AI Agent & Copilot Podcast

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Imagine facing daily challenges with technology due to cognitive disabilities like dyslexia, ADHD, or brain injuries. Now, with the help of AI technologies, overwhelming tasks can be simplified, which is not only helpful but "empowering and motivating to individuals with those disabilities."
• Use case: For individuals with ADHD, for example, Copilot can transform a messy list into a clean, formatted table, ...

Key Takeaways

• The economics of attention: Teixeira spent about 10 years at the Harvard Business School as a professor. One phase of this he classifies as a continuation of his research as a PhD student which focused on the "economics of attention." He wrote academic papers, consulted companies, and worked with students on projects involving the idea of trying to measure attention and figuring out how to monetize it. "I was able ...

Key Takeaways

• Early in the AI revolution: During the Keynote Fireside Chat, James explained how sa.global was involved in the "AI revolution" very early on, which has presented challenges that has made them aware not just about the technology but about the organizational challenges and paradigm shift that would happen as a result of AI. "Sometimes you learn more from your misadventures than you do from your successes," he notes ...

Key Takeaways

• The ability to publish custom agents from Copilot Studio directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot chat is a significant enhancement, allowing agents to seamlessly integrate into the full Copilot experience. Further, this enhancement enables support agents to recognize complex issues, hand them off to humans, and log cases automatically in Teams.
• The new Microsoft Graph connections allow users to add enterprise data to cu...

Key Takeaways

• AI Agent & Copilot Summit: Hogenhout notes how engaged and positive attendees are at the event. "There's all this optimism of what can be done with AI, and I think that's probably a combination of a lot of good technical knowledge...and also stores of people who are using [AI] themselves."
• A philosophical perspective: Looking five years ahead, Hogenhout challenges what AI will mean for businesses and human beings. W...

Key Takeaways

• Copilot Studio vs Azure AI Foundry: For many users, a challenge lies in their tendency to compare different technologies directly. However, Microsoft views its tools as complementary building blocks that, when combined, offer enhanced capabilities and customizability. "What you'll find is that when you combine the things together, you get the powerhouse capabilities that you get out of Azure AI Foundry, in conjunct...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Today, in the realm of development (code, product, or application development), the journey with Copilot Studio is akin to building a Power App with the assistance of Copilot, which can be empowering for many end-users.
• End-user empowerment: While low-code and no-code tools like Power Apps empower end-users to build simple applications, creating more complex apps with multiple pages, diverse user interface...

Key Takeaways

• AI Agent & Copilot Summit: Smith presented the keynote at the AI Agent & Copilot Summit this past March in San Diego, California. With his expertise on AI agents, Smith shared where we are today, strategically, with agents and where we are going to be in the future.
• Customer journey: Businesses and customers have been going through a journey to discover how they can leverage AI technology and maximize its full poten...

Key Takeaways

• Improving personal productivity: Copilot helps by summarizing missed meetings and action items, allowing efficient catch-up without bogging down colleagues, which can be helpful when returning from being out of the office. Copilot can also provide specific details from past meetings, such as budget discussions, ensuring transparency and accuracy, explains Kristoffer. These use cases have helped improve his producti...

Key Takeaways

• Customer perspective: There's incredible demand across customers and users. Goode reports, "We know from our surveys that roughly three out of every four information workers are already starting to use AI inside the business and so this is something that's already happening." Finding inspiration, Goode looks at how AI-native startups are scaling "much faster than their SaaS brethren," which is telling of the custom...

Key Takeaways

• Becoming an AI-first company: During the AI Agent & Copilot Summit, in Flombaum's presentation on "How Agents & Copilots are Redefining the Value of Dynamics 365," she defined what it means to be an AI-first company. Microsoft has taken this on, and during her session, she explained how clients can adopt this, too. "We talked about these concepts of keeping people at the center, augmented by Copilot, assisted by Co...

Key Takeaways

• Point of entry to AI: With AI being top of mind for CXOs, there is still an element of fear and anxiety around it because people aren't confident in what they know about AI. Technological development is outpacing the readiness of many companies. The Sikich AI Factory platform creates an entry point for customers to feel like they can get started with AI applications.
• Industry-specific and pre-configured applications...

Key Takeaways

• Advanced meeting summarization: While Microsoft Teams does provide meeting summarizations, you can take it a step further with Copilot Studio. Once a meeting ends, a transcript becomes available. Copilot Studio can be applied to pull the action items and summarize it in an email while putting a copy into a planner for that team.
• Expense approval automation: There are existing third parties that will automate expense...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Copilot Studio is a tool used to build custom copilots or agents, which are designed to perform specific tasks. The author created a conversational chat agent for their personal blog site to answer questions, preferring hands-on learning over watching instructional videos.
• Building custom agents: Shawn explains that he started using Copilot Studio without any prior knowledge and was guided by the tool to b...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is a new, free functionality that integrates with your Windows laptop and some Microsoft Office applications. It is distinct from the existing Microsoft 365 Copilot, which costs $30 per user, per month and enhances applications like Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Teams.
• Data source: The free version of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat only uses web data for training and does not...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Brad is a Microsoft MVP for Business Central with product experience beginning in 1998, having worked in various roles for both customers and partners, giving him a unique perspective on successful implementations. Currently, he focuses on development and system architecture and believes that understanding both the technical and functional aspects of Business Central is crucial for successful architecture...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Shawn reflects on the rapid advancements of AI, specifically Microsoft Copilot, in 2024 and sets goals for 2025, emphasizing the need for Microsoft's Copilot to surpass the popularity of ChatGPT by leveraging and securing the AI model to create specialized agents.
• Prompt scheduling: Shawn is a fan of using Copilot for Microsoft 365 applications like Teams, Outlook, and Excel. He expresses a desire for the ...

Key Takeaways

• Copilot in Teams: Shawn explains that Copilot in Teams has significantly increased efficiency and saved him time by taking notes, delegating tasks, providing transcripts, and helping prepare for meetings. This has reduced the number and duration of meetings, allowing for better follow-ups and more productive use of time.
• Copilot in Outlook: Copilot's ability to provide email summaries in Outlook, which condenses ema...

Key Takeaways

• Overview: Business Central's Copilot is included at no extra charge with both the $70 Essentials and $100 Premium licenses. It has been available for about two years, and while opinions on its usefulness vary, it can be used for tasks like bank reconciliation and is part of the Microsoft 365 subscription, connecting seamlessly with Business Central.
• Setting up new inventory: Copilot in Business Central can suggest s...