Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 Spring updates

Summary

Spring into the future with the latest updates from Microsoft 365 Copilot! The new enhancements focus on AI-powered efficiency, productivity, and user experience. With improved agent management, data security views, and intuitive Copilot analytics from Viva Insights, the platform is prioritizing ease of use and personalization. Users can leverage the Copilot Chat for streamlined interactions, access specialized agents, and navigate effortlessly through personalized design experiences and Copilot Notebooks. For IT admins, new controls for agent deployment, data security, and comprehensive analytics on AI apps and agents are available, ensuring governance and operational insights. Get ready to enhance your Microsoft 365 workspace with these exciting new features!

Highlights

• Experience the evolved Microsoft 365 Copilot with a user-friendly AI twist! 🤖
• The chat-centric design simplifies engagement, with navigation sitting conveniently at the left! 💬
• Streamlined search brings AI and your work data together for seamless experience! 🔍
• Specialized agents offer expert assistance on demand for complex tasks. 🧑‍💼
• Create distinct and personalized designs with the new Create feature! 🎨

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft 365 Copilot's updates focus on user-friendly AI-powered capabilities! 🤖
• The Copilot app experience is now more intuitive with streamlined interactions. 🌟
• Improved data security and agent management for IT administrators! 🔒
• Personalized design and task management experiences with Create and Notebooks! 🎨🗒️
• Copilot now offers enhanced search capabilities for efficient content retrieval. 🔍

Overview

The latest updates to Microsoft 365 Copilot are focused on making its AI-driven capabilities even more user-friendly and efficient. By evolving the app experience, users can now enjoy a more intuitive interface where crucial features like Chat are placed for easy access. With an enhanced navigation setup, searching for contacts, files, and more is simpler than ever, bringing AI and personalized work data upfront.

Aside from interaction improvements, the expanded functionality of specialized agents offers expert-level aid for tasks that might require deeper insights, like data analysis and report generation. Users can leverage the brand-new Create experience, boasting powerful design tools to produce customized images and documents that align with their company’s branding guidelines, making personal or business designs a breeze!

