June 18, 2025 • 27 mins
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🎙️FULL SHOW NOTES
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/698
What happens when a cloud architect dives headfirst into the evolving world of AI and becomes one of the earliest adopters of Microsoft Copilot in Europe? In this episode, Daniel Rohregger shares how he turned early access into real-world impact—running transformative workshops, challenging AI limitations, and building multilingual agents for legacy industries. Whether you're leading digital transformation or just trying to keep up with Copilot’s rapid evolution, this conversation is packed with insights that will sharpen your strategy and expand your toolkit.
🔑 Key Takeaways
How to Run Effective Copilot Workshops: Daniel breaks down his approach to correcting misconceptions, tailoring demos to business roles, and aligning AI with compliance needs.
The Power of Multilingual AI Agents: Learn how legacy manufacturing teams are using Copilot to bridge language gaps and preserve expert knowledge.
Why Responsible AI Matters: A candid look at the trade-offs between user empowerment and ethical safeguards in enterprise AI.
What’s Coming in Copilot Wave 2: Daniel shares what features he’s most excited about, including GPT-4o image generation and the new “Create” experience.
Pro Tips for Power Users: From prompt engineering to backend transparency, hear what advanced users wish Copilot would let them control.
🧰 Resources Mentioned
👉 Microsoft Copilot – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot
👉 Microsoft Forms with Copilot – https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/forms
👉 Azure AI Speech Services – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cognitive-services/speech-services/
👉 Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzf0yupPbVkqdRJDPVE4PtTlm6quDhiu7Â
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Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:06):
Welcome to the MVP show.
My intention is that you listento the stories of these MVP
guests and are inspired tobecome an MVP and bring value to
the world through your skills.
If you have not checked it outalready, I do a YouTube series
called how to Become an MVP.
The link is in the show notes.
With that, let's get on withthe show.
(00:31):
Today's guest joins us from thevibrant Munich in Germany.
He's a cloud architect and hespecializes in modern work
solutions.
He's been a Microsoft MVP since2024.
He's deeply involved inco-pilot since its inception,
bringing real world expertise tocountless organizations through
(00:53):
engaging workshops.
He's also an activeinternational speaker and
instructor for Microsoft 365services and hosts a popular
podcast dedicated to helping thecommunity build their ideal
digital workplace podcastdedicated to helping the
community build their idealdigital works place.
You can find all the links tohis bio and socials, as well as
a link to his podcast, in theshow notes for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Daniel.
Daniel Rohregger (01:12):
Hello, mark, thanks for having me.
It's great to be here.
To be honest, I think it's myfirst appearance ever on an I
would say international podcast.
Mark Smith (01:22):
Wow, wow, the thing is so.
Your podcast is all in German,right?
Daniel Rohregger (01:26):
Yeah, yeah, currently, to be honest, I'm
really working on it.
I'm really trying to get myfingers around Azure AI speech
service to maybe do it at leastautomatically, in two or even
more languages, Because you know, the community is large and
sometimes I feel like I need todo everything in English, but
(01:46):
then you know, you're a littlebit more comfortable in your
home language, which for me isGerman.
But yeah, it's so a fastchanging world and you know, I
want to share all thisinformation, all the things that
we do in the community, that Ido with the customers, things
that that we do in the community, that I do with the customers,
(02:06):
and sometimes I feel like I needto split myself to make
everything bilingual to get morepeople involved but the thing
is, the german market's a bigmarket yeah, yeah, quite so.
We have germany, austria andalso switzerland, where we,
especially in switzerland, see alot of large companies have
their larger departments thereand they're the home departments
(02:30):
in Switzerland and, yeah,mostly decisions are being made
there and I think, when dealing,for example, with Swiss
customers, we speak more Englishthan German or Swiss German
even.
Mark Smith (02:48):
So when you're not doing IT stuff, tell me about
food, family and fun.
What do you do when you're notkind of working?
Daniel Rohregger (02:54):
So yeah, basically I would say
enthusiastic musician playing alittle bit of guitar, um and
piano.
We have a wedding band that weusually fill our saturdays with
these activities and otherwise,yeah, I, I often have a nice
company in my, in my home, withmy two cats and my girlfriend.
(03:18):
So yeah, that's, I would say,more or less the basic stuff,
and everything else is mainlybesides music and my cats.
Mark Smith (03:26):
I would say Microsoft 365-ish at least I
have two cats as well.
Daniel Rohregger (03:34):
Oh well, that's nice.
Mark Smith (03:36):
I'm very interested in your journey through Copilot.
Journey through Copilot.
Tell me a bit about why you gotinvolved from the get-go and
what's been your experience overthe last two to three years?
Daniel Rohregger (03:55):
Oh, yeah, so you're definitely not starting
with the small questions here.
Let's definitely just get rightthrough the point.
Well, yeah, so my previousemployer was always very, I
would say, good, connected withMicrosoft.
Of course, we got our hands alittle bit earlier, or I would
say, at the earliest timepossible for a Europe-based
(04:17):
Microsoft partner in November2023.
I think it was yeah, yeah, yeahand um, well, from there, you
know, I was always so.
I I was a project manager whothought that microsoft 365 is a
(04:38):
great platform to um, to doproject management, to do
self-management, to do.
You know, I really got to do amanagement, to do
self-management to do.
You know, I really got to do alot of with Microsoft To-Do
Planner Lists, sharepoint andthose stuff.
