS365 for simple case, Premium offering (similar to Project Online Plan 3,5)
  • Gradual rollout but many features from Project Online will be transitioned to the new offering
  • Integrate with Viva Goals

Microsoft Teams

  • Town Halls
  • Microsoft Mesh
  • New Teams
  • Avatars
  • 178 other features released this year

Teams Premium

  • Allows Better control over meetings, webinars, town halls
  • Customize meeting templates for your organization️
  • Add organization branding to meeting lobbies
  • Customize meeting backgrounds for your organization
  • Read live translated captions during meetings
  • Use RTMP-In for meetings
  • Hide attendee names
  • Broadcast town halls to 20k attendees
  • Host up to 50 town halls simultaneously

Key Takeaways & Predictions

  • Microsoft’s AI everywhere
  • Copilot is embedded in all capabilities
  • Azure continues to grow
  • SharePoint is more alive than ever
  • Enterprise adoption of AI is growing fast

We expect AI and automation to have a large impact on success in 2024. As AI is incorporated more into various capabilities, organizations that learn how to leverage AI to extend impact in their positions will see the greatest opportunity and growth.

At Crow Canyon Software, we have fully embraced AI and intelligent business process automation with NITRO Help Desk’s KB Copilot, forms generation, and auto-generated emails. We will continue to infuse AI capabilities in all our M365 and Teams solutions – help desk, purchasing, asset management, and more to help empower organizations to succeed in 2024. If you are curious about where to start with automation, let’s talk. We are here to help.

Get the full insights from our Microsoft MVPs and experts in the video below:

​