Microsoft Ignite 2024 Hero Announcements

I thought you might be interested to learn about the key announcements shared at Microsoft Ignite, our biggest customer and partner event of the year, and the premier event for showcasing the latest innovations, product updates, and breakthroughs across our ecosystem.

 

This year, more than 200,000 people have already registered to join us for three and half days of learning and community connection. Attendees can choose from more than 800 sessions, demos, and expert and instructor-led labs from Microsoft and our partners. With most content available on-demand, there’s still time to attend—it’s free and open to all.

Key Announcements 

At Ignite, we are announcing upwards of 80 new products and features, including new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot, additions to the Copilot + AI stack and new Copilot+ devices offerings. Underpinning each of these innovations is our commitment to security.

  • Microsoft 365 Copilot – Microsoft 365 Copilot is becoming a daily habit for people around the world—already, nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies are using it. And customer momentum is growing: Dow anticipates that Copilot will save them millions of dollars on shipping operations in the first year; at Bank of Queensland Group, 70% of users are saving 2.5 to 5 hours per week; Eaton is speeding up internal documentation processes by 83%; and Accenture is going big, rolling out Copilot to 100,000 employees. We’re adding new value to Microsoft 365 Copilot to address users’ biggest pain points at work and transforming every business process with agents built in Copilot Studio.

 

  • Copilot + AI Stack – The Copilot stack empowers users to build more ambitious products by leveraging advanced technology at each layer of the stack. Today we’re announcing Azure AI Foundry, where organizations design, customize, and manage the next generation of AI apps and agents at scale. Integrated with popular developer tools like GitHub, Visual Studio, and Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry brings together our wide collection of foundation, open, industry, and task models, AI tooling, safety and monitoring solutions into a single experience, offered in both a pro code SDK as well as a portal for enterprise-management. Foundry helps businesses efficiently and cost-effectively design and scale their AI applications while empowering IT pros to manage AI safety, reliability, and performance.

 

  • Copilot+ Devices – As organizations move more workloads to the cloud to enhance security and flexibility, Microsoft is expanding its Cloud PC solution by introducing the first in a new class of devices purpose-built to connect securely to Windows 365 in seconds. Announcements include Windows 365 Link, Windows Copilot Runtime updates, and new Windows security and resiliency features. In addition to these cloud announcements, the edge is an important part of our story with Surface and OEM Copilot+ PCs. 

 

  • Security – Today we shared new advances in AI and posture management, an unprecedented bug bounty program, and updates on our Secure Future Initiative (SFI).

Keep reading to learn more about today’s key announcements. 

Empowering partners to drive growth and innovation

Today we reiterated our commitment to being a company that prioritizes customer choice, now and in the future. We shared recent announcements regarding the continued evolution of our new commerce, which has customer choice at its heart. Cloud Solution Providers (CSP) are a vital pillar in meeting customer needs. CSP is our hero motion for driving end-to-end success for small and midsize customers (SMC), and partners are the trusted advisors who unlock business outcomes for these important customers.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President, Global Partner Solutions.