For IT administrators, Microsoft has beefed up its management and security tools. The admin center now provides extensive control over agent usage and deployment. Enhanced data security measures help ensure the safe use of AI apps and agents, while comprehensive analytics allow administrators to evaluate the business impact effectively and adjust strategies as necessary. Microsoft 365 Copilot is setting new standards for productivity in a secure, personalized environment.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Microsoft 365 Copilot Updates The chapter 'Introduction to Microsoft 365 Copilot Updates' discusses the continuous improvements of Microsoft 365 Copilot. It highlights new AI-powered capabilities designed to enhance productivity. For IT professionals, the chapter outlines new agent management features, updates in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, and enhanced data security views and controls. Additionally, it introduces Microsoft Purview's Data Security Posture Management for AI, focusing on improved data security measures.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Copilot App Experience Enhancements This chapter discusses recent enhancements to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app experience, focusing on making interactions more intuitive. Key updates include improved reporting and visibility into Copilot analytics from Viva Insights, a refined chat experience as the core of user interaction, and a new navigation design placing important links like Search, Chat, and Agents to the left side of the screen for easier access.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Streamlined App Interface In this chapter, the focus is on the redesigned app interface that features a streamlined view. The central element is a prominent prompt box that serves as the main input area for user interactions. Below the prompt box, users can access personalized suggestions for their next actions, including reminders for upcoming meetings. The interface also allows for swift access to an intelligent agent that can integrate various content sources, such as files, interactions, meetings, and emails, to facilitate the generation of desired outputs.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Enhanced Copilot Search The chapter titled 'Enhanced Copilot Search' discusses the integration of advanced AI native vector-based search technology used by Microsoft 365 Copilot. This allows for highly efficient and relevant content retrieval by connecting and searching across your work information in Microsoft Graph. Furthermore, the ability to use this advanced search capability is highlighted, extending its functionality outside of Copilot Chat, directly through the new Copilot Search experience.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Advanced Search Capabilities The chapter titled 'Advanced Search Capabilities' describes the enhanced search features available. Users can access their recommendations and recently worked on items with ease. The chapter highlights the transition beyond mere keyword searches, offering optimized search capabilities that mirror Copilot Chat. This functionality enables users to search for specific content items using simple, colloquial language. The search feature is adaptable, allowing users to quickly locate files, emails, chats, and meetings within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Cosine Semantic Search This chapter discusses the concept of cosine semantic search, highlighting its capability to understand like-concepts, synonyms, and contextual information without requiring precise keywords. It demonstrates how search results can be relevant even if they do not contain the exact search terms. Additionally, it mentions the use of Copilot to summarize search results, enhancing efficiency and time management without the need to open the cited items.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Specialized Agents and Agent Store This chapter discusses the integration of Copilot into separate apps, emphasizing its capability to summarize and preview files directly from the application. It highlights the improvement in accessing specialized agents designed to offer on-demand assistance for tasks typically needing expertise. These include 'Analyst' for data insights and 'Researcher' for creating written reports, marking them as pioneering reasoning agents in professional tasks. The chapter notes a dedicated show focused entirely on these reasoning agents.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Creating and Customizing Agents The chapter titled 'Creating and Customizing Agents' focuses on the functionalities of the new agent store accessible through the navigation panel. This store features a collection of agents developed by Microsoft, the greater ecosystem, and even custom agents specific to a company. Additionally, it provides users the ability to create their own agents by simply describing the desired functionalities. Users can easily find their pinned and recently used agents conveniently placed at the top within the navigation for quick access.
• 04:00 - 04:30: New Create Experience This chapter introduces the 'New Create Experience' which integrates advanced AI functionalities with user instructions and knowledge sources. It highlights the capabilities of the GPT-4o Model for image generation, allowing users to produce personalized designs such as posters, flyers, and cover pages, demonstrating a blend of powerful and accessible design skills.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Brand Integration in Creations This chapter titled 'Brand Integration in Creations' discusses how the Create tool allows users to draft stylized documents using templates and edit images by removing distractions, such as a tree. A key feature that distinguishes Create is its support for brand templates, enabling users to incorporate their company's brand kit, including approved logos, fonts, and colors, ensuring brand consistency in all creations.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Direct Editing and Text Addition The chapter focuses on the process of direct editing and text addition using an example of creating a new image. The speaker demonstrates how to select an image, choose a style that aligns with what they aim to create, and incorporate a brand kit including a color palette and icon. The process emphasizes the ease of generating an image that fits a specific brand.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Introduction to Copilot Notebooks The chapter introduces the capabilities of Copilot Notebooks, focusing on image editing features. It demonstrates adding elements like moss and rocks to an image and showcases direct editing options such as background removal and object transform. The chapter concludes with the use of the erase option to remove specific elements from an image, highlighting the enhanced editing flexibility of Copilot Notebooks.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Personalization and Memory Features The chapter titled 'Personalization and Memory Features' introduces the functionality of Copilot Notebooks, which assist users in organizing relevant content for their tasks. It emphasizes the personalization aspect by integrating Copilot Chats, allowing users to interact with the system while having access to reference content and related chat history, thus keeping interactions focused and contextual.
• 06:30 - 07:00: IT Admin Updates and Controls The chapter discusses the latest updates and controls available for IT Administrators, focusing on the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. It highlights how personalization and memory features can enhance user experience. IT Admins can specify custom instructions and enable Copilot memory to cater to individual user preferences and interests.
• 07:00 - 07:30: Data Security Enhancements This chapter discusses various enhancements in data security as aided by the integration of Copilot. It highlights how Copilot's responses are influenced by the personalized settings and memories stored from past interactions. This information is kept separate from the large language model and is used to enhance the quality and personalization of future interactions, providing a more tailored user experience.
• 07:30 - 08:00: Reports and Analytics with Viva Insights The chapter discusses the capabilities of Copilot memory in allowing users to manage and personalize information stored in it. It introduces updates for IT administrators, focusing on enhanced controls in the Copilot Control System. These updates include tools for managing, governing, and measuring Copilot and agents within an organization, with the ability to handle agent deployment directly from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• 08:00 - 08:50: Conclusion and More Resources The chapter covers the management of AI agents, including the ability to view and block agents, as well as deploy them by selecting appropriate users and groups. It introduces new insights and controls for data security through AI apps and agents and Microsoft Purview. Additionally, a new AI apps and agents page in Data Security Posture Management for AI is introduced, providing a dashboard for viewing and creating policies.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 Spring updates Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 So, Microsoft 365 Copilot keeps getting better, and today I'll show you how the Copilot experience is evolving to make everything easier with new AI-powered capabilities to help you get even more done, and if you're an IT, I'll show you new options for agent management, including updates in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, new data security views and controls, and Microsoft Purview's Data Security Posture Management for AI,
• 00:30 - 01:00 as well as improved reporting and visibility into Copilot analytics from Viva Insights. So let's start with updates to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app experience, which has evolved to make every interaction easier and more intuitive. Chat is the core of the experience and where you'll find the app by default and there's a new navigation moving what's important to the left side of your screen where you'll find links to Search, Chat, your Agents, new Notebooks,
• 01:00 - 01:30 and Create experiences that I'll show you in a moment. Now moving to the center of the app, you'll notice that there's a more streamlined view with the prompt box taking center stage. Under that, you'll find personalized suggestions for what to do next, including upcoming meetings. And as the author prompts, you can quickly pull up an agent right from here to bring in content sources you want like your files, interactions with people, your meetings, emails and more to generate what you want.
• 01:30 - 02:00 And even without referencing your work directly, Copilot is connected to it and can find the matching information that you have access to. That's because behind the scenes, Microsoft 365 Copilot uses advanced AI native vector-based search to find the most relevant content. And now outside of Copilot Chat, you can use this directly from the new Copilot Search experience. It brings together AI search and your work information across Microsoft Graph.
• 02:00 - 02:30 From here, you can easily get to your recommendations and quick access to what you've been working on. Then moving to the search bar, you'll see that search now goes way beyond keyword search that you're used to compared to Copilot Chat. This is optimized to find specific content items. Now, where you can ask in simple terms, for example, based on what you remember, to quickly find your files, your emails, chats, and meetings for Microsoft 365,
• 02:30 - 03:00 and even information and other graph connected line of business systems like you're seeing here with Jira. Now it knows like-concepts, synonyms, and contextual information around a topic, so you don't need to know keywords or be precise with search terms. In fact, many of these results don't contain words from the search, but they're highly relevant. And based on the top items and the results, Copilot can summarize what search finds in line to save you time. And without having to open its sighted items
• 03:00 - 03:30 in separate apps, Copilot will also help summarize and preview those files right from the Copilot app. Next, we've made it easier to access specialized agents, which give you on-demand help to complete tasks that would normally require an expert. Now these include both Analyst to find insights in your data as well as Researcher for written reports, both first-of-their-kind reasoning agents for work. In fact, we dedicated an entire show on reasoning agents
• 03:30 - 04:00 that you can check out at aka.ms/reasoningmechanics. And here in the navigation you'll also find your pinned and recently used agents on top. And clicking into all agents takes you to the new agent store where you can find more agents that are built by Microsoft, also the broader ecosystem, and your company's own custom agents. And of course, you can also create your own agents right from here by describing what you want your agent to do
• 04:00 - 04:30 or configuring it directly with your instructions and knowledge sources. Then beyond agents and AI-generated content from Copilot Chat, the new create experience lets everyone tap into powerful and personalized design skills where you can create images like the samples you're seeing on the screen here, powered by the GPT 4o Model for image generation. And you can design a poster or flyer like these ones and they're also great for cover pages to your reports.
• 04:30 - 05:00 And speaking of that, from Create, you can write a stylized draft document using templates and right from here, you can also upload and edit your own images to make them stand out and select parts of images to remove distractions like this tree. Importantly, what sets the Create experience really apart is that you can use brand templates and even bring in your company's brand kit, and these include your approved company logos, fonts, and colors.
• 05:00 - 05:30 In fact, let me show you how this works by creating a new image. So I'll start by describing what I'm looking for. I'll choose a picture of this new shoe from my local device to work from, and now I'll choose my style that matches what I want to create. Here's where my company brand comes in. I can choose the brand kit I want with the right color palette and icon. Now this will take a moment to generate and now I have an image that fits my brand
• 05:30 - 06:00 and I can add to this same image. I'd like to see a little ground cover in the image. I'd like to ask for some moss and some rocks. Then I'll give it a second to render a new image and it gets even better with new direct editing options like background removal, object transform, and enhancements. I'm going to choose the erase option, then select this rock and this plant on the right and hit erase. That's better. Now, I just need to add a text element
• 06:00 - 06:30 and I'll paste in the shoe name and now it's ready to go and I can download the image right from here. And for your bigger projects and tasks, Copilot Notebooks is then another new capability. These help you bring together all of your relevant content for your task at hand, including Copilot Chats. And I'll open this one for Copilot Craft and you'll see that I can chat with Copilot about everything in here, and it's filled with reference content and related chat history to keep interactions in scope
• 06:30 - 07:00 to what's here and even create an audio overview of this notebook. Now the last major update that I'll show from the Microsoft 365 Copilot app experience is with personalization and memory. Where from Copilot settings, you can specify custom instructions and enable Copilot memory. First, custom instructions let you add details about your interests, your preferences,
• 07:00 - 07:30 the tone of what you expect from Copilot responses. Think of this information as something that will get appended to your initial prompts in future Copilot sessions to improve its output. Then, moving back to personalization settings, Copilot memory works in the same way to recall a handful of notable memorable items from previous conversations in real time. Again, this information sits outside of the large language model and is retrieved for future chat sessions.
• 07:30 - 08:00 And you have full visibility and control over what is maintained in Copilot memory and can delete what you don't want to personalize its responses. Next, I'll move on to updates for IT admins. We're adding more controls to the Copilot Control System so that you have the tools that you need to manage, govern, and measure Copilot and now also agents across your organization. You can now manage the agents and agent deployment right from Microsoft 365's admin center.
• 08:00 - 08:30 Here you'll see a list of agents in use and the ones you've blocked. Also, apps where the agents are supported and usage details. You can also deploy agents from here as well, scoping the right users and groups. Next, we're also adding more insights and controls for data security with AI apps and agents and Microsoft Purview. The new AI apps and agents page in Data Security Posture Management for AI gives you a single dashboard to view and create policies
• 08:30 - 09:00 for your AI apps and agents, where you'll find coverage for data protection and compliance policies that you already have in place, and clicking into any of these items, lets you discover more insights, including potentially risky interactions, inappropriate use, as well as sensitive information being shared. And finally, for reports that you can share beyond your administrator and data security teams, using Copilot Analytics and Viva Insights, you can measure the usage
• 09:00 - 09:30 and business impact of your agents. And direct from Viva Insights, the new Copilot Studio agents report can be shared with your team, and it provides a comprehensive view of agent use, session outcomes, and you can see how assisted actions are contributing to overall ROI. So Microsoft 365 Copilot continues to evolve to help you get more done, along with enterprise grade IT controls to help keep your data protected.
• 09:30 - 10:00 Now, to find out more, check out aka.ms/CopilotWave2Spring and keep checking back to Microsoft Mechanics for the latest updates. Thanks so much for watching.