Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft Teams will soon support custom emojis and reactions, a highly requested feature that will enhance user expression in chats.
• New slash commands in the compose box enable users to perform various tasks quickly, such as adding code blocks, controlling presence indicators, and muting chats.
• Microsoft Loop has added support for code blocks and Adaptive Card-based Loop components.

Microsoft detailed today several new features coming to Microsoft Teams and Loop to help users collaborate more effectively with colleagues. The company is adding support for custom emojis and reactions in public preview to Microsoft Teams chats next month.

Custom emojis and reactions

In Microsoft Teams, custom emoji support is one of the top-requested features that rival collaboration platforms like Slack and Discord had for many years. This new capability will allow employees to better express themselves while collaborating in Microsoft Teams chats. Microsoft says that it will be up to the IT admins to give permission to users to create, delete, and disable custom emojis in Microsoft Teams.

Slash commands in the compose box

Microsoft Teams has added support for slash (/) commands to the message compose box for both chats and channel conversations. It will allow users to add a code block or a loop component to their message, control their presence indicator, mute a chat, navigate to settings, and perform other frequent tasks. This feature is supported in the Microsoft Teams desktop, web, and mobile clients.

Unfurling permalinks

When a developer shares a code snippet using a permalink in a Microsoft Teams chat, it automatically expands to display a detailed preview from Microsoft Azure DevOps. This feature allows the recipient to view the code directly in the source application.

Microsoft Loop-supported Code Blocks

Microsoft has started rolling out support for code blocks for its Loop app. This new feature allows users to insert code into a Loop component and convert a native Code Block to a Loop component. Users can share the Loop component in Microsoft Outlook as well as Microsoft Teams chats and channels.

Mermaid integration into Loop Code Blocks

Additionally, Microsoft has added new Mermaid integration to Loop Code Blocks. This new feature allows developers to collaborate with team members on technical discussions and documentation directly from a Loop page. Mermaid is a JavaScript-based diagramming and charting tool that lets users create complex diagrams and visualizations with a text-based syntax.

Adaptive Card-based Loop components

Last but not least, Microsoft now lets users insert Adaptive Card-based Loop components from Confluence Cloud, Trello, Jira, Mural, Lucid Software, and Priority Matrix in Microsoft Teams chats and channels. The company plans to roll out this feature to Outlook users in the coming months.

In case you missed it, Microsoft announced today that Teams Premium is getting new AI-powered features and enhanced data protection features next month. We invite you to checkout our separate post for more details.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft has announced AI-powered features and enhanced data protection for Microsoft Teams Premium customers.
• Microsoft is also adding new admin controls to prevent content sharing in externally hosted meetings.
• Microsoft has announced updates for custom app experiences in Teams, including sharing SharePoint files, PowerPoint Live support, and Live reactions.

Microsoft unveiled several updates for its Microsoft 365 suite of services at the annual Build developer conference. The company announced today several new AI-powered features and additional data protection capabilities for Microsoft Teams Premium customers.

Microsoft Teams will add intelligent recap support for meetings with only transcription enabled. It will allow meeting participants to access AI-generated tasks, meeting notes, and name mentions. Microsoft plans to make this new feature generally available in Teams Premium and Copilot for Microsoft 365 in June 2024.

Microsoft Teams Premium is getting a new feature that will enable organizers to control who can record and transcribe when scheduling meetings. Organizers will be able to select from two meeting options: organizers and co-organizers or organizers, co-organizers and presenters. This capability will be available for all Microsoft Teams Premium customers in June 2024.

Microsoft has introduced new admin controls that prevent attendees from sharing content in externally hosted meetings. This feature provides an additional layer of protection against potential data exfiltration from external participants.

Updates for custom app experiences connected to Microsoft Teams

In addition to the new Premium capabilities, Microsoft announced new features for custom apps and website experiences connected to Microsoft Teams. It’s now possible to share SharePoint files in Teams chats with users joining from a custom app or web experience. Microsoft has introduced PowerPoint Live support to give both presenters and the audience an inclusive and engaging experience for Teams meetings.

With Live reactions, participants will be able to react with emojis on content (such as a desktop, window, PowerPoint deck, or whiteboard) shared in Teams meetings. Microsoft has also added noise suppression support to minimize disruptions during video calls and Teams meetings.

Lastly, the Call Diagnostics Center allows administrators to detect call quality and reliability issues, including poor internet connectivity and software compatibility issues. Other capabilities include support for real-time transcription via Azure AI Speech, closed captions, and picture-in-picture for iOS and Android.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft is expanding its Copilot AI assistant beyond personal use to support entire teams, departments, or companies.
• Microsoft is enhancing Copilot Studio to allow developers to create custom copilots for automating business processes.
• Microsoft says that all extensibility features for Copilot are being consolidated into Copilot extensions.

Microsoft continues to improve Copilot for Microsoft 365 which became generally available for commercial customers in November 2023. The company is getting ready to introduce new Team Copilot to help teams enhance collaboration and streamline project management.

“Team Copilot expands Copilot beyond a personal assistant to act on behalf of a team, a department, or
an entire company. And of course, you’re always in control – assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot
so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative, together,” explained Jared Spataro – CVP, AI at Work, Microsoft.

With this release, Team Copilot will be available for customers in Microsoft Teams, Loop, Planner, and other Microsoft 365 apps. The Copilot AI assistant will serve as a meeting facilitator by automatically managing the agenda and taking notes in Teams meetings.

Additionally, Copilot for Microsoft 365 will work as a group moderator in Microsoft Teams chats. Users will be able to use natural language commands to ask questions and summarize important information to catch up on lengthy conversations. In Microsoft Planner, the AI assistant will automatically create and assign tasks, track deadlines, as well as alerts team members when their input or action is required on a task.

Microsoft plans to release the new Team Copilot capabilities in public preview in the coming months. It will require a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, which costs $30 per user per month for those businesses with 300 or fewer employees.

Agents: custom copilots

Microsoft has introduced new features in Copilot Studio that will allow developers to create custom copilots that act as agents to automate common business processes (such as the end-to-end order fulfillment process). These new capabilities also enable users to reason over actions and user inputs, learn based on user feedback, use memory and knowledge for context, as well as record exception requests and ask for help. The new features, which are currently available in Early Access Program, will become generally available in the coming months.

Additionally, Microsoft now lets organizations create custom copilots in SharePoint. This feature enables employees to ask questions and find information in files and documents stored on SharePoint sites. This new capability is currently available for commercial customers enrolled in Early Access Program, and will be available in public preview by the end of this year.

Copilot extensions

Microsoft also announced today that it’s consolidating all extensibility concepts of Copilot for Microsoft 365 (such as plugins and connectors) into Copilot extensions. With Copilot extensions, users can tailor the productivity assistant’s actions and integrate it with various business systems. Microsoft says that developers can use Copilot Studio and Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code to build Copilot extensions.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 currently supports extensions in preview from Jira, Priority Matrix and Mural, and other popular apps. Enterprise administrators can control and manage access to Copilot extensions through the Microsoft 365 admin center. Microsoft is also adding support for connectors in Copilot Studio to help developers quickly create Copilot extensions.

Later this year, Microsoft plans to launch the Copilot Trust Platform in public preview for organizations. It should help to enhance the security, ethical standards, and efficiency of Microsoft Copilot for enterprise customers.

In related news, Microsoft has also announced new data protection capabilities for Microsoft Teams Premium customers at Build 2024. The company also detailed several new features for Microsoft Teams and Loop, and you can find more details in our separate post.

The post Build 2024: Microsoft Unveils New Team Copilot to Boost Productivity with Process Automation appeared first on Petri IT Knowledgebase.

Key Takeaways:

• Fluid Framework 2.0 enables developers to easily add real-time collaboration features to new and existing applications.
• The new Fluid Framework 2.0 supports Microsoft SharePoint Embedded, allowing developers to store collaboration data within Microsoft 365 tenants.
• Microsoft expects to make Fluid Framework 2.0 generally available this summer.

Microsoft has announced a public preview of the new Fluid Framework 2.0 today at its Build 2024 conference. The latest update to the company’s open-source platform is designed to let developers quickly build real-time collaborative apps.

Microsoft’s Fluid Framework debuted back in 2019. It enables developers to build low-latency applications that support real-time collaboration across Office apps. Fluid Framework is designed to change the way people collaborate and update content in Office 365. The framework powers Microsoft Loop, Whiteboard, Microsoft Teams Live Share, and other Microsoft and third-party apps.

Fluid Framework 2.0 offers a schematized data model called a SharedTree Distributed Data Structure (DDS) to add collaboration capabilities to new and existing applications. This new model provides an intuitive programming interface for working with different data types, including arrays, objects, and maps.

“The SharedTree data model is defined by a schema, which enables developers to use Fluid data structures like other TypeScript/JavaScript data structures. This means developers can continue to follow the same programming paradigms for developing local-first apps, while getting the benefits of real-time collaboration through Fluid Framework,” Microsoft explained.

Fluid Framework 2.0 supports SharePoint Embedded

In addition to Azure Fluid Relay, Fluid Framework 2.0 introduces support for Microsoft SharePoint Embedded. It’s a cloud-based file and document management system that supports collaboration on content stored within a Microsoft 365 tenant. Microsoft highlighted that the new SharePoint Embedded support lets enterprise developers store collaboration data within the users’ Microsoft 365 tenant to comply with security and compliance requirements.

Overall, Fluid Framework 2.0 helps organizations to build collaborative, scalable, and cross-platform applications that enhance productivity and foster seamless teamwork. Microsoft expects to make it generally available this Summer. If you’re interested, you can learn more about how to get started with Fluid Framework 2.0 on the official website.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft Edge for Business will add new screenshot prevention capabilities to protect against data leaks.
• A new Edge management service will help IT admins track outdated browser instances to patch zero-day vulnerabilities.
• Microsoft Edge will soon offer real-time video translation for popular websites like YouTube and LinkedIn.

At its Build conference this morning, Microsoft unveiled new security features coming to its Edge for Business experience that launched in August 2023. These new capabilities are designed to protect organizations against data leaks and security vulnerabilities.

Microsoft Edge for Business is a new dedicated work experience that allows users to better separate their better separate private browsing activities from work-related tasks. The feature is enabled by default for all commercial customers that use the Microsoft Entra ID service for signing into the browser. Microsoft Edge for Business offers AI-powered features, enterprise-grade security, productivity, and manageability capabilities.

Screenshot Prevention

First off, Microsoft Edge for Business is getting new screenshot prevention capabilities to prevent data exfiltration in the browser. This security feature will block users from taking screenshots on select web pages that are labeled as protected or sensitive.

Microsoft says that IT admins will be able to configure screenshot prevention policies across Microsoft 365, Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, and Microsoft Purview. The screenshot prevention feature will become generally available in the coming months.

Stay up to date

With the Edge management service, IT admins will be able to track outdated managed browser instances. This capability should help organizations to patch zero-day security vulnerabilities that could lead to sophisticated cyberattacks. The service will let administrators perform mitigation activities like enabling enhanced security mode, automatic browser updates, and forcing a browser restart to install updates. Microsoft plans to roll out this feature in preview in the next few weeks.

Real-time video translation coming to Microsoft Edge

Lastly, Microsoft announced today that new real-time video translation capabilities are coming soon to its Edge browser. This AI-powered feature will automatically translate video content across YouTube, LinkedIn, Coursera, Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC News, and other popular websites.

At launch, Microsoft Edge will support video translations from English to Hindi, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian as well as from Spanish to English. Microsoft also plans to add support for more languages and video platforms, though there is no ETA yet.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft announced the public preview of the Cobalt 100 Arm-based virtual machines.
• The new Azure ND MI300X VM series is now generally available and is optimized for AI and high-performance computing workloads.
• Microsoft introduced the Azure Compute Fleet in public preview, designed to streamline the provisioning and management of compute resources across various VM types and availability zones.

Microsoft announced this morning the public preview of the Cobalt 100 Arm-based virtual machine (VM). The company has also announced the general availability of the new Azure ND MI300X v5 VM series.

Microsoft first unveiled its Arm-powered chip Cobalt 100 chip for general-purpose and cloud-native workloads in November last year. The Azure Cobalt CPU is a 128-core processor that’s built on an Arm Neoverse CSS design. Microsoft has already tested its Cobalt 100 chip on workloads like Microsoft Teams and SQL server. The company claims that the Cobalt CPU has performed 40 percent better than Azure’s existing Arm-based chips.

The new Cobalt 100-based VMs should offer efficiency and performance improvements for workloads such as web apps, microservices, and open-source databases. Microsoft claims that users can expect up to 40 percent better performance compared to the previous generation of Arm-based VMs.

ND MI300X virtual machines now generally available

Microsoft has also announced the general availability of the ND MI300X VM series. The company highlighted that these new VMs are optimized for demanding AI and high-performance computing workloads. For instance, users can build large models from scratch, run inference on pre-trained models, and fine-tune models for specific domains.

“It features an AMD Instinct MI300X AI accelerator, providing each VM with 1.5 TB of high bandwidth memory and 5.2 TB/s of memory bandwidth. These VMs are also connected by NVIDIA Quantum-2 CX7 InfiniBand, offering 3.2 TB/s of scale-out bandwidth per VM, which allows scaling up to thousands of VMs and tens of thousands of GPUs,” Microsoft explained.

Azure Compute Fleet launches in preview

Microsoft has launched a new Azure Compute Fleet in public preview for commercial customers. This new service is designed to make it easier for administrators to provision and manage compute resources in the cloud, across different VM types, availability zones, and pricing models. It helps customers to meet their requirements for scale, performance, and cost-effectiveness.

“Azure Compute Fleet will automatically find an optimal mix of VMs based on customer requirements while matching them to the available compute capacity and prioritizing speed of deployment, cost of operation or a balance of both,” Microsoft added.

Azure Compute Fleet lets administrators use a single API call to deploy and manage up to 10,000 virtual machines concurrently. This capability should be useful for enterprise customers with high computational demands or those requiring extensive parallel processing. The Azure Compute Fleet service also optimizes the use of Spot VMs, which leads to potential cost savings for organizations.

Lastly, Azure Compute Fleet provides users with flexible and automated ways to manage their virtual machine groups. It should help customers adapt to changing conditions like pricing, capacity availability, and Spot VM evictions. Azure Compute Fleet offers automation and simplification of the deployment, management, and cost optimization of large VM fleets.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft is expanding the preview of Microsoft Copilot for Azure to all customers.
• Microsoft Copilot for Azure leverages natural language commands to help administrators troubleshoot issues, optimize IT environments, and streamline management tasks.
• Copilot for Azure now supports additional features, including new skills for Azure Kubernetes Service and natural language to SQL conversion for Azure SQL databases.

Microsoft is broadening access to Copilot for Azure preview to all customers, promising enhanced cloud management capabilities. This expansion comes with a host of new features designed to streamline operations, optimize IT environments, and bolster security.

Microsoft Copilot for Azure enables customers to ask questions, write commands, and design and configure services. It leverages data from across Azure services to help administrators troubleshoot problems. Additionally, it provides recommendations for optimizing IT environments, particularly in terms of spending.

“We created Microsoft Copilot in Azure to act as an AI companion, helping your teams manage operations seamlessly across both cloud and edge environments. By using natural language, you can ask Copilot questions and receive personalized recommendations related to Azure services. Simply ask, “Why is my app slow?” or “How do I fix this error?” and Copilot will navigate a customer through potential causes and fixes,” explained Omar Khan, GM of Azure Infrastructure Marketing.

With this release, Microsoft will let administrators provide access to Copilot for Azure to all end users or select users or groups within a tenant. This capability should help IT admins to comply with the operational standards and security policies of their organization.

Microsoft has also announced new features and improvements for Copilot for Azure. The company has added several new skills for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to Copilot for Azure. These new skills should help customers streamline common management tasks like configuring AKS backups, constructing kubectl commands, and locating YAML files.

Microsoft Copilot for Azure SQL streamlines database management

Microsoft Copilot for Azure has added natural language to SQL conversion support for Azure SQL database-driven applications. The new Copilot experience converts natural language inquiries into T-SQL commands to help IT admins manage databases, track performance and mitigate issues. The Copilot AI assistant lets administrators use natural language commands to diagnose and resolve app issues.

Last but not least, Microsoft Copilot for Azure has introduced Defender for Cloud prompting capabilities to enhance risk exploration, remediation, and code fixes. Moreover, Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management (EASM) now leverages the Copilot AI assistant to identify security risks in order to protect customers against sophisticated cyberattacks.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft has announced new Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips.
• The new PCs include advanced AI features like Recall, Live Captions with translation, and advanced Windows Studio Effects.
• Microsoft plans to start shipping its first Copilot+ PCs in June 2024.

Microsoft has just unveiled its new Copilot+ PCs, a new category of devices powered by Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips optimized for AI workloads. The company also announced several new AI-powered experiences set to debut with these Copilot+ PCs this summer.

“Copilot+ PCs are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built,” said Yusuf Mehdi – Executive Vice President for Consumer Chief Marketing Officer. “With powerful new silicon capable of an incredible 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second), all–day battery life and access to the most advanced AI models, Copilot+ PCs will enable you to do things you can’t on any other PC.”

Microsoft highlighted several new AI-powered features that will be available on the new Copilot+ PCs:

Recall

The new AI-powered Recall feature lets users scroll through their timeline to quickly find apps, documents, messages, web pages, images, and videos they previously accessed on the Copilot+ PCs. It also offers contextual suggestions based on what’s currently displayed on their screen.

Recall offers enhanced privacy controls to let users