  • The evolution of our enterprise commerce strategy will position the Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E) as the recommended option for enterprise customers, while CSP or MCA-E is recommended for SMC customers. Customers seeking a value-added services and support experience through a partner should choose CSP. Customers seeking a direct purchasing relationship with Microsoft or who prefer to manage their own per-user purchases should select MCA-E. With partners leading the way, customers can navigate these changes with confidence, knowing they are fully supported in their path to growth. Starting January 1, 2025, some cloud only Enterprise Agreements (EA) will no longer be eligible for renewal in direct markets(ex>US, EU, AU)
  • Enterprise incentive offerings will focus on a customer-centric approach with value-added services. Partners will continue to earn incentives for EA renewals and can earn additional incentives through other outcome-based opportunities.
  • We are updating the Maximum Resale Price (MRP) calculation formula in channel partner agreements to support volume licensing, effective July 2025.
  • To provide payment flexibility, a new monthly billing plan for annual subscriptions of Microsoft 365 Copilot and related services will be introduced on December 1, 2024. This plan will be priced 5% higher than the annual billing option. Starting on April 1, 2025, we will standardize this billing structure for all other products with per-user monthly billing plans for annual subscriptions across all new commerce purchasing motions—direct online, through CSP or MCA-E. This price update will apply to all new and renewing monthly billing plans for annual subscriptions.
  • To help partners ready customer for AI, starting January 1, 2025, partners can receive 15% off the net price of Microsoft 365 E5 annual commitment subscriptions for new-to-offer customers. This promotion will be available worldwide until June 30, 2025.
  • As part of our continued commitment to support partners as they deliver value for customers, Microsoft is extending its Copilot Copyright Commitment (CCC) to include reseller partners, providing protections against qualifying claims. This update will be reflected in reseller agreements over the next several months.
  • We also shared investments we’re making in the Partner Program to help partners grow their business and make the most of their partnership with Microsoft, including investments in AI, new marketing resources, expanded benefits packages for partners available for purchase and through ISV Success, and new Microsoft Azure resources to help partners successfully adopt AI. Learn more.
The next wave of Azure innovation: Azure AI Foundry, intelligent data, and more

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Jessica Hawk, CVP, Data, AI, Digital Applications Marketing.

· Azure AI Foundry: Introducing Azure AI Foundry — a new all-in-one platform for designing, customizing, and managing transformative AI applications and agents. Azure AI Foundry bridges the gap between cutting-edge AI technologies and practical business applications, enabling organizations to harness the full potential of AI efficiently and effectively. Announcements include:

 

· Azure AI Foundry SDK: We’re unifying the AI toolchain in a new Azure AI Foundry SDK, in public preview, that makes Azure AI capabilities accessible from familiar tools, like GitHub, Visual Studio, and Copilot Studio. With the arrival of Azure AI Foundry, we’re evolving Azure AI Studio into an enterprise-grade management console called Azure AI Foundry (portal).

 

· New Management Center Experience.  To support the development and governance of GenAI apps and fine-tuned models, today we’re unveiling a new Management Center experience right in Azure AI Foundry portal. This feature brings essential subscription information, such as connected resources, access privileges, and quota usage, into one pane of glass. This can save development teams valuable time and facilitate easier security and compliance workflows throughout the entire AI lifecycle. In public preview.

 

· Azure AI Agent Service: Introducing Azure AI Agent Service in Azure AI Foundry to help developers build, deploy, and scale enterprise AI-powered apps to automate business processes. These intelligent agents handle tasks independently, involving human users for final review or action, ensuring teams can focus on the most strategic initiatives. Coming soon in public preview.

 

· Azure AI Content Understanding: Simplify multimodal AI app development with Azure AI Content Understanding. This new generative AI service automates complex data extraction and it is available today through Azure AI Foundry. Azure AI Content Understanding makes it faster, easier, and more cost-effective to build multimodal applications from unstructured data. This service uses generative AI to extract information from documents, images, videos, and audio into customizable structured outputs. In public preview.

 

· Expanding our AI model catalog with specialized and industry-specific models and customization options. We’re announcing additions that include models from Bria and Gretel, now in public preview, and NTT DATA, now generally available. Industry-specific models from Bayer, Sight Machine, Rockwell, Saifr/Fidelity Labs, and Paige.ai are also available today in gated public preview for specialized solutions in healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and more.

 

· New collaborations to streamline model customization process for more tailored AI solutions. Streamline customization to get the most out of your models. We’re excited to collaborate with Weights & Biases, Gretel, Scale AI, and Statsig for simplified fine tuning and more. These partnerships cover everything from data preparation and generation to training, evaluation, and experimentation with fine-tuned models.

 

· Enhancing RAG performance with Azure AI Search. Azure AI Search now features a generative query engine, highly tuned for RAG performance. Query rewriting, available in preview, allows you to transform and create multiple variations of queries using a SLM purpose-built for RAG, which significantly boosts recall. And, our new semantic ranker model prioritizes the best results first, based on insights gathered from in-production AI applications.

