Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 - all the demos and features explained

Many thanks to Pure IP, this month's Empowering.Cloud Benefactor.

Pure IP has been working with Microsoft UC since OCS. They are one of the original and leading Teams Operator Connect providers, and also provide DRaaS, Managed SBC, and other Teams services for global organisations.

Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 News

Today was Microsoft's big Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 announcement. A lot of updates and a rebrand. I did a fast video edit of all the demos from the keynote in under 10 minutes here 🔥

Here is what you need to know:

Microsoft 365 Copilot - the new, much better name for what was "Copilot for Microsoft 365", which gives Microsoft 365 apps and services Copilot abilities.

In the 18 months since Copilot was announced, there have been more than 700 product updates and 150 new features including moving to GPT-4o.

In the future, Microsoft plans to leverage the new OpenAI o1 with Advanced Reasoning.

The two main Copilot interfaces/modes:

Copilot Chat - The Free web version. This includes enterprise data protection when you sign in with an Entra (Azure AD) account. Soon, you will be able to pin Copilot Chat directly into Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook. No Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is needed.

Business Chat (BizChat) - Copilot with Web/Work mode, signed in with Entra ID and with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Allowing Copilot to pull data from multiple sources in your work environment, including SharePoint and meeting transcripts.

Microsoft 365 Copilot new features:

Copilot Pages - a new dynamic, persistent canvas AI collaboration (think Loop) that works alongside Copilot Chat. To create and share content created with Copilot assitance. Available to free, web Copilot when signed in with their Entra account and with Microsoft 365 Copilot/BizChat. IT Admins, here is what you need to know about Pages

Copilot Agents - Broadly speaking, agents automate and execute business processes. They can reason, remember, be trained, and even know when to ask for help. Agents range from simple prompt and response to more advanced agents that automate tasks to sophisticated agents that are fully autonomous and can orchestrate other agents. Agents are now generally available in BizChat

Microsoft demonstrated simple and more advanced Copilot Agent creation right in SharePoint, using SharePoint for source information and connecting to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to invoke a parts order directly from the agent.

Copilot agents built in Copilot Studio can now be published directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Agent builder - a lightweight Microsoft Copilot Studio experience. Build agents from within SharePoint and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat).

Copilot in Excel - now generally available. Copilot in Excel can now reason over text. Copilot in Excel with Python Preview released.

Copilot in PowerPoint - Narrative builder, creating a deck, respecting enterprise templates with Brand Manager, adding speaker notes and transitions

Copilot in Teams - can now reason over both the meeting transcript and the meeting chat.

Copilot in OneDrive - You can summarize one or multiple files or compare 2 files in your OneDrive web app without opening each file.

Copilot in Word - Coming in September 2024, Copilot in Word will enable you to quickly reference not only web data and work data like Word, PowerPoint, PDFs, and encrypted documents and also emails and meetings.

Copilot in Outlook - Prioritize My Inbox can now help you prioritize your inbox. It analyzes all your emails using both the content of your messages and the context of your job to highlight what's most important.

Microsoft also launched Major updates to the Copilot Success Kit

See the demos of all of the above in less than 10 minutes here, and for more, check out the Microsoft blog here and the full keynote session video here.

Copilot really stole the show this update, but if you use Microsoft Teams call queues and have compliance recording, check out this important to understand update on transfer mode/conference mode.

Also, Microsoft is changing Microsoft Teams voice and face enrollment - from off by default to on by default.

Expert Briefings

• Copilot Usage Reports - Kevin Kieller
• Teams Private Line - MVP Carsten Lund Meilbak
• Deep Dive into AudioCodes Live Platform - an all-in-one Microsoft Teams SaaS Solution with Ran Inbar, CTO for Unified Communications and Benny Matityahu, VP for Unified Communications and Collaboration
• Hands-on with Microsoft Teams Walkie Talkie, iPhone and Android with the Jabra Perform 45 push-to-talk headset

Teams Insider Podcast

• AudioCodes CEO Shabtai Adlersberg - The AudioCodes journey, Hardware to SaaS to AI
• Microsoft M365 Telco Strategy with Taimoor Husain, Global Telco M365 GTM Strategy Lead
• Mahendra Sekaran, Corporate Vice President Teams Phone, M365 at Microsoft
• What is the true value of Copilot? Brett Johnson, Microsoft 365 Copilot Global Black Belt

On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube

Events

Online:

• Worldwide Microsoft Teams Telephony: Easier Than You Think - September 26th
• Teams Rooms Learning Hour - Diving into AOSP - October 1st
• Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything - EMEA/NA and APAC - October 22/23
• Teams Fireside Chat Queues app with Stella Lin and Casandra Marrero - October 10th

In-Person

• This week - Microsoft UC User Group London - September 19th
• Experts Live Europe - September 23rd-25th, Budapest, Hungary
• UC Expo London - October 2nd-3rd, London
• Maximize Teams Potential Pexip Roundtable I am hosting, 24th October, London

I read all email replies. Let me know if you have questions, comments, or feedback.

Thanks

Tom

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