So I was always more on the, Iwould say, modem work guy, not
the security or intern guys.
I was always like on thecall-up side of things.
(05:00):
So, of course, Copilot was likea very welcome new thing for me
, especially in Germany, theViva thing that was the hype
before Copilot was not thatsuccessful.
Yeah, so I was quite happy toget a new friend to play with.
Yeah, so of course I startedand, yeah, you know, you quickly
(05:22):
realized, wow, that's a littlebit of a different thing here
and customers get interested.
We were really getting ourhands on the first features.
We were delivering the firstworkshops in Germany.
I always remember the time whenwe said, okay, guys, we need to
do our co-pilot workshops herein the mornings.
(05:44):
When we said, okay, guys, weneed to do our co-pilot
workshops here in the morningsbecause as soon as we hit one
o'clock, us wakes up and alsotries out the technology.
So in the early days we getsome, you know, stumbling with
the servers and feedback loopsand waiting on answers for like
forever.
So, yeah, that's where itstarted and from there on I just
(06:05):
stayed on the topic.
I also then directly became anMVP a few months after because I
just needed to do so mucheducational stuff.
I was requested as somebody whojust was in a lucky position to
get their hands on the Oli Techand I was speaking at
conferences about those, aboutthose tools, and, um, yeah, from
(06:28):
then on, I think it just neverstopped, yeah, so, uh, basically
, from the moment, uh, um, I, Iopened copilot the first time,
it felt a little bit like adream and I got pushed in those
communities and I got more andmore involved and it was a very
incredible journey since then.
And that was a little bit, yeah, where I come from, basically.
Mark Smith (06:53):
This is good.
This is good.
Tell me, In running a typicalworkshop on Copilot, I assume
you'll have people that come inthat this is the first time
they're hearing about Copilot.
Then you might have some thatare maybe intermediate, some
advanced.
How do you run like kind ofstep me through what the routine
(07:15):
of a Copilot workshop is foryou?
Daniel Rohregger (07:18):
Well, of course, at first as, as you said
, it depends who is sitting infront of you yeah, so um, but
usually when we have like afirst touch with a customer, the
thing that we have peopleinvolved that have no idea about
the um, about the topic, that'squite rare at these days.
Yeah, uh, a year ago, yes, butright now we have.
(07:44):
We have not the case that theyare unaware of the topic, but we
have the case that they have, Iwould say, wrong expectations,
of course, or they havepre-assumptions that they have
made based on what they maybehave seen two seconds in a video
, on a LinkedIn post orsomething, what they have in
mind.
So the first thing is I don'task them only hey, what's your
(08:07):
name, what's your job, howimportant do you think you are
in your company?
I ask them what do you thinkabout Copilot?
And get those.
You know, I really try tolisten carefully what they're
telling me and what they arethinking, and I don't especially
point it out, but while I'mdoing the rest of the workshop,
(08:28):
I really try to correct thosepre-assumptions if they're wrong
, of course, or I try to go alittle bit more into that detail
so I can really fulfill thepeople.
And yeah, of course, then weusually start with a little bit
of, I would say, housekeepingand legal stuff.
So people know, hey, what we'retalking there is about the
(08:50):
solution that is really well upto date.
But we are always, for example,hanging on what OpenAI is doing
in terms of technology wise.
But the difference is Microsoftis doing that in a secure way
and they will give you theopportunity to implement an AI
solution that is completely oris the most possible way of
(09:15):
implementing an AI solution thatis regulatory, okay, that is
held in your company regulationsand all that stuff.
Yeah, so that's where weusually try to push away those,
I would say, legal boundaries, alittle bit of that wrong
expectations or problems that Ithink they're facing.
And yeah, from there on, we tryto I try to to to see a little
(09:40):
bit in what vertical they are,what is the company doing, what?
I think there are use cases.
Of course, we have some typicaluse cases we see across the
world when we have HR, marketing, legal stuff, those I would say
typical personas or typical jobdescriptions, and yeah, then I
try to get a mix of show themthe nice latest features, like
(10:02):
what is coming up, probablymaybe in the next workshops, as
soon as we ship the wave tospring.
Update and co-pilot we willprobably do some action figures
or action packs, uh, um, of thepeople involved and uh, for now
we are just doing, yeah, youknow, the the things that we can
do with Copilot.
I show some technical stufflike Python and coding and cool
(10:25):
stuff like that and, of course,we will talk a little bit about
the use case, about the businessside, especially when it's a
first-time call.
Mark Smith (10:33):
Yeah, so are you predominantly staying in the
Copilot chat experience usingthings like pages and things
like that, or are you also doyou do any of the broader M365
co-pilot stuff like Word Excelwhere it pops up in those
PowerPoint?
You know those type ofapplications.
Daniel Rohregger (10:54):
Depending on how much time is given for the
workshop.
Yeah, so of course, you know,usually besides the first touch
workshop, if someone says, yeah,we have like a big thing with
Excel, then of course I pull theExcel up and I show them a
little bit about that co-pilot,roughly over it.
(11:22):
But then of course, when we getinvolved into projects, uh,
where we have, like you know,the task to board, board our
champions, um onto the the tool,into copilot and get more
details on that, of course, thenwe definitely go a little bit
over all these nice tools andall the like.
I, I, for example, I reallylike to show forms copilot
because it's incredibly fast,incredibly effective and, yeah,
(11:47):
so that's usually a Copilot thatis often overseen, but I would
always show in my demos.