 

· Responsible AI Tooling. Introducing risk and safety evaluations for images, alongside AI reports. These reports enable you to document and share your application’s use case, model card, and evaluation results. Compliance teams can easily review, export, approve, and audit these reports across their organization, streamlining AI asset tracking and governance. This can ensure your AI applications are not only innovative but also safe and compliant. Available soon in private preview.

 

· Empowering developers with new AI capabilities. We’re introducing two new offerings in Azure Container Apps to help transform how AI app developers work: serverless GPUs, now in public preview, and dynamic sessions, available now:

– Serverless GPUs: Serverless GPUs in Azure Container Apps enable AI app developers to seamlessly run their AI workloads on GPUs. By providing serverless scaling with optimized cold start, per-second billing and reduced operational overhead, Azure Container Apps Serverless GPUs support easy real-time inferencing for custom AI models. This accelerates the velocity of AI development teams by allowing them to focus on their core AI code and less on managing infrastructure when using GPUs. In public preview.

– Dynamic sessions: Dynamic sessions in Azure Container Apps provide fast access to secure sandboxed environments, ideal for running code that requires strong isolation. Dynamic sessions can securely run large language model (LLM)-generated code at scale or extend/customize software as a service (SaaS) apps. Customers can mitigate risks, leverage serverless scale and reduce operational overhead in a highly cost-efficient manner. Dynamic sessions provides a Python code interpreter, pre-installed with popular libraries, for the most common code execution scenarios without the need to manage infrastructure or containers. Now in general availability.

 

· Boost AI app performance – caching for AI apps with Azure Managed Redis. As intelligent applications handle increasingly high volumes of data requests, fast and reliable access to data is critical. In-memory caching plays a vital role in the era of AI via boosting performance by reducing latency and offloading traffic from databases. To best support our customers in their AI journey, Azure Managed Redis is now in public preview and delivers customers the latest Redis innovations, enhanced availability*, and robust support, all while being more cost-effective than the current Azure Cache for Redis offering. *This capability is planned for the General Availability of Azure Managed Redis  

 

· New Resources to adopt AI at scale within Azure Essentials. In July, Microsoft launched Azure Essentials to help customers improve the reliability, security, and ongoing performance of the cloud and AI investments by providing a single place to access a comprehensive set of resources including tooling, skilling, guidance, reference architectures, and best practices. Today we announced two new resources to successfully adopt AI:

– The AI scenario within the Cloud Adoption Framework equips technical decision makers with prescriptive guidance to help prepare organizations to deploy AI workloads in production. 

-The AI workload within the Azure Well-Architected Framework supports architects in decision-making when designing their AI workloads. Now available.

Scale your AI transformation with a powerful, secure, and adaptive cloud infrastructure

Microsoft’s infrastructure offers more choice in performance, power and cost efficiency so that our customers can continue to innovate. Today we’re introducing significant updates across our entire cloud and AI infrastructure, from advancements in chips and liquid cooling to new data integrations and more flexible cloud deployments.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Omar Khan, GM, Azure Infrastructure Marketing.

·  Systems Upgrades across AI Infrastructure (3rd Party)

  • Azure ND GB200 V6 VMs, powered by the NVIDIA Blackwell. Microsoft brings the NVIDIA Blackwell platform to the cloud with the private preview of the Azure ND GB200 v6, a new AI optimized Virtual Machine series. The new VMs are powered by NVIDIA’s GB200 superchips combining CPU and GPU and offer a new standard for AI supercomputing performance and scale, greatly accelerating the ability to train and inference the most advanced AI models. Private preview for select customers.
  •  Azure AMD HBv5 virtual machines (VMs), built to deliver high-level performance and cost-efficiency for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Powered by Microsoft-exclusive AMD EPYC 9V64H processors, HBv5 VMs provide up to 8x higher performance compared to leading bare metal and cloud alternatives and perform up to 35x faster than legacy on-premises systems. These performance gains are driven by the use of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the most scalable AMD EPYC platform to date, and the latest NVIDIA InfiniBand networking technologies. HBv5 is built for the most demanding HPC workloads, many of which are bound by the underlying infrastructure’s ability to move data fast enough to keep up with processing needs. To meet this challenge, Microsoft and AMD co-designed a platform from top to bottom to overcome data movement bottlenecks. Coming soon in early calendar year 2025

