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We have our reporter in the field , mr Huntingford , coming all the way from Ignite 2024 . Chris , how's it there ?
So what I feel like we can summarize this week , as the four of us have worked like dogs while Chris has partied like it's 2019 .
Exactly . I'm sure it's been hectic for him , though .
I love when you say been , I have been .
Nice , nice .
Do you guys think that's because Chris never went to bed ? It's possible , let's just check Chris's expense app to see when .
Chris stopped buying alcohol last night yeah .
So there were a lot of announcements this week , of course , at Ignite .
Yeah .
Anything , stand out for anybody .
Agents , agents , agents , a lot of AI sessions , which is like shocking , isn't it ?
Over 200 AI sessions at Ignite .
Hick of a lot right .
And Contact Center . You know the emphasis on . Ivr , etc . At the moment has been pretty impressive , I must admit . Actually , most of the news I've missed , and I think Anna and Andrew may be in the same boat , because Anna and Andrew and I have been hanging out with each other this week almost every day doing work .
Will , anna and I actually were all co-located and did actual work together this week , which was fun actually .
I loved it . I really did like it .
It was so good , like , just like going back to basics and like creating , um , you know , a new project that we believe in so much , and , once again , like seeing the uh , the experience of doing projects upon projects upon projects , and yeah and also , do you know what actually it's ?
it's one thing that you you know at senior layer and it needs to go higher and higher . You get quite removed and people you know what actually it's one thing that you know at senior layer and it needs to go higher and higher .
You get quite removed and people you know I don't think it's a prag , but people do say , oh , I haven't done a workshop for years and stuff like that . Well then , how are you sharpening your tools ? And you know , I loved it . I was in a room with Anna today and I love working with Anna .
I love working with Andrew , but he wasn't there today and I got to get out a whiteboard . You know , just get a pen onto a whiteboard drawing out architecture , discussing and debate . You can't beat that .
That's why you got to exactly where you wanted to be and where you are in your career , because you loved doing the workshops , you loved doing the basics and you loved engaging and debating over , in this case , tech , and I just loved it .
And getting to do it with andrew and anna , who have been friends of mine for years , but now actually getting to work with them and realize actually andrew is as good as he seems on paper . Well , uh , it was really good . Obviously , I've worked with anna for a long time . Well , some people look great on paper but are shocking when you engage with them .
But in this case , I actually said this to andrew when he was on a room on his own with me .
He did so we were , we were , we were in , we were in the room , just the of us . We were looking at this massive data model that I had put together and Will sort of pulls me close and I don't know what's about to happen and he says you know , andrew , some people that you expect to know what they're talking about end up being shit .
And I thought that was about to be followed by and you're one of them .
No , I was impressed . We're looking at a at data models . He designed it so elegantly , with best practices front of mind , and I was looking at this , this , this particular piece of it , which we know famously . Even microsoft have had scalability issues around in the past and andrew , just it was just fantastic .
And I said , right , you know always nervous working with friends that you know might be good and turn out to be awful . I was like , and in this case I'm very happy because I knew you were going to be great , and you are Awesome , awesome , thanks , man .
But it's really cool because we read , you know , all of the new capabilities and the ideas and you know and everything else , and how do we get started with AI and what sort of governance we need to put in place , what are the processes , how do we design , how do we build a practice ?
But we mustn't forget that once upon a time we used to like build databases and that's valuable , like that's really valuable .
It's so crucial .
Yeah , this thing and I promise we'll get , we'll get back to ignite . I made I I anticipated the question and made a list of things that were announced this week that I am excited about however , it was .
It was really , um , one of my favorite , uh , technical tasks to do is data modeling and I I'm not talking about little models , but like really big , large scale data models .
I learned , I learned , everything I know about data modeling from Dave Milton , who's the technical director for the Microsoft Global Blackbelts now for the Western Hemisphere , for the Americas , and you know back in , you know back in the day , americas , and you know back in , you know back in the day , and this , this thing that we're all working on together , has
been so much fun because I've gotten to , you know , I've gotten to go do this thing that I actually find really enjoyable . And , yeah , it's , it's absolutely massive and it's in , it's in safe , it's in safe , safe hands with , with Anna taking the , taking the lead from here , I think .
Oh , I think it's with with , actually , the implementation team , who are really really amazing and wonderful , and that's just so great . As you can tell , we're really passionate about this project because of the . It's also because of the cause . You know , it's like a feel good humanitarian project that we're really , really into .
It's like the sort of thing that you've always dreamed to be able to do and you never thought you could , and now we have this opportunity . It's amazing .
Absolutely All right . So the love fest between the three of us is over , mark , we're sorry .