Mark Smith (11:51):
You talked about the Wave 2 release and I now have.
When I open my browser, I haveCopilot as my homepage, just
waiting for the drop right ofWave 2.
Because I feel like it's a bigchange.
You know that's coming with thenavigation structure, the new
(12:12):
features, the agents, thenotebooks.
What feature are youparticularly most excited about
and what's coming?
Daniel Rohregger (12:23):
For what I'm personally most hyped about as
someone who is holding a Copilotlicense.
It's definitely the new createexperience.
When we get those GPT-4O imagegeneration, because yeah.
Mark Smith (12:36):
That's good, that's good.
One of the things like as apower user, are there any kind
of prompts that you run to tounderstand the version, the back
end, etc.
You know, one of my, my thingsthat I think about is, um, if
(12:57):
I'm using chat, gpt, um, I knowI, I know what an 03 model does,
I know what the forum or the4.5 model, deep research, does,
I and I choose based on what I'mgoing to do.
One of the limitations I find,and and of course you know,
copilot's designed for everybodyrather than just the power user
(13:19):
, but is I find it slightlylimiting in that I want to know,
hey, what is the version that'sunderpinning what I am doing?
Daniel Rohregger (13:29):
You're missing , like the Pro Switch or like
the advanced configurationswitch.
Mark Smith (13:34):
Yeah, like I know what I'm doing, switch, take the
kiddie gloves off.
I'm okay, I know what I'm doing.
Daniel Rohregger (13:43):
That's an interesting part, to be honest,
and I love this discussionbecause I had it with Microsoft
and Redmond.
So that's one of or this wasdefinitely probably the biggest
honor currently in myprofessional career that I was
invited to the MVP Summit, tocome to the Microsoft campus
this year, to the MVP Summit, tocome to the Microsoft campus
(14:04):
this year, and the discussionsthat we had with Microsoft were
really interesting and we werediscussing exactly that.
And there are a few things and,to be honest, I can't decide
for myself if I want to go yourway, because I love your way and
I love how you think about that, because that's what we as
professionals or pro users liketo do.
(14:25):
And, by the way, what we alsodiscussed is just, maybe, for a
week, make a little bit fun ofit and implement such a switch
and just let the switch.
Do absolutely nothing, and Iwould bet that people start.
I get the best response, butyou need to set the switch.
Do absolutely nothing, and Iwould bet that people start.
I get the best response, butyou need to set the switch on
(14:46):
four or something like that.
You know, you need to set theswitch on this level, for
example.
And I mean the discussion thatwe're having here.
Yes, it would be great to havesuch a switch or to have like a
configuration, but the audiencethat it's targeting to is
(15:07):
probably smaller than theaudience that.
It probably would make it worse.
So people think they know whatthey're doing.
Often I say, yeah, of courseI'm using that model because I
want to do this stuff.
No, man, you don't need a deepresearch model to find an error
in your I don't know 50 linetype of code.
(15:27):
You don't need the deepresearch there.
But if you're using it, you'rejust, I would say, wasting
resources.
And yeah, that's, of course,something that we don't want to
do, but yeah, as I said, Iunderstand it, I can't decide,
and I would think a few peoplelike maybe you and myself would
profit from it, but I think itwould also cause confusion all
(15:51):
the way.
Yeah, we maybe need the admincontrol for that.
Mark Smith (15:53):
So the other little furball that I run into is RAI
over-interference.
So I'll give you two examples.
One is I asked it the other dayto create a list of companies
(16:14):
based on a certain parameter ina specific country.
It did that, no problem.
It based on an industry that Iwas targeting.
I then said give me the their,their, the company websites, and
you know, and it goes and putsit into loop or pages you know
to work on All the URLs, went inthere and then about three
(16:39):
seconds, two seconds later, itredacted out all URLs and said
to protect your privacy, we'veremoved the links.
I'm like I asked you.
Daniel Rohregger (16:51):
Before you go with your second example also
that we have addressed and it'sgoing to be fixed by tomorrow,
probably so when this podcastcame out Microsoft has
implemented a new configurationwhere, from now on, every link
you click that is coming fromCopilot gets redirected to
(17:12):
Windows Defender Safe Links andit checks it.
So those links that are goingto external and were removed
earlier will not be removed.
They will be directed via theSafe Links service.
So that's actually up that itwill ship, or that is shipped on
the day that people are hearingthis episode, awesome, awesome.
Mark Smith (17:33):
The other one is this so let's say I do a sales
call with a customer and I'vegot transcription on, they're
happy for it to be on.
We get the summary of it andteams and all that kind of thing
At the end of the call.
I'm wanting to do aretrospective on my ability as a
salesperson, so I'd use thistype of prompt.
(17:56):
I say what I'd like you to dois assess, you know, the the
this call, and I want you to actas an expert sales coach and
show me what I could have donebetter.
Guess what its response is.
Daniel Rohregger (18:13):
Yes, I know what the response is.
Mark Smith (18:15):
I can't give.
Sorry, I can't make thoserecommendations to you.
Daniel Rohregger (18:19):
Probably the exact phrase that I would prefer
not to continue thisconversation at this point.
