Exciting Azure AI Updates
Microsoft has announced a series of exciting updates to Azure AI, set to revolutionize the way businesses operate with enhanced efficiency, collaboration, and customisation. Here are some key highlights:
Azure AI Foundry
Azure AI Foundry has introduced new capabilities to help organisations design, customise, and manage AI solutions efficiently. Key features include:
- Azure AI Foundry SDK: A unified toolchain for customizing, testing, deploying, and managing AI apps and agents.
- Azure AI Foundry Portal: A comprehensive visual interface for discovering and evaluating AI models, services, and tools.
- Azure AI Agent Service: Orchestrate and scale enterprise-ready agents to automate business processes.
With these advancements, Microsoft is set to transform the future of work and AI application development. Stay tuned for more updates and get ready to experience the future of work with Azure AI.
Exciting Updates Coming to Microsoft Teams and Power Platform
Microsoft are thrilled to announce a series of innovative features coming to Microsoft Teams and Power Platform, designed to enhance productivity and collaboration.
Microsoft Teams Enhancements
Microsoft Teams is introducing new multilingual capabilities:
- Transcription for multilingual meetings: Support for 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages, with live translated captions and transcripts.
- Intelligent meeting recap translation: Automatically generated meeting recaps in the selected translation language, available across Teams desktop, web, and mobile apps.
Storyline Integration in Teams
Storyline will integrate with Microsoft Teams, enabling employees to follow leadership updates, contribute ideas, and connect more effectively. This feature will be available in preview early next year.
Power Platform Innovations
Power Apps
New capabilities in Power Apps include:
- A new way to build complex solutions with Copilot assistance.
- Agent builder for app-specific autonomous agents.
- AI-generated record summary cards and customisable chat for individual apps.
- New Snowflake connector for seamless data integration with Dataverse.
Power Automate
Power Automate introduces new AI and governance features:
- Next-generation document processing with GPT-4.
- Generative actions for cloud flow automation.
- Copilot expression assistant for building expressions.
- Automation center for managing automations at scale.
Power Pages
Power Pages gets new capabilities to enhance digital experiences:
- Agent-enabled workflows for autonomous digital presence.
- Enhanced List AI Insights for better user engagement.
- Site Copilot for streamlined website management.
Power Platform Admin Center
The updated admin center provides IT admins with tools to manage low-code assets, monitor reliability, and secure Power Platform at enterprise scale.
Stay tuned for more updates and prepare to take advantage of these exciting new features!
Key Security Announcements and Updates
At Microsoft Ignite 2024, several significant updates and features were announced, showcasing the company’s continued innovation in security. Here are some of the key highlights:
Microsoft Security Exposure Management
Microsoft introduced Exposure Management, a comprehensive solution to help organisations manage their cyber threat exposure. This tool provides a unified view of the attack surface, automatic assessment of attack paths, and prioritized recommendations to enhance security across various environments.
Several updates were announced for Microsoft Purview, including:
- Insider Risk Management: New detections for risky AI usage and integration with Microsoft Defender XDR for better investigations.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP): New controls to prevent data oversharing and risky AI usage, integration with Power Automate, and expanded file type coverage.
- Unified Catalog: Renaming of Data Catalog to Unified Catalog with deeper data quality support and integration with OneLake for improved data management.
- Data Security Posture Management (DSPM): A new centralized tool for managing data security posture.
Microsoft’s Security Copilot is being expanded with generative AI capabilities to aid in security efforts, offering AI-driven insights and assistance across various platforms, including Intune and the Entra admin center.
Several enhancements for Microsoft Defender were highlighted, including:
- Defender for Cloud: Improved container and API security posture capabilities, AI security posture management, and a unified experience for container security.
- Integration with Endor Labs: Native integration to enhance application and cloud security programs.
These announcements underscore Microsoft’s commitment to providing innovative and comprehensive security, AI, and data governance solutions to help organisations navigate the evolving digital landscape.
Exciting Updates and Features for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft has revealed a range of innovative updates and features aimed at enhancing user experience, security, and productivity across its Windows and Azure platforms.
Console Support for Microsoft Teams Rooms
Starting in 2025, Maxhub will be the first OEM partner to build a certified console, allowing users to control the Teams Rooms app on the Surface Hub 3 from a console.
By early 2025, an enhanced Windows search, powered by Copilot+ PCs' neural processing unit (NPU), will help users find files more intuitively, even offline, and integrate with OneDrive for Business files.
Updates include:
- Windows 365 Frontline: Shared mode for quick, secure access
- Windows in mixed reality: Full Windows 11 capabilities on Meta Quest headset, available December.
- Enhanced host pool management: Streamlined session host deployment for Azure Virtual Desktop.
This new feature adds a second layer of protection to individual files, ensuring they are only accessible when the user signs in with Windows Hello.
Microsoft is introducing several key updates to improve Windows security, including updated Microsoft Virus Initiative standards and new recovery solutions for compromised machines.
A new feature, Universal Print Anywhere, enables secure, flexible printing from any device or app with web connectivity, now in preview.
Hotpatch, now in preview, will streamline updates by eliminating the need for device restarts, significantly reducing update deployment time.
Launching in April 2025, this new device connects securely to Windows 365, offering responsive, high-fidelity experiences with built-in security features.
Microsoft continues to lead the way in integrating advanced security, productivity, and management solutions into its platforms, ensuring users are equipped to meet the demands of modern work environments.