·  Silicon updates for Azure Infrastructure (first party)

  • Introducing Microsoft’s first in-house, data processing unit (DPU) silicon, Azure Boost DPU. Designed for scale-out, composable workloads on Azure, delivering efficiency across storage, networking, acceleration and more for its cloud infrastructure. Disclosure.

 

  •  Azure Integrated Hardware Security Module (HSM) is our new in-house security chip, designed to increase efficiency and enhance security for our infrastructure. Aligned with our Secure Futures Initiative (SFI), Azure Integrated HSM will be installed in every new server in Microsoft’s datacenters next year to increase protection across Azure’s hardware fleet for both confidential and general-purpose workloads.  Disclosure.

 

  • We also continue to advance our cooling technology for GPUs and AI accelerators with our next generation Liquid Cooling Heat Exchanger Unit (sidekick), supporting AI systems comprise of silicon from industry leaders as well as our own. The sidekick unit can be retrofitted into Azure datacenters to support cooling of large scale AI systems, such as ones from NVIDIA including GB200 in our AI Infrastructure. Disclosure.

·  Optimize operations across hybrid, multicloud, edge, and IoT environments

  • Azure Local is a new, cloud-controlled, hybrid infrastructure platform enabled by Azure Arc. Azure Local extends Azure services to customers’ distributed and on-premises locations, addressing both mission critical and cloud-native applications like AI with flexibility and scalability. Partnerships with OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo provide secure and pre-validated hardware integrated with cloud-based services. Azure Local supports various infrastructure form factors, from small industrial PCs to enterprise class server deployments, including disconnected scenarios for enhanced regulatory and compliance requirements. Now in general availability.
  • Hotpatching subscription option enabled by Azure Arc: We recently announced the general availability of Windows Server 2025, with new features that include easier upgrades, advanced security, and capabilities that enable AI and machine learning. Additionally, Windows Server 2025 is previewing a hotpatching subscription option enabled by Azure Arc that will allow organizations to install updates with fewer restarts – a major time saver.
  • Windows Server management enabled by Azure Arc. At no additional cost, customers with Software Assurance (SA) or active subscription licenses can take advantage of Windows Server management capabilities enabled by Azure Arc – which gives customers access to 20+ Azure management services including Azure Update Manager, Machine Configuration, Change Tracking and Inventory, Azure Site Recovery configuration and more. Additionally, the Azure Arc gateway is now in Public Preview, simplifying the onboarding and deployment of Azure Arc. Now in general availability.
  • SQL Server 2025 —an enterprise AI-ready database platform that leverages Azure Arc to deliver cloud agility anywhere. This new version continues its industry-leading security and performance and has AI built-in, simplifying AI application development and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) patterns with secure, performant, and easy-to-use vector support. In private preview.

·  Microsoft Purview integration and new regions available for Oracle Database@Azure. Customers can now unlock advanced security, Data and AI and capabilities in Oracle Database@Azure for their mission-critical Oracle workloads. The newest integration with Oracle Database@Azure, Purview enhances data visibility and helps ensure compliance with industry regulations, improving data security and governance at scale. This is in preview. Additionally, six new available regions and networking enhancements provide amplified capabilities and availability for enterprise workloads.

Microsoft Fabric: Accelerate app innovation with an AI powered data platform

We believe the future of data and AI is the convergence of all your data services into a unified, open and extensible platform.  Designed to help organizations power their AI transformation and reimagine how to connect, manage, and analyze their data, Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform with AI-powered services to accomplish any data project.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Arun Ulagaratchagan, CVP, Azure Data.