I think that what is Microsoftdoing and that's also a thing
that I pointed out um andmicrosoft, I can tell they're
all aware of that, but it'spretty hard to really what's I
like, program it into the tool,or program it into the
(18:40):
responsible ai um engine, orcheck that is done to really
decide is he's trying to ask forhimself or is he's trying to
ask for another?
You know, because that's a fear.
Mark Smith (18:53):
I was on the call.
Like my license matches theteam's license.
Like they've got all thatstitching there, yeah that's
right?
Daniel Rohregger (19:01):
Yeah, for sure .
But you know people get quite Iwould say creative when it's
coming to prompting.
So they're trying to know.
Mark Smith (19:09):
In that scenario, what do I do?
I export the transcript, takeit into chat gpt.
Please analyze which.
That's bad because what it'sdoing it's making me take my
data outside of my tenant, mythe whole why.
You know the microsoftenvironment is a safe and secure
and the data boundaries arehonored.
You know the Microsoftenvironment is safe and secure
(19:30):
and the data boundaries arehonoured.
You know, within your tenant andyou know any Joe Bloggs that's
going to want to get that typeof outcome is going to want to
do that because I think thatfeature for a sales team when I
started my career 30-odd yearsago in IT and I went in and I
(19:50):
would implement crms for contactcenters, right, and they used
to have like these kind of uh yum head headphones and so the
manager would sit down and theywould plug into the same cable
as the other contact centerperson and they would listen to
the conversation as I having itand then after the call they
would go.
I would recommend you do this.
(20:11):
You should have done that there, that type of thing, and I'm
like in the age of ai, I couldget the the foremost guru in the
world on how to do a good salescall.
You know um name any kind ofauthor out there in the space
and say use that methodology.
You know, spin selling is anexample I know of Apply that to
(20:32):
what I did and coach me on how Icould do it better next time.
I think, man, that's massivelyadvantageous.
Daniel Rohregger (20:39):
Yeah.
So three points on that.
First of all, I have a session,or like a keynote, where I show
like my top 10 use cases andactually there are screenshots
in there from exactly thatprompts working from probably a
year ago.
So that was stuff that wasworking and what Microsoft
(21:01):
needed to remove after customersfeedback, but of course not in
the context about themselves,about we don't want Copilot to
let people analyze others andwith that feedback it also
killed the analyze for myselfthing and currently they're
working on it to, of course,getting the feedback for myself
(21:22):
back, but not doing that type ofanalysis on myself.
That type of analysis on myself,even if your, I would say like
motivation is good and positive,some people really can use it
for a negative thing oncolleagues or on you know some
people that work for them.
That's yeah, that's the firstthing.
(21:42):
And the second thing isprobably you can do this.
You don't need to go outsidethe M365 world.
You can definitely do that withan agent um, but I'll be honest
with you, that's also like onlya pro scenario.
No usual user can do that.
So this um, again, it's justlike a technology thing.
(22:05):
But yeah, that what iscurrently built into responsible
ai.
Uh, microsoft is working onthat, and that's the third point
.
I would say maybe we wait a fewmonths and then this will be
hopefully working in this caseagain what's it?
Mark Smith (22:18):
you talked about a keynote there in your top 10.
Uh, use cases, give me your topthree let me.
Daniel Rohregger (22:24):
Let me do like maybe my my best use case that
I have in mind, because it's avery german use case and you
know, I always I would likeimagine you are in a really old
german factory.
So, like you know, with all thesteel machines and stuff and
you know, currently it's veryhard to find new experts, it's
hard to find people doing thejob, and especially when we have
(22:46):
like this language barrier inGermany sometimes.
So what we did with a customerthey had, like this old
machinery where they only hadbooks for operations manual that
were in German.
So we were able to get a Germanversion as PDF from the
(23:07):
manufacturer and what we didwith that was really incredible.
We had like one or two peopleleft who were really experts in
that machine and we grabbed themfor a few workshops and they
really explained us how theyneed the manuals when finding
errors and all that stuff.
And we put that knowledge andthe instruction they gave us at
(23:28):
first in an agent and we justtrained it to be multilingual.
So we had like a point ofcontact.
They would just type in theerror code and they would get
first of all an explanation andthen also, as you said like a
link or a source where they canhop into the manual to get off
it.
That was the first part, but wedid not stop there and hop into
(23:50):
the manual to get off it.
That was the first part, but wedid not stop there.
We go into Copilot and, forexample, generated video scripts
to show people the mostimportant things.
That were also of course.
We then again talked with thoseexperts and said, hey, what are
the important things whensomeone is new at this machine,
what do they need to know?
And they just gave us somebullet points.
We gave it to the AI and said,hey, make a real nice video
(24:13):
script about that topics andabout how to use that machine.
And he just created that scriptand we did a podcast version of
it, just for you know, in thenotebook, alarm style, yeah, so
people can listen to it.
Then we put those informationinto Microsoft Forms and people
need to take a quiz after theyhave listened to that.
(24:33):
In some form we also get likehandouts, all AI generated, and
the thing is we have likedifferent machines at every
location.
So then we gave those processesand all the prompts to the
customer and they were able todo it multiple times for
multiple machines and thoseagents have by far the largest
(24:54):
activity on the whole companyand that's really it's a more
complex use case.
But it was all to be donewithout Copilot Studio.
It was all done within Copilotand Copilot agents.
It's co-pilot studio, it wasall done within co-pilot and and
co-pilot agents and, yeah, itwas a really nice wary I would
(25:14):
say german handcrafted use case,but I really like that one I
love it.
