As the latest Microsoft Build event wraps up for another year, we take a look at the key announcements and see how they could benefit your organisation.
What is Microsoft Build?
Microsoft Build is an annual event, first held in 2011, presented by peers and experts worldwide, aimed at those working with Microsoft technologies, including the Power Platform, Azure and Windows. It is often used to announce upcoming products and new features for existing products.
As expected, there was a heavy focus on Copilot-related technologies, but rather than detail all of the event’s announcements, we have summarised the changes that could have the most impact on your business.
1. Further Copilot expansion
- Team Copilot. Expands Copilot beyond its use as a personal assistant to acting as a valuable team member—participating and contributing along with the team. And with you in always in control—assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot so the whole team can be more productive. Available in products such as Microsoft Teams, Loop and Planner. Team Copilot can:
- Facilitate meetings. Manage meeting agendas and takes notes
- Be a group collaborator. Help everyone get more out of chats by surfacing important information, tracking actions items, and addressing unresolved issues.
- Act as a project manager. Ensure every project runs smoothly by creating and assigning tasks, tracking deadlines, and notifying team members when their input is needed.
- Copilot Agents. Custom Copilots, built in Copilot Studio, can act as agents, working independently under your control to:
- Automate long-running business processes.
- Analyse actions and user inputs.
- Apply important context
- Learn based on user feedback.
- Record exception requests and ask for help.
- Copilot Extensions. This is the name Microsoft have given to the grouping of customisation concepts based on Copilot, including plugins and connectors. Using either Copilot Studio or Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio, Microsoft’s aim is to enable anyone to further extend Copilot’s functionality.
2. Power Automate enhancements
- AI Flows. Rather than building a new Power Automate Flow step by step, the user describes what they want to achieve by using natural language. Power Automate then builds the flow automatically and each time the flow runs, AI determines what actions need to be taken and at what point. AI will also be available when constructing Desktop flows too.
- AI Recorder. When recording a local Flow using Power Automate Desktop, this typically involves recording keypresses and mouse movement. With AI recorder, users will be able to provide additional context to the recording by coaching it with their voice and sharing their screen – as though they were training a colleague on a new process.
- Automation Center. Currently in preview, Automate Center provides in-depth monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities, providing an end-to-end view of company-wide automation status, making it easier to identify issues and bottlenecks.
3. Power Platform
- Security Hub. Currently in preview, administrators can use this resource to quickly assess the security situation for a tenant, identify and act on recommendations and proactively set policies to combat vulnerabilities and risks. New controls include:
- Microsoft Azure Virtual Network support for Power Platform, which will enable customers to integrate Power Platform with resources inside their virtual networks without exposing them over the public internet.
- Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management support for Power Platform will enable customers to grant administrative permissions to specific Power Platform environments on a temporary basis, thereby improving security.
- Power Pages Security Workspace. Integrated into the Power Pages design studio, this workspace provides security features to safeguard sites from potential data breaches, limit user access and permissions and promote secure hosting.
- Further Power Pages integration options. Without the need for any code, Power Pages sites will be able to surface data from Salesforce, Oracle, Business Central and Microsoft Fabric.
Summary
It is always exciting to see the new developments that are announced at the various Microsoft events, and Build is no exception. We look forward to these new developments being used to further extend Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform’s already wide-ranging set of functionality and will cover further developments in due course as the functionality matures and evolves.