· Build insight-driven intelligent apps with autonomous Fabric Databases. The newest Fabric workload, Fabric Databases, are a new class of databases that bring together transactional and analytical workloads, and streamline AI application development with simple, intuitive, and autonomous databases that provision in seconds and are secured by default. SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, built on our industry-leading SQL Server engine, is the first database engine coming to Fabric, creating a unified data platform with the ability to apply AI across operational and analytical data. In public preview.

· AI Functions in Microsoft Fabric: This feature enables users to perform text-related tasks easily with minimal code in Fabric. Notebook users can efficiently handle tasks with text summarization, classification, sentiment analysis, grammar correction and more. These functions provide a simplified API for the most used AI enrichments, making it easier to readily apply them with fewer lines of code. In public preview.

·  The new OneLake catalog serves as a unified solution to explore, manage, and govern your entire Microsoft Fabric data estate, including structured and unstructured data, lakehouses, warehouses, ML models, notebooks, reports and more. The OneLake catalog customer experience comes with two easy to navigate tabs: In public preview.

  • Explore (now generally available): Users can explore and manage all the data they have access to in one central location with filters for domains, item type, owner, endorsement, tags and more. Users can double click on a data item to take actions on the data or explore description, data lineage, permissions, and activity.
  • Govern (will be released into public preview at the beginning of 2025): Users can see an overview status of their data easily, which allows them to gather information quickly on endorsements, data labeling, data type and get recommended actions to enhance their data for better quality and compliance. 

·  Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric. Sustainability is top of mind for every organization.  Organizations need help to understand, reason over and report on their sustainability goals. I am pleased to announce the general availability of Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric. This new feature is designed to empower organizations to compute, analyze, and disclose their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics with unprecedented ease and accuracy. Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft  Fabric provide a comprehensive suite of tools that include prebuilt and preconfigured resources such as data lakes, notebooks, and dashboards. These resources are designed to ingest, process, aggregate, and display data for various ESG scenarios, making it easier for organizations to manage their sustainability data.

Introducing Copilot Actions, new agents, and tools to empower IT teams

We’re accelerating our ambition to empower every employee with Copilot as a personal assistant and to transform every business process with agents built in Copilot Studio.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Jared Spataro, CMO, AI at Work.

·  Empowering every employee with a personal AI assistant. We are adding value to Microsoft 365 Copilot to tackle work’s biggest pain points and help every employee scale their impact.

  •  Microsoft 365 Copilot Actions automate everyday tasks with simple, fill-in-the-blank prompts that you can set and forget. Delegate customizable actions to Copilot, like checking in with stakeholders or recapping your day. Copilot Actions can be used on-demand, scheduled, or triggered by specific events and deliver information specified formats like emails or Word documents. Now in private preview.

 

  • Copilot Pages—a dynamic, persistent canvas designed for multiplayer AI collaboration—will include rich artifacts. Now you can prompt Copilot to create everything from interactive flow charts to blocks of code—drawing from data across the Microsoft Graph—then share them in durable Pages your team can build upon. Generally available in early 2025. 

 

  • Copilot in Teams can now understand, recap, and answer questions based on visual content shared onscreen—from PowerPoint slides to web content—in addition to the transcript and chat. You can also ask Copilot for a quick summary of a file shared in a chat to get all its main points without having to open the file. Public preview coming in early 2025.

 

  • Copilot in PowerPoint can translate entire presentations into one of 40 languages with a single prompt, while keeping the overall design of each slide​. Generally available in early 2025.

·  Transforming every business process with agents. Copilot is where you interact with agents, and Copilot Studio is where you can easily create, manage, and connect them to Copilot. Last month, we announced the ability to create autonomous agents with Copilot Studio and ten new autonomous agents for sales, service, finance, and supply chain professionals which build capacity for every team. Today we’re introducing agents in Microsoft 365 that add specialized skills and knowledge while automating specific tasks at hand. These out-of-the-box agents take on unique roles, working alongside or on behalf of a team or organization to handle anything from simple tasks to complex processes.

