Virtual employees, AI updates and more from Microsoft Build

Did you know that Seattle was the first US city to have a female mayor?

Well, now you do.

We're staying in Seattle, with all eyes on the 微软 's annual Build conference where nearly 5,000 people have gathered to hear from Microsoft's head honchos across the three-day event. Events don't wrap up until later today, but they've wasted no time with the announcements and there's already a lot to cover, so let's crack on.

Welcome to the team, Copilot ??

When Team Copilot was announced, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the most impactful Copilot update of the lot (and there were a lot). This addition to the Copilot stack is set to act as a personal project manager for groups and teams within an organisation. It'll take meetings notes and summarise discussions, provide scheduling assistance, and generate action items with responsibilities assigned to attendees.

But Microsoft had one more trick up its sleeve – Copilot Agents. Going one step further than Team Copilot, Agents will be able to spin up a virtual employee for your organisation that can carry out menial tasks like scheduling and data entry, as well as structured workflows like employee onboarding. Simply provide Agents with a job description, and your virtual employee is created within Copilot.

Team Copilot will be available later to Copilot for M365 users later this year but we'll have to wait a little longer for Agents, which is set to go into public preview around the same time and general availability in 2025.

?? More from Microsoft

More AI horsepower ??

Microsoft Build is a conference that is designed for developers, so while the AI excitement is all well and good, its the tangible tools that they're really interested in – and the announcement of GPT-4o integration within Azure AI went down a storm.

Thanks to Microsoft's partnership with Chat-GPT creators OpenAI, AI developers working within Azure will now have access to the company's latest and greatest AI engine GPT-4o (and yes, that's the letter o, not 'forty' – it stands for omni I'm told.)

Building on the offerings of previous models like GPT-4 Turbo, GPT-4o will put even more AI horsepower in the hands of developers with enhanced text and vision capabilities, as well as audio a little further down the line. Eventually, these will all be fed into Copilot too according to Nadella, so it's exciting news for end users as well as developers.

?? What GPT-4o means for you

AI on-hand ??

While most of the focus was on cloud technologies and Azure AI, there was also a hardware update from Microsoft as it announced its latest line of laptops, which will be built with AI on-board. These 'Copilot+ PCs', powered by industry-leading ARM chips and boasting all-day battery life, will have AI hidden in every nook and cranny.

They'll host localised small language models, like the recently announced Microsoft Phi-3 , which will put AI at your fingertips whether you're connected to the cloud or not. As you build out your business's AI ecosystem, they're well worth a look when you come to refresh your hardware.

?? Learn more about Copilot+ PCs

Satya Nadella's keynote ??

For all the headlines, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella 's keynote speech is well worth a watch. I've included it above so that you have it on-hand when you get an hour spare. It's an hour well-spent!

Azure User Group ??

Last night, we had a great time hosting this month's Bath Azure User Group meet-up for an evening of discussions, debates, and dinner! ??

The group discussed the latest news from Microsoft Build, the responsible use of AI, the Secure Foundations Initiative, Copilot for Security... and that's just the tip of the iceberg! I headed out to collect the pizza, and once I was back it was a great opportunity for everyone to network in the bar.

It was a wonderful event organised by Will Rowley , so make sure you keep your eye out for the next one!

I'll leave it there, and let you get back to work. There's still one more day of Microsoft Build left, so be sure to stay tuned for any final announcements – we'll keep you updated in your LinkedIn feed.

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend!

Eric ??