We're sorry , it's just getting going , mate , don't you worry .
I was letting you guys go for it . The term circle jerk came to mind .
But again , this is a podcast what's your favorite news ?
mark from from ignite . Uh , what do you ? Think is most exciting uh , about what ?
the announcements of this week . Well , andrew has a list . Andrew , what's on your list ?
all right , all right , so so well deflected . Yeah , mark , mark couldn't , mark couldn't , mark couldn't get the the book of news to open . Is that ? Is that what I'm hearing ?
Come on quickly .
No , no , I didn't even attempt , as an animal was trying to get the book of news open . I haven't even touched the book of news .
I have . I have it's open right now so I can check . I can fact check to see whether your list is correct .
So here are the five things , in no particular order , that I would say . I'm going to hold off on whether I'm excited , but I am intrigued by uh transactional , uh databases built on , you know , built with azure sql , that you can now quickly spin up , spin down , build uh , build applications on top of in fabric .
So actually I'll just read them off and then we can , we can dig into these if we want .
So fabric databases , one lake catalog , a co-pilot studio embedded in power apps , which I think is intriguing , like the ability to build I'll call them mini agents inside of your app , which , of course , has brought to mind sort of flashbacks from how Microsoft has never really figured out a clean way to deal with in-app automation , as evidenced by the fact that
some of us are still using classic workflows because there's nothing else that can do the job . So I think that's interesting .
There's also supposedly You're going to be like crucified for that .
I'm sure there's also supposedly deeper RAG capabilities in Copilot Studio , which I think is potentially representative of a broader blurring between Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry , formerly known as Azure AI Studio , but there's been a rebrand . We can't have Ignite without a rebrand .
And then the final one that has piqued my interest is these managed security and managed operations capabilities in Power Platform , coming to the Power Platform Admin Center , I presume , from enterprise management via COE starter kit to actual enterprise management via an actual scalable set of tools . So I think that's interesting as well . Those are my five .
I'm sure there's others that I've missed , but those are my five .
Nice , very good , I think you're on point around the governance piece that's obviously coming out as part of the Power Platform , particularly on Copilot Studio and having that level of governance in there . I think a lot of people in customer land were really wanting that type of control over who's creating what .
Also , for the first time , new licensing for co-pilot studio . A lot of people were like hang on a second . The licensing hadn't changed since when it was called power virtual agents , which was based on number of messages etc . And now it wasn't just a chatbot tool anymore . But there was kind of no iteration of that and of course now there is .
You can go for , uh , on demand type licensing . It still raises a thing you organizations , as they start committing to these tools , have kind of got no understanding of how much it's going to cost them .
In a way , it's almost like there needs to be some type of t-shirt sizing for well , if you're going to do this , it's going to consume about that rather than just suck it and see and see how much you clock up on your , your bill for the month , right , um , which can be crazy .
The other , the other thing that I thought was interesting is andrew is laughing see , I'm sorry .
Like , is that a kiwi phrase ? No , no , that's a common phrase . No , we use that in the uk all the time you do , yeah , you do , suck it , yeah , it's very common I've lived here for four years and I've never heard someone say that .
Have you not ? You're hanging with the wrong crowds mate .
Yeah , yeah , you know what Actually ?
so Will just sorry an aside . I want to talk about business drinking culture in the United Kingdom . Let's put a pit in that and come back to it after Mark .
Let's not even turn over that rock . No one needs to look under there .
I mean , I think we should turn that rock . I already turned over the classic workflows rock , which I feel like that needs a shout every six months or so .
Suck it and see it's apparently British English in origin .
Ah , there you go .
So you used to suggest the only way to know something will work or be suitable is to try it . You know it's a coincidence .
There you go .
I tried to figure out who was the first to coin it . Probably Mark Smith .
Ha ha Ha ha , I could go further in how we could expand on this , but I'm just going to reign it in .
It's a very unique name as well as well , I mean typing that in on google this late at night was probably my first , my first issue , but but luckily it all stayed pg , so but talking about drinking culture , I was shocked my first day in london .
When I moved to london I was living in the business district . I sorry I was . I was living in the city of London right in the financial district yeah . And I rock out of my apartment and it's like 1030 am on a Monday and the bar was . People were like right out the door , you know , like going for it , and this is like 1030 on a Monday morning .
So so your apartment was above Ledenhall Market . Is that the idea ?
here . I couldn't believe it . No , it wasn't . It was over by what's the big dumb cathedral there ?
Did you say the ? Big dumb cathedral .
No no . I said what was the big cathedral over there ?
Sorry , you clicked out and I thought you said the big dumb cathedral . No , no .