Mark Smith (25:20):
Daniel, we're already five minutes over time.
You're one of my longest guests.
Uh, on on the show I could talkto you for hours, no problem.
Daniel Rohregger (25:26):
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Mark Smith (25:27):
I could talk to you for hours, sorry for that, no
problem.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show.
I really enjoyed it.
Daniel Rohregger (25:30):
Thanks, Mark, for having me, Wish you a great
day and for everyone listening.
Thanks for staying so long,five minutes longer.
I hope you enjoyed this.
Mark Smith (25:41):
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host businessapplication MVP Mark Smith,
otherwise known as the NZ365guy.
If you like the show and wantto be a supporter, check out
buymeacoffeecom.
Forward slash NZ365guy.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Thank you.
Welcome to the MVP show.
My intention is that you listento the stories of these MVP
guests and are inspired tobecome an MVP and bring value to
the world through your skills.
If you have not checked it outalready, I do a YouTube series
called how to Become an MVP.
The link is in the show notes.
With that, let's get on withthe show.
(00:31):
Today's guest joins us from thevibrant Munich in Germany.
He's a cloud architect and hespecializes in modern work
solutions.
He's been a Microsoft MVP since2024.
He's deeply involved inco-pilot since its inception,
bringing real world expertise tocountless organizations through
(00:53):
engaging workshops.
He's also an activeinternational speaker and
instructor for Microsoft 365services and hosts a popular
podcast dedicated to helping thecommunity build their ideal
digital workplace podcastdedicated to helping the
community build their idealdigital works place.
You can find all the links tohis bio and socials, as well as
a link to his podcast, in theshow notes for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Daniel.
Daniel Rohregger (01:12):
Hello, mark, thanks for having me.
It's great to be here.
To be honest, I think it's myfirst appearance ever on an I
would say international podcast.
Mark Smith (01:22):
Wow, wow, the thing is so.
Your podcast is all in German,right?
Daniel Rohregger (01:26):
Yeah, yeah, currently, to be honest, I'm
really working on it.
I'm really trying to get myfingers around Azure AI speech
service to maybe do it at leastautomatically, in two or even
more languages, Because you know, the community is large and
sometimes I feel like I need todo everything in English, but
(01:46):
then you know, you're a littlebit more comfortable in your
home language, which for me isGerman.
But yeah, it's so a fastchanging world and you know, I
want to share all thisinformation, all the things that
we do in the community, that Ido with the customers, things
that that we do in the community, that I do with the customers,
(02:06):
and sometimes I feel like I needto split myself to make
everything bilingual to get morepeople involved but the thing
is, the german market's a bigmarket yeah, yeah, quite so.
We have germany, austria andalso switzerland, where we,
especially in switzerland, see alot of large companies have
their larger departments thereand they're the home departments
(02:30):
in Switzerland and, yeah,mostly decisions are being made
there and I think, when dealing,for example, with Swiss
customers, we speak more Englishthan German or Swiss German
even.
Mark Smith (02:48):
So when you're not doing IT stuff, tell me about
food, family and fun.
What do you do when you're notkind of working?
Daniel Rohregger (02:54):
So yeah, basically I would say
enthusiastic musician playing alittle bit of guitar, um and
piano.
We have a wedding band that weusually fill our saturdays with
these activities and otherwise,yeah, I, I often have a nice
company in my, in my home, withmy two cats and my girlfriend.
(03:18):
So yeah, that's, I would say,more or less the basic stuff,
and everything else is mainlybesides music and my cats.
Mark Smith (03:26):
I would say Microsoft 365-ish at least I
have two cats as well.
Daniel Rohregger (03:34):
Oh well, that's nice.
Mark Smith (03:36):
I'm very interested in your journey through Copilot.
Journey through Copilot.
Tell me a bit about why you gotinvolved from the get-go and
what's been your experience overthe last two to three years?
Daniel Rohregger (03:55):
Oh, yeah, so you're definitely not starting
with the small questions here.
Let's definitely just get rightthrough the point.
Well, yeah, so my previousemployer was always very, I
would say, good, connected withMicrosoft.
Of course, we got our hands alittle bit earlier, or I would
say, at the earliest timepossible for a Europe-based
(04:17):
Microsoft partner in November2023.
I think it was yeah, yeah, yeahand um, well, from there, you
know, I was always so.
I I was a project manager whothought that microsoft 365 is a
(04:38):
great platform to um, to doproject management, to do
self-management, to do.
You know, I really got to do amanagement, to do
self-management to do.
You know, I really got to do alot of with Microsoft To-Do
Planner Lists, sharepoint andthose stuff.
So I was always more on the, Iwould say, modem work guy, not
the security or intern guys.
I was always like on thecall-up side of things.
(05:00):
So, of course, Copilot was likea very welcome new thing for me
, especially in Germany, theViva thing that was the hype
before Copilot was not thatsuccessful.
Yeah, so I was quite happy toget a new friend to play with.
Yeah, so of course I startedand, yeah, you know, you quickly
(05:22):
realized, wow, that's a littlebit of a different thing here
and customers get interested.
We were really getting ourhands on the first features.
We were delivering the firstworkshops in Germany.
I always remember the time whenwe said, okay, guys, we need to
do our co-pilot workshops herein the mornings.
