Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News

Microsoft Ignite 2024 event completed last week with lot of great announcements and new innovations that would shape the future of Technology. 

You can access this Book of News post to understand all the key updates in detail: Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News 

Recorded Keynote and other key sessions are now available on demand access them to know more.

If you are specifically looking for Microsoft 365 Copilot Sessions you can access the below post to review the sessions and understand the latest updates through the available on-demand videos 

Access here: Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft Ignite 2024 Event Guide

Microsoft Copilot for Security Flight School Series

If your organization is on the Journey to adopt Microsoft Copilot for Security, you have a new essential resource from Microsoft to know more on product and how to utilize the same for better for Organization Security.

Access the Series here: Microsoft Copilot for Security Flight School

AI on Azure Guidance

Microsoft has published new guidance on AI Adoption under their Cloud Adoption Framework, this guidance provides a structured approach for integrating AI into your organization using Azure. The guidance is relevant for organizations of any size and industry. It covers both generative and nongenerative AI adoption guidance. It is your roadmap for AI adoption and a central hub to find the resources you need.

You can access the guidance here: AI on Azure

Access the 6 Phases directly below,

• AI Strategy
• AI Plan
• AI Ready
• Govern AI
• Manage AI
• Secure AI

If you are building an AI Center of Excellence, then below guidance will be the starting point.

Access here: Establish an AI Center of Excellence

Microsoft Learn Challenge | Ignite Edition

It's time for The Microsoft Learn Challenge | Ignite Edition starts on November 19, 2024, at 4:00 PM (16:00) UTC and ends on January 10, 2025, at 4:00 PM (16:00) UTC. 

You have 8 challenges available to choose from, and you can complete them timely to earn your Digital badge and show case the same in your Microsoft Learn profile.

More details with registration are available here: Microsoft Learn Challenge | Ignite Edition

Register soon!

 

Copilot Developer Camp

Microsoft launched a new Copilot Developer Camp, a workshop for professional developers who want to learn how to build agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

You can access here to know more: Copilot Developer Camp

Register for In person or Live Stream Event once available for your region here : Copilot Developer Camp Series 

It's now time for Microsoft Learn AI Skills Challenge

It's now time for Microsoft Learn AI Skills Challenge and it starts on September 24, 2024, at 4:00 PM (16:00) UTC and ends on November 1, 2024, at 4:00 PM (16:00) UTC. Dive into advanced AI technology with these six curated topics designed to elevate your skills.

Access the official site to know more register: AI Skills Challenge

Once you complete the Challenge successfully you will receive a receive a digital badge via email that you can add to your Microsoft Learn profile.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 – Announcements

Microsoft has announced some great features and updates on Microsoft 365 Copilot during yesterday's Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 event.

Access the official Blog post here to know more: Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Pages, Python in Excel, and agents | Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft New site here: The next phase of Microsoft 365 Copilot innovation

You can view all the announcements in nutshell using the below one pager.

Join the upcoming Copilot for Microsoft 365 AMA Event to get your questions answered by Microsoft team of experts following the news from the Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2 event on September 19.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 AMA - Microsoft Community Hub

Get ready to Upgrade to Exchange Server SE !

 Microsoft Exchange Team recently published a blog post outlining the timeline when the next version of On-Premises Exchange Server 2025 aka Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) will be available, and how you can prepare your organization to prepare for this upgrade journey.

As of today, most of the large Enterprise Customers still has Exchange Hybrid deployment in their environment, and the existing Exchange Server 2016 (Currently on Extended support) and Exchange Server 2019 will go completely out of support next year October 2025, so to stay supported with Hybrid deployment these Organizations need to start their upgrade plan asap and the article clearly explains the supported deployment model like with which version Co-existence is supported when RTM gets released and when CU1 gets released etc. 

The blog post also answers most of the FAQs and upgrade guidance, if you are using Legacy Version of Exchange Server, it's now time to start reviewing your landscape and plan for the upgrade journey.

Access the Blog post here: Upgrading your organization from current versions to Exchange Server SE

Join Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2

The next phase of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 innovation is designed to help optimize your customers’ daily operations. Join Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro on September 16 for Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2 to discover the next phase of Copilot for work.