It's quite commonplace , so it's like I've never really walked past a Wetherspoons that doesn't have a queue before opening , you know , for people to get their ale and stuff . So , yeah , and it's probably the people out there , the ones that hate Mondays at half ten . So you know , just join them .
Yeah , but working in either in insurance or in , but mostly like around Lloyd's Market , you know the insurers , brokers , stuff like that there's . No , you cannot get a sensible phrase out of anybody after lunch , Like it's just , it's a thing .
But at the same time you also don't have visibility of any deals , any like .
No transparency , no data , no nothing . So I would be very curious to see it right now . Because when was that Mark ? When you moved to London ?
When was it yeah 2017 . I think when was it yeah 2017 . I think it was 2017 . Yeah . The person I had a drink with there was in that area , because they were working in that area . Who Scott Durow ?
scott deroe yeah , he was working at metro bank at the time well , I mean , who wasn't , who wasn't working at metro bank at the time ?
yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah no , but the reason this came up , the reason this that I thought of this , was that so yesterday , as we , as we said , you know , there was this , there was this team , uh , that we had , you know , put together , uh , working on this , working on this thing together .
Uh , anna and will and I were all there and it was kind of a mixed team of folks who had come from , who were based here in the UK and who had come from the US for these working sessions .
And I was chatting with one of the Americans , not like myself , an American living in Britain , but an American living in the United States , and somehow , you know , it came up and I said you will find , if you hang out here long enough , that Britain has a drinks after work many days in London that you don't have in the US , because in the US you have to
drive somewhere that's correct yeah gotcha .
I think a lot of that goes back to a lack of right exactly .
Business as usual , mate .
But when I moved here , it was astonishing to me , right . It was like why are these people out all the time drinking ? As if it's like this expectation that you work in the UK , therefore you will all be drinking together in a posse every night of the week . That was jarring for me when I came here .
It's the only way to get over the weather .
really , it's so true , I thought I didn't want to get out of bed today . One of the other things that came up at Ignite that I thought was interesting now that we've taken the pin out of that subject and dealt with it was . Windows 365 Link . Did you see that Windows 365 Link ? I haven't seen that one . Tell us more . They reckon it's the first .
It looks like an Apple computer . You know the little square computers that Apple have that are just you've got to plug in a screen , keyboard and stuff .
So this here is a little box about the you know the size of two packs of fags , and it allows you to plug in , uh , your keyboard , mouse and the whole operating system is running from the cloud , so from running from an azure it's like a little apple .
Yeah , it is sorry but it is . It is . Yeah , it's like a version of the mac mini .
Yeah , yeah yeah , exactly yeah , mac mini , that's , that's the one and uh , they're claiming it's the first one out there where , kind of like , all the heavy lifting is done in the cloud . So it reminds me of back in the day , right where you had these things called thin clients .
Well , virtual desktop . This is a dumb terminal .
It's a dumb terminal where the back end is Azure rather than your server down the hallway type thing , which is how you know mainframes in a lot of organizations used to run in the old days . So it's just a cloud version of that and you can imagine right as in if you watch the video and stuff on it and warehousing and stuff like that .
What a brilliant idea . You know you can have that little terminal . It does all the work around , you know , scanning , whatever they have to do .
But you don't have to have a desktop computer sitting there for folks in the business where you need a computer , maybe connected to a printer , and can do a bunch of stuff , but the operating system at the end of the day is sitting in Azure .
Yeah , and perfect for companies that just have virtual desktops . They just have that as the hardware sitting on the desk as well , and you know that's becoming more and more popular right .
The security right would be would be off the richter because your security is going to be handled all in azure , not on device look at us talk about end user compute .
Fair play to us yeah yes , yes , yes , the the the one thing that I liked . I have to admit I didn't see or read a lot of Ignite , but out of the news that I saw this morning going into work , the one thing that I find super interesting is the little interpreter bot in Teams .
It's supposed to work real time and translate it into your language , and I don't know . I think there are .
And your voice . So if you're talking Anna and you are speaking to a Japanese person , it still sounds like Anna speaking in Japanese in real time .
But speaking in Japanese , can you imagine how that can break barriers ? Because so far there was a barrier to technology , which is the english language .
Right , no matter what we do , we need to uh , write code in the english language , the um , even the local platform , you know it's , it's , it's also in english , um , but now people who express themselves better in their own language , or rather people who understand better in their own language , have all these set of capabilities that they can surface .
And how many of our projects actually fail because of a miscommunication somewhere ? I mean most projects fail due to that .
Yeah .