(05:44):
When we said, okay, guys, weneed to do our co-pilot
workshops here in the morningsbecause as soon as we hit one
o'clock, us wakes up and alsotries out the technology.
So in the early days we getsome, you know, stumbling with
the servers and feedback loopsand waiting on answers for like
forever.
So, yeah, that's where itstarted and from there on I just
(06:05):
stayed on the topic.
I also then directly became anMVP a few months after because I
just needed to do so mucheducational stuff.
I was requested as somebody whojust was in a lucky position to
get their hands on the Oli Techand I was speaking at
conferences about those, aboutthose tools, and, um, yeah, from
(06:28):
then on, I think it just neverstopped, yeah, so, uh, basically
, from the moment, uh, um, I, Iopened copilot the first time,
it felt a little bit like adream and I got pushed in those
communities and I got more andmore involved and it was a very
incredible journey since then.
And that was a little bit, yeah, where I come from, basically.
Mark Smith (06:53):
This is good.
This is good.
Tell me, In running a typicalworkshop on Copilot, I assume
you'll have people that come inthat this is the first time
they're hearing about Copilot.
Then you might have some thatare maybe intermediate, some
advanced.
How do you run like kind ofstep me through what the routine
(07:15):
of a Copilot workshop is foryou?
Daniel Rohregger (07:18):
Well, of course, at first as, as you said
, it depends who is sitting infront of you yeah, so um, but
usually when we have like afirst touch with a customer, the
thing that we have peopleinvolved that have no idea about
the um, about the topic, that'squite rare at these days.
Yeah, uh, a year ago, yes, butright now we have.
(07:44):
We have not the case that theyare unaware of the topic, but we
have the case that they have, Iwould say, wrong expectations,
of course, or they havepre-assumptions that they have
made based on what they maybehave seen two seconds in a video
, on a LinkedIn post orsomething, what they have in
mind.
So the first thing is I don'task them only hey, what's your
(08:07):
name, what's your job, howimportant do you think you are
in your company?
I ask them what do you thinkabout Copilot?
And get those.
You know, I really try tolisten carefully what they're
telling me and what they arethinking, and I don't especially
point it out, but while I'mdoing the rest of the workshop,
(08:28):
I really try to correct thosepre-assumptions if they're wrong
, of course, or I try to go alittle bit more into that detail
so I can really fulfill thepeople.
And yeah, of course, then weusually start with a little bit
of, I would say, housekeepingand legal stuff.
So people know, hey, what we'retalking there is about the
(08:50):
solution that is really well upto date.
But we are always, for example,hanging on what OpenAI is doing
in terms of technology wise.
But the difference is Microsoftis doing that in a secure way
and they will give you theopportunity to implement an AI
solution that is completely oris the most possible way of
(09:15):
implementing an AI solution thatis regulatory, okay, that is
held in your company regulationsand all that stuff.
Yeah, so that's where weusually try to push away those,
I would say, legal boundaries, alittle bit of that wrong
expectations or problems that Ithink they're facing.
And yeah, from there on, we tryto I try to to to see a little
(09:40):
bit in what vertical they are,what is the company doing, what?
I think there are use cases.
Of course, we have some typicaluse cases we see across the
world when we have HR, marketing, legal stuff, those I would say
typical personas or typical jobdescriptions, and yeah, then I
try to get a mix of show themthe nice latest features, like
(10:02):
what is coming up, probablymaybe in the next workshops, as
soon as we ship the wave tospring.
Update and co-pilot we willprobably do some action figures
or action packs, uh, um, of thepeople involved and uh, for now
we are just doing, yeah, youknow, the the things that we can
do with Copilot.
I show some technical stufflike Python and coding and cool
(10:25):
stuff like that and, of course,we will talk a little bit about
the use case, about the businessside, especially when it's a
first-time call.
Mark Smith (10:33):
Yeah, so are you predominantly staying in the
Copilot chat experience usingthings like pages and things
like that, or are you also doyou do any of the broader M365
co-pilot stuff like Word Excelwhere it pops up in those
PowerPoint?
You know those type ofapplications.
Daniel Rohregger (10:54):
Depending on how much time is given for the
workshop.
Yeah, so of course, you know,usually besides the first touch
workshop, if someone says, yeah,we have like a big thing with
Excel, then of course I pull theExcel up and I show them a
little bit about that co-pilot,roughly over it.
(11:22):
But then of course, when we getinvolved into projects, uh,
where we have, like you know,the task to board, board our
champions, um onto the the tool,into copilot and get more
details on that, of course, thenwe definitely go a little bit
over all these nice tools andall the like.
I, I, for example, I reallylike to show forms copilot
because it's incredibly fast,incredibly effective and, yeah,
(11:47):
so that's usually a Copilot thatis often overseen, but I would
always show in my demos.
Mark Smith (11:51):
You talked about the Wave 2 release and I now have.
When I open my browser, I haveCopilot as my homepage, just
waiting for the drop right ofWave 2.
Because I feel like it's a bigchange.
You know that's coming with thenavigation structure, the new
(12:12):
features, the agents, thenotebooks.
What feature are youparticularly most excited about
and what's coming?
Daniel Rohregger (12:23):
For what I'm personally most hyped about as
someone who is holding a Copilotlicense.
It's definitely the new createexperience.
When we get those GPT-4O imagegeneration, because yeah.
Mark Smith (12:36):
That's good, that's good.
One of the things like as apower user, are there any kind
of prompts that you run to tounderstand the version, the back
end, etc.