RSVP here: Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2

Microsoft Ignite 2024 Registrations now open!

 Its time for Microsoft Ignite 2024 and registrations are now open, this time you will have more AI innovations showcased with lot of exciting announcements a head,  and a great opportunity for Networking if you are attending in person and you have Online registration available for virtual participation.

Access here to know more and register: https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/home

Stay tuned for more updates...

Do I Extend or Build my Own Copilot ?

Most Organizations that had adopted Copilot for Microsoft 365 has this dilemma on when to extend and when to build Custom Copilots, both options provide benefits and choosing the right approach provides enhanced productivity features as desired.

Having the fundamental understanding of each of the available options will help you decide the suitable option and you have related guidance from Microsoft with various options to extend or build your Custom Copilots.

Microsoft have updated their guidance to reflect the recent updates, which can be accessed here to know more: Extending Microsoft Copilot versus building your own copilot

Recently Microsoft team added a new MS Learn module to help you understand how you can extend Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with Copilot Studio.

You can access the learning path here: Extend Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with Copilot Studio

Also register for the Upcoming Microsoft Adoption - Customer Hub Sessions on Copilot for Microsoft 365 Extensibility scheduled in coming Months and on demand to know more.

Register here:  Copilot for Microsoft 365 extensibility

Copilot for Microsoft 365 Risk Assessment QuickStart Guide Now Available !

As Organizations started to adopt Copilot for Microsoft 365, Microsoft team has recently published the Quick start guide to assist organizations in performing a comprehensive risk assessment of Copilot for Microsoft 365. The document serves as an initial reference for risk identification, mitigation exploration, and stakeholder discussions.

You can download guide from Service Trust portal here: Microsoft 365 - Copilot for Microsoft 365 Risk Assessment QuickStart (Aug 2024)

Review the official blog post to know more: Now Available: the Copilot for Microsoft 365 Risk Assessment QuickStart Guide

Generative AI for Beginners New Course Now Available !

Microsoft recently published a new Course on Generative AI for Beginners; in this course you have 18 lessons developed by Microsoft Cloud advocates and gives you a comprehensive understanding on Generative AI that would help you to start your AI learning.

Here is the complete lesson list:

• Introduction to Generative AI and LLMs
• Exploring and comparing different LLMs
• Using Generative AI Responsibly
• Understanding Prompt Engineering Fundamentals
• Creating Advanced Prompts
• Building Text Generation Applications
• Building Chat Applications
• Building Search Apps Vector Databases
• Building Image Generation Applications
• Building Low Code AI Applications
• Integrating External Applications with Function Calling
• Designing UX for AI Applications
• Securing Your Generative AI Applications
• The Generative AI Application Lifecycle
• Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Vector Databases
• Open Source Models and Hugging Face
• AI Agents
• Fine-Tuning LLMs

You can access the course here: Generative AI for Beginners (Version 2) - A Course

Copilot Learning Hub

Microsoft has published a new learning hub for Microsoft Copilot, this is your one stop resource to know more on Copilot and Start your learning journey.

Access the Hub here: Copilot learning hub

Official blog post here: Copilot Learning Hub: Your Gateway to Mastering Microsoft Copilot

Get to know how Microsoft deployed Copilot for Microsoft 365

Copilot for Microsoft is being widely adopted by multiple Organizations and Microsoft has provided lot of guidance on how to learn, adopt and deploy Copilot for Microsoft 365, and as a part of this journey they have published detailed write up, deployment and adoption guide on how Microsoft deployed Copilot for Microsoft 365 internally, this will serve as a good starting point to understand how Organizations can adopt the service efficiently through their first hand experience.

Access the Blog post here: Deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 internally at Microsoft

You can download the Ebook versions below

Download here: Deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 at Microsoft

Download here: Executive Adoption Guide: Copilot for Microsoft 365

Also read the detailed series below

Deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 in four chapters

Copilot for Microsoft 365 for executives: Sharing our internal deployment and adoption journey at Microsoft