Yeah . So here's another term that I heard a lot of , which is shadow AI . You know , just like shadow IT in the past , right , and one of the stats that they presented was 75% of people are already using AI at work . 78% bring their own AI . So in other words , they're using their own tools Chat , gpt and other things .
Yeah , yeah , oh , yeah , yeah , which is not sanctioned by you know .
So you know the risk is , of course , you know they're training models or handing their data off to unsecure environments , but people are people , right , and they're like I'm just going to get a job done and they're not like concerned so much about the PDF you know that they're handing up , or the Word document , excel , et cetera might contain , you know ,
information that is proprietary to that organization , that they wouldn't want handed up to some random service so you can do your AI processing on it .
I think that's so interesting because today I was talking to a friend and our friend , Chris , right , he's really into AI security and AI governance and how do we make a rule and how do we package it all in a box and ship it to people so that they can do this thing properly ? We all know that he's like super interested in that .
We were talking about companies who want to deliver an AI product and one needs to come with that , Like what are the safety policies ? What's you know DSP in a box , right ?
Like digital safety board in a box .
Exactly . It's interesting that you say that , mark , because today when we were talking , I was like , okay , cool with the products that this company is . You know presumably producing and shipping to a customer .
Know presumably producing and shipping to a customer , but what about all of the end result of ai that people are using like every day and that goes unchecked ? Yeah how about a safety board for that ?
exactly with what you're saying , shadow ai here's the thing , and this is where I think there's a lot for us to do . Um another and basically this is a survey of 4 000 companies done by our work trends index annual report 2024 microsoft and linkedin . 60 of organizations say their organization lacks a plan and vision to implement ai 60 .
That is a crazy number when it comes to like your strategy , your vision and what you're going to do .
But does it surprise us ? Because actually , we could probably wrap that number around data , around low code , around cloud rationalization , around stuff that's been around for much longer than generative AI , because when we talk about AI , we're talking about generative AI at the moment , aren't we ? Yes , yes , of course .
Plug for the AI strategy framework . Right , the , this is your shortcut . Okay , absolutely , and and and cloud lighthouse will do the thing for you with you . Actually , that I've been running around doing this , you know , helping several big organizations build theirs , and you know a couple of things that have come out that I've seen here is that one ?
It's obviously really hard , right . So just having the strategy , the AI strategy framework , is not enough . It needs to be . You know , you need a framework like that in the hands of someone who is actually able to help you , you know , get the organization on that path . So that's one .
Another point that I see here is that it's as with any strategy , it's not just about building the strategy . It is also about having the wherewithal and the organizational juice to execute that strategy .
So I would say that , you know , I'm personally working with several organizations , a number of organizations that are building that AI strategy , and I kind of finish the strategy crafting and I think to myself , in at least half the cases , there is no way that this organization is going to have the wherewithal to actually do this .
Yeah , like to actually get this done , and that is a . That is not a lack of , that's not about a lack of talent or knowledge . That is a . That is a lack of will . Um in in , not not william , a lack of willpower no , no , no , loud and clear .
Loud and clear , andrew the third point and this came up in a very recent in some very recent work that I was doing with one of these organizations I want to go back to the shadow ai .
Right is that this the shadow ai phenomenon in this particular organization is is rampant , and you know , I think that that organizations are going take just as they always have with shadow IT . They're going to take one of two approaches here either to try to lock it down or to do better right .
Or even if you're a C-level leader or a leader that's not in technology , that's not in the IT space , locking it down cannot be the answer here , because locking it down equals you will likely fail as an organization over the next five years or so because you won't be competitive .
So the answer has to be do better so that your users don't have to turn to shadow ai yeah , but I think a lot , many of them won't .
Many of them won't well , it's a no-brainer , right as in . I can understand why shadow ai is taken off . Like I'll get somebody send a screenshot which has text in it and in a heartbeat I just upload that and say export that as text .
Right , and so yeah I was gonna say why do we use any tools . It's where it's an era of convenience . We live in people . People want things to be convenient .
Sorry , mark , uh , the caffeine's kicked in from the coda and I've just just rocketed off people want things to be convenient , but uh , we we also , like I , do feel that we are stepping into the trap of luxury of AI , if you will , just by using unauthorized tools or whatever .
Spitting out results and using them in your organization doesn't make you smarter , and using them in your organization doesn't make you smarter , Like , without having these sort of governance steps or like a framework in place as an organization to recognize these behaviors , you're only going to be effective for like five minutes and then you're going to fail because
you're going to make mistakes , right ? So today I was at Curve's office for us to work on this project and I saw a friend of mine who happens to work in the same building and I went to research a little bit about her company , where she works , and I knew that they do AI , but what they do is actually , do you know what they do ?