You know, one of my, my thingsthat I think about is, um, if
(12:57):
I'm using chat, gpt, um, I knowI, I know what an 03 model does,
I know what the forum or the4.5 model, deep research, does,
I and I choose based on what I'mgoing to do.
One of the limitations I find,and and of course you know,
copilot's designed for everybodyrather than just the power user
(13:19):
, but is I find it slightlylimiting in that I want to know,
hey, what is the version that'sunderpinning what I am doing?
Daniel Rohregger (13:29):
You're missing , like the Pro Switch or like
the advanced configurationswitch.
Mark Smith (13:34):
Yeah, like I know what I'm doing, switch, take the
kiddie gloves off.
I'm okay, I know what I'm doing.
Daniel Rohregger (13:43):
That's an interesting part, to be honest,
and I love this discussionbecause I had it with Microsoft
and Redmond.
So that's one of or this wasdefinitely probably the biggest
honor currently in myprofessional career that I was
invited to the MVP Summit, tocome to the Microsoft campus
this year, to the MVP Summit, tocome to the Microsoft campus
(14:04):
this year, and the discussionsthat we had with Microsoft were
really interesting and we werediscussing exactly that.
And there are a few things and,to be honest, I can't decide
for myself if I want to go yourway, because I love your way and
I love how you think about that, because that's what we as
professionals or pro users liketo do.
(14:25):
And, by the way, what we alsodiscussed is just, maybe, for a
week, make a little bit fun ofit and implement such a switch
and just let the switch.
Do absolutely nothing, and Iwould bet that people start.
I get the best response, butyou need to set the switch.
Do absolutely nothing, and Iwould bet that people start.
I get the best response, butyou need to set the switch on
(14:46):
four or something like that.
You know, you need to set theswitch on this level, for
example.
And I mean the discussion thatwe're having here.
Yes, it would be great to havesuch a switch or to have like a
configuration, but the audiencethat it's targeting to is
(15:07):
probably smaller than theaudience that.
It probably would make it worse.
So people think they know whatthey're doing.
Often I say, yeah, of courseI'm using that model because I
want to do this stuff.
No, man, you don't need a deepresearch model to find an error
in your I don't know 50 linetype of code.
(15:27):
You don't need the deepresearch there.
But if you're using it, you'rejust, I would say, wasting
resources.
And yeah, that's, of course,something that we don't want to
do, but yeah, as I said, Iunderstand it, I can't decide,
and I would think a few peoplelike maybe you and myself would
profit from it, but I think itwould also cause confusion all
(15:51):
the way.
Yeah, we maybe need the admincontrol for that.
Mark Smith (15:53):
So the other little furball that I run into is RAI
over-interference.
So I'll give you two examples.
One is I asked it the other dayto create a list of companies
(16:14):
based on a certain parameter ina specific country.
It did that, no problem.
It based on an industry that Iwas targeting.
I then said give me the their,their, the company websites, and
you know, and it goes and putsit into loop or pages you know
to work on All the URLs, went inthere and then about three
(16:39):
seconds, two seconds later, itredacted out all URLs and said
to protect your privacy, we'veremoved the links.
I'm like I asked you.
Daniel Rohregger (16:51):
Before you go with your second example also
that we have addressed and it'sgoing to be fixed by tomorrow,
probably so when this podcastcame out Microsoft has
implemented a new configurationwhere, from now on, every link
you click that is coming fromCopilot gets redirected to
(17:12):
Windows Defender Safe Links andit checks it.
So those links that are goingto external and were removed
earlier will not be removed.
They will be directed via theSafe Links service.
So that's actually up that itwill ship, or that is shipped on
the day that people are hearingthis episode, awesome, awesome.
Mark Smith (17:33):
The other one is this so let's say I do a sales
call with a customer and I'vegot transcription on, they're
happy for it to be on.
We get the summary of it andteams and all that kind of thing
At the end of the call.
I'm wanting to do aretrospective on my ability as a
salesperson, so I'd use thistype of prompt.
(17:56):
I say what I'd like you to dois assess, you know, the the
this call, and I want you to actas an expert sales coach and
show me what I could have donebetter.
Guess what its response is.
Daniel Rohregger (18:13):
Yes, I know what the response is.
Mark Smith (18:15):
I can't give.
Sorry, I can't make thoserecommendations to you.
Daniel Rohregger (18:19):
Probably the exact phrase that I would prefer
not to continue thisconversation at this point.
I think that what is Microsoftdoing and that's also a thing
that I pointed out um andmicrosoft, I can tell they're
all aware of that, but it'spretty hard to really what's I
like, program it into the tool,or program it into the
(18:40):
responsible ai um engine, orcheck that is done to really
decide is he's trying to ask forhimself or is he's trying to
ask for another?
You know, because that's a fear.
Mark Smith (18:53):
I was on the call.
Like my license matches theteam's license.
Like they've got all thatstitching there, yeah that's
right?
Daniel Rohregger (19:01):
Yeah, for sure .
But you know people get quite Iwould say creative when it's
coming to prompting.
So they're trying to know.
Mark Smith (19:09):
In that scenario, what do I do?
I export the transcript, takeit into chat gpt.
Please analyze which.
That's bad because what it'sdoing it's making me take my
data outside of my tenant, mythe whole why.
You know the microsoftenvironment is a safe and secure
and the data boundaries arehonored.