  • With agents in SharePoint, every SharePoint site now has an agent so every employee can quickly tap into the massive knowledge base. You can ask the agents questions about data across your files and even create and share custom agents scoped to specific content with a single click. Now generally available.

 

  • Employee Self-Service Agent in BizChat quickly answers common policy questions and makes it easy to complete key tasks, starting with HR and IT. It can be customized in Copilot Studio to meet the unique needs of your organization. Now in private preview.

 

  •  Interpreter enables real-time speech-to-speech interpretation in Teams meetings, and you can opt to have it simulate your speaking voice for a more personal and engaging experience. Public preview coming in early 2025.

 

  •  Facilitator takes real-time notes during Teams meetings and shares an up-to-date summary of important information as the conversation happens in Teams chats. Now in public preview.

 

  • Project Manager automates project management in Planner, handling everything from plan creation to executing tasks. Now in public preview.

 

  • In the coming months, partners like ServiceNow, Workday, and Cohere — along with dozens more — will add their agents to Copilot, bringing their unique, mission-critical knowledge to organizations across HR, finance and sales right in the flow of work. S&P Global, CB Insights and more are introducing new connectors, enabling Copilot to reference more types of business data.

·  Equipping IT to lead AI transformation. We are introducing the Copilot Control System—designed for IT to confidently adopt and accelerate the business value of Copilot and agents.

  • Data protection: SharePoint Advanced Management will be included at no additional charge for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers to accelerate adoption and address oversharing with built-in content governance reports and controls. Generally available in early 2025.

 

  •  Management controls: Copilot in Microsoft 365 admin centers will be available to all Microsoft 365 Copilot customers to automate time-consuming IT tasks, provide personalized insights to improve tenant management, and answer admin questions. In private preview; generally available early 2025.

 

  •  Measurement and reporting: Viva Insights will be included in Microsoft 365 Copilot at no additional charge as part of the new Copilot Analytics. Copilot Analytics provides out-of-the-box experiences to measure Copilot adoption and customizable reporting for deeper analysis. The new Copilot Business Impact Report enables analysis of Copilot usage against business KPIs. The Business Impact Report is in public preview; Copilot Analytics generally available in early 2025.

Embracing the future of Windows at work

Today we unveiled the latest security, AI and cloud innovations coming to Windows for commercial customers. We’re pushing the boundaries to continue making Windows the most secure and performant operating system, the best platform for AI, and extending it to more jobs in more organizations with Windows 365.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Pavan Davuluri, CVP, Windows + Devices.

·  Future of Windows is AI and cloud-powered:

  •  Windows 365 Link is the first Cloud PC device purpose-built by Microsoft to connect directly to Windows 365 in seconds. It enables users to work securely in a familiar Windows desktop in the Microsoft Cloud with responsive, high-fidelity experiences. With no corporate apps or data, a locked down OS, and passwordless authentication using Microsoft Entra ID, Windows 365 Link is secure by design. Now in public preview, it will be available in select markets at $349 starting April 2025. 

 

  • Windows 365 new targeted offerings:

    §  Windows 365 Frontline Shared delivers the same secure and high-fidelity Windows experience in a cost-effective way for a single endpoint to be used by multiple people during their workday. It is designed for employees who need to use Windows 365 occasionally as part of their job rather than working full-time on a Cloud PC.

    §  Windows in mixed reality brings the full capabilities of Windows 11 to the Meta Quest headset. Access to your local Windows PC or Windows 365 Cloud PC from a Quest headset is seamless, and it takes only seconds to connect to a private, high-quality, multiple-monitor workstation. Public preview will be available in December 2024.

 

  • Windows App expands to Android and delivers new simplified management designed for BYOD:

    §  Windows App for Android is now in preview and coming soon to the Google Play store to bring single-click access to Microsoft virtualization solutions to the Android ecosystem in addition to availability on Windows, MacOS and iOS today.