They use artificial intelligence solutions and generative AI to optimize code at large scale , like data science optimization . That's pretty cool .
That's pretty cool .
So , we're starting to see really amazing tools to actually use AI in a structured way for real results .
Yeah , I still think that this is , I mean , obviously , really innovative technologies are always put to work first by technologists , right ?
So you know , but I think that some of the most impressive , some of the most impressive uses of AI that that we've seen to date have a lot to do with interpreting interpreting data at scale Right , or optimizing code at scale Right .
I mean so , so , and I don't know if this is still the case , but for a long time , GitHub Copilot was by far the most successful of of the Copilot . So you know , that's that's a . That's interesting what they're doing .
Yeah , I think that the big thing for GitHub Copilot is that they one of the complaints about it is that only used open AI models about it is it only used open ai models and one of the other new features is now you can select from a a range of ai models , um like from different parties I believe that's a new feature in co-pilot studio as well , which yeah
did , yeah , yeah , yeah as an infoundry , particularly a lot , in fact , you know , as a feature . And the other thing in ai foundry that I think is really important in the diagram that came out is the two-way integration between that and ai studio .
So it's going to allow this kind of you know framework for those that want to you know whizzy wig build ai solutions using co-pilot studio to be able to have that extend then into um azure ai foundry and really go and , let's say , bring in a tailored piece of ai work that has been done by a pro dev team and consume that and vice versa .
So it's kind of like dare I say it and I hate the word , but we've had it for some time which is this no-cliffs type experience right the way through from Copilot M365 , which I don't know if you saw the branding of that has changed as well .
So your SaaS solution through to your tailored solution with Copilot Studio , through to your advanced developer solutions in Foundry . I think it's Microsoft constructing a very robust end-to-end story .
Can we be clear on the rebranding that you just mentioned so that everyone listening at home can keep up with this ? What is specifically that rebranding Mark ?
So the co-pilot that we would typically you know bought for 30 , is it 30 US a month inside your organization that there is Copilot M365. ?
Copilot M365 , not Copilot for M365 .
Nope . So it has a Copilot logo with the , you know , in beautiful black font M365 branded on it . Now , and it basically covers 365 branded on it now and it basically covers five . It covers all the stuff that would be included in your m365 subscription from a co-pilot perspective .
I was just going to say , just as a little aside , I to this day I was just talking to someone about this recently that that the 365 or the 365 branding still is dumb to me , right , because , like , and I remember when it came out , right .
I love the fact that we have .
New .
Zealand 365 . No it's true , it's true right .
Hear me out on this . Hear me out on this , of course . So Mark did not come up with the branding . Mark is simply jumped on the bandwagon of the branding , and here's my issue with it . Right , I always thought it should have been Microsoft 360 or Dynamics 360 , because were people sitting around wondering if Microsoft 365 worked on Sundays ?
Like did we need to be reassured that it worked every day of the year ? Like it just always felt to me like this was , like the branding was conveying a message that did not need to be conveyed because it was the answer to a question nobody was asking . Microsoft Office does not celebrate the Sabbath , nor does it observe the sabbath or celebrate holidays .
Just to be clear . Right , it works every day and you have now been reminded via this apparently permanent branding . End of rant . I'm sorry .
Back to you , nz , nz 360 guy nz 365 guy , yeah , um , yeah , no , very good , very good it's um so much trouble after this episode no , I , I don't , I don't . It's interesting that you know that it wasn't 360 . You know , 360 degree view , you know all around there's like lots of metaphors that would play off that . But yeah , who knows where it came from .
I just was surprised when they dropped the office 365 and became out with M365 . But Microsoft's a master of keep rebranding right , keep changing .
It's just all year round productivity Mark . That's what it means . It works every day just like Mark .
Yeah , not so much . Well , that kind of wraps us for this session . Indeed , go check out the ignite website . You can go and watch my stuff on playback .
I will throw to will to kind of wrap us up I , uh , I've been so impressed that we try to keep a golden thread going throughout all this with ignite , and we went off on many sort of tangents and , uh , you know , went from from British drinking business culture all the way to other things . I think it's just been fantastic .
So I , for one , I'm looking forward to going off and digesting a bit more of that big book of news and engaging in the comments with anyone that's listening to this podcast . So have a great day and speak soon .
Thanks for tuning into the Ecosystem Show . We hope you found today's discussion insightful and thought-provoking , and maybe you had a laugh or two . Remember your feedback and challenges help us all grow , so don't hesitate to share your perspective . Stay connected with us for more innovative ideas and strategies to enhance your software estate .
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