You know the Microsoftenvironment is safe and secure
(19:30):
and the data boundaries arehonoured.
You know, within your tenant andyou know any Joe Bloggs that's
going to want to get that typeof outcome is going to want to
do that because I think thatfeature for a sales team when I
started my career 30-odd yearsago in IT and I went in and I
(19:50):
would implement crms for contactcenters, right, and they used
to have like these kind of uh yum head headphones and so the
manager would sit down and theywould plug into the same cable
as the other contact centerperson and they would listen to
the conversation as I having itand then after the call they
would go.
I would recommend you do this.
(20:11):
You should have done that there, that type of thing, and I'm
like in the age of ai, I couldget the the foremost guru in the
world on how to do a good salescall.
You know um name any kind ofauthor out there in the space
and say use that methodology.
You know, spin selling is anexample I know of Apply that to
(20:32):
what I did and coach me on how Icould do it better next time.
I think, man, that's massivelyadvantageous.
Daniel Rohregger (20:39):
Yeah.
So three points on that.
First of all, I have a session,or like a keynote, where I show
like my top 10 use cases andactually there are screenshots
in there from exactly thatprompts working from probably a
year ago.
So that was stuff that wasworking and what Microsoft
(21:01):
needed to remove after customersfeedback, but of course not in
the context about themselves,about we don't want Copilot to
let people analyze others andwith that feedback it also
killed the analyze for myselfthing and currently they're
working on it to, of course,getting the feedback for myself
(21:22):
back, but not doing that type ofanalysis on myself.
That type of analysis on myself,even if your, I would say like
motivation is good and positive,some people really can use it
for a negative thing oncolleagues or on you know some
people that work for them.
That's yeah, that's the firstthing.
(21:42):
And the second thing isprobably you can do this.
You don't need to go outsidethe M365 world.
You can definitely do that withan agent um, but I'll be honest
with you, that's also like onlya pro scenario.
No usual user can do that.
So this um, again, it's justlike a technology thing.
(22:05):
But yeah, that what iscurrently built into responsible
ai.
Uh, microsoft is working onthat, and that's the third point
.
I would say maybe we wait a fewmonths and then this will be
hopefully working in this caseagain what's it?
Mark Smith (22:18):
you talked about a keynote there in your top 10.
Uh, use cases, give me your topthree let me.
Daniel Rohregger (22:24):
Let me do like maybe my my best use case that
I have in mind, because it's avery german use case and you
know, I always I would likeimagine you are in a really old
german factory.
So, like you know, with all thesteel machines and stuff and
you know, currently it's veryhard to find new experts, it's
hard to find people doing thejob, and especially when we have
(22:46):
like this language barrier inGermany sometimes.
So what we did with a customerthey had, like this old
machinery where they only hadbooks for operations manual that
were in German.
So we were able to get a Germanversion as PDF from the
(23:07):
manufacturer and what we didwith that was really incredible.
We had like one or two peopleleft who were really experts in
that machine and we grabbed themfor a few workshops and they
really explained us how theyneed the manuals when finding
errors and all that stuff.
And we put that knowledge andthe instruction they gave us at
(23:28):
first in an agent and we justtrained it to be multilingual.
So we had like a point ofcontact.
They would just type in theerror code and they would get
first of all an explanation andthen also, as you said like a
link or a source where they canhop into the manual to get off
it.
That was the first part, but wedid not stop there and hop into
(23:50):
the manual to get off it.
That was the first part, but wedid not stop there.
We go into Copilot and, forexample, generated video scripts
to show people the mostimportant things.
That were also of course.
We then again talked with thoseexperts and said, hey, what are
the important things whensomeone is new at this machine,
what do they need to know?
And they just gave us somebullet points.
We gave it to the AI and said,hey, make a real nice video
(24:13):
script about that topics andabout how to use that machine.
And he just created that scriptand we did a podcast version of
it, just for you know, in thenotebook, alarm style, yeah, so
people can listen to it.
Then we put those informationinto Microsoft Forms and people
need to take a quiz after theyhave listened to that.
(24:33):
In some form we also get likehandouts, all AI generated, and
the thing is we have likedifferent machines at every
location.
So then we gave those processesand all the prompts to the
customer and they were able todo it multiple times for
multiple machines and thoseagents have by far the largest
(24:54):
activity on the whole companyand that's really it's a more
complex use case.
But it was all to be donewithout Copilot Studio.
It was all done within Copilotand Copilot agents.
It's co-pilot studio, it wasall done within co-pilot and and
co-pilot agents and, yeah, itwas a really nice wary I would
(25:14):
say german handcrafted use case,but I really like that one I
love it.
Mark Smith (25:20):
Daniel, we're already five minutes over time.
You're one of my longest guests.
Uh, on on the show I could talkto you for hours, no problem.
Daniel Rohregger (25:26):
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Mark Smith (25:27):
I could talk to you for hours, sorry for that, no
problem.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show.
I really enjoyed it.
Daniel Rohregger (25:30):
Thanks, Mark, for having me, Wish you a great
day and for everyone listening.
Thanks for staying so long,five minutes longer.
I hope you enjoyed this.
Mark Smith (25:41):
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host businessapplication MVP Mark Smith,
otherwise known as the NZ365guy.
If you like the show and wantto be a supporter, check out
buymeacoffeecom.
Forward slash NZ365guy.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Thank you.
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