    §  Windows App MAM support for iOS and Windows App MAM support for Android, in preview, allow organizations to define device security criteria and customize access, supporting BYOD (bring your own device) scenarios.

  • New Copilot+ PC features Copilot+ PCs are designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft 365 Copilot as the best platform for AI. New features include:

·  Intelligent search in Windows uses natural language to access an integrated semantic index and the Microsoft Graph to easily find content across M365 apps, OneDrive for Business, and local PC files, extensible to the Windows 365 Cloud PC.

·  Click to Do connects deep understanding of the work on your desktop leveraging the Microsoft Graph with text and image actions to improve productivity in the flow of work

·  IT controls for Copilot+ PC features and management capabilities in Intune ensure organizations stay in control of their data and access while empowering employees with AI.

  •  We are committed to ensuring that Windows remains the most reliable and resilient open platform for our customers. As part of this commitment, we are introducing the Windows Resiliency Initiative which includes new requirements for Microsoft Virus Initiative partners who access the deepest part of the Windows OS, a commitment to Safe Deployment Practices in-line with CISA recommendations, and new capabilities in Windows to:

    §  Strengthen resiliency based on learnings from the outages we saw in July.

    §  Enable more apps and users to run without admin privileges.

    §  Assert stronger controls for what apps and drivers are allowed to run in the Windows OS.

    §  Improve identity protection to prevent phishing attacks.

     

 

  • In addition, we are introducing new security features for Windows 11 including:

    §  Windows Hotpatch, now in preview, downloads security updates in the background and makes them effective immediately upon installation, eliminating the need for a device restart. This enables customers to work without interruptions, while keeping systems protected with the latest security updates. Windows Hotpatch also works for Windows 365 Cloud PCs.

    §  Administrator protection: We have introduced a new feature in preview where employes have Standard User permissions by default but can still make Windows system changes, including app installation, when necessary. 

    §  Personal Data Encryption adds a second layer of protection to Windows Enterprise, so individual files the user is carrying on their laptop are encrypted for a second time and can only be read by the user when logged in to their PC using Windows Hello.

     

 

  • Windows 11 is the most secure OS. Now is the time to move before Windows 10 end of support in October 2025. To make that even easier for organizations we’re announcing Back-up and restore for EntraID easily transitions PC settings and preferences when you refresh a device or perform a traditional reinstall.
Redefining development with Copilot Studio and Microsoft Power Platform

Today we announced the next wave of Copilot innovation, including the public preview of autonomous agents and an agent library in Copilot Studio, along with stronger Azure AI integration for all developers. We also announced major updates to Power Platform including agent and expanded AI capabilities in Power Apps, and streamlined management of governance and security for Power Platform IT admins. With these updates, we continue to expand on our ambition to bring AI-first business process to every organization.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Charles Lamanna, CVP, Business Applications and Platform.

·  Introducing the Copilot Control System, designed for IT to confidently adopt and accelerate the business value of Copilot and agents. It includes data protection that enables intelligent grounding on enterprise data while respecting your organization’s controls, management controls to govern access and usage, and measurement and reporting to track adoption patterns and return on investment.

·   Introducing key updates for Microsoft Copilot Studio, including:

  • Autonomous agentic capabilities, available in preview in the coming weeks, allow makers to build an agent that can take desired actions on their behalf, without having to prompt the agent each time. Autonomous agents can act in the background to respond to events, like receiving an email or recording an uploaded file, without the need for human interaction.

 

  • Agent library, now generally available, Microsoft Copilot Studio now gives users a head start with agents, providing templates for commonly used agent scenarios. Users can customize agents as needed within Copilot Studio. Examples of common scenarios for agents include leave management, sales order, and deal acceleration agents. New agent templates are being added on a continuous basis.

·   Microsoft 365 Agents SDK allows developers to build enterprise-grade, scalable, multichannel agents. This SDK allows developers to create agents that leverage services from Azure AI Foundry, Semantic Kernel and Copilot Studio, or AI services of their choice and can be deployed across multiple channels, including Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, the web, and other third-party messaging platforms. Additionally, the SDK bridges capabilities from Copilot Studio with agents created in code, providing a seamless integration from low- to pro-code. Now in public preview.

·   Azure AI Services integration: This integration enhances the integration between Copilot Studio and Azure AI services, prioritizing some of the top features asks, including add custom search indices as a knowledge source via Azure AI search and bring-your-own model via Azure AI model catalog. With Azure AI integration, Microsoft provides access to a catalog of 1,500+ AI models, enabling makers to call industry-specific fine-tuned models, as well as allow Azure search support for large enterprises needing it. The integration with Azure AI Search is in public preview and the ability to choose a model is in private preview.

·   PAYG meter: Copilot Studio is announcing the addition of a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) meter starting December 1, 2024. This model is designed to provide customers with greater flexibility and control over their usage and costs. The PAYG meter allows customers to only pay for what they consume.

·   Agent builder in Power Apps allows makers to build agents for their app from within Power Apps Studio, using the lightweight Copilot Studio experience. The app-specific agents leverage the logic, knowledge, and actions already existing in the apps to execute tasks autonomously. The users of the apps can then oversee the actions that the agents took in the app and act where agents hit roadblocks to complete. Available in public preview.

·   Plan designer in Power Apps provides makers a new way to build complex solutions. Makers, supported by Copilot, can define the business problem and then step through and review proposed roles and requirements, working alongside Copilot to help ensure it reflects the true business problem. Copilot in Power Apps will iteratively build a solution architecture from apps, pages, automations, and agents as possible assets. This iterative and outcome focused development cycle will happen within single view in Power Apps Studio but can enhance the way solutions are built across the breadth of low code. Makers will be able to jump from the plan designer view into app generation, directly accelerating low-code development while remaining focused on user requirements. In public preview.

·   The Updated Power Platform Admin Center experience, allows IT admins to have an intelligent control plane to gain greater visibility, act on personalized recommendations, and leverage comprehensive controls to govern and secure Microsoft Power Platform at enterprise scale. The newly updated experience will include pages to help users manage low-code assets and explore resources, view and help with agent adoption, manage capacity and licenses, and monitor reliability and optimize latency. The updated security page will allow IT admins to gain visibility, get recommendations and utilize the controls needed to improve their security posture. Features now in public preview and GA.

Breakthroughs for a more secure future

Today we shared new advances in AI and posture management, an unprecedented bug bounty program, and updates on our Secure Future Initiative. These are part of our ongoing commitment to delivering an end-to-end security platform to help defenders make the complex simpler, while staying ahead of threats and enabling their AI transformation.

 

To learn more about the following announcements, read the blog post by Vasu Jakkal, CVP, Microsoft Security.

·   Microsoft Security Exposure Management offers defenders a graph-based approach to proactive threat protection by dynamically mapping changing relationships between critical assets such as login credentials, permissions, and other connections in enterprises, providing a true graph-based view of a customer’s environment. Now generally available.

·   Zero Day Quest is the industry’s largest security research event. Every year our bug bounty program pays more than $16 million for high-quality security research—more than any other in the industry. Zero Day Quest will build on this work with an additional $4 million in rewards focused on cloud and AI which are areas of highest impact to our customers.

·   New advances for securing AI and new skills for Security Copilot: New capabilities in Purview include Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Microsoft 365 Copilot, prevention of data oversharing in AI apps, and detection of risky AI use such as malicious intent, prompt injections, and misuse of protected materials. Additionally, we’re introducing Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), that gives customers a single pane of glass to proactively discover data risks, such as sensitive data in user prompts, and receive recommended actions and insights for quick responses during incidents.

Next steps
  • Watch Microsoft Ignite sessions live and on demand and browse the session catalog to explore all the available learning opportunities: https://ignite.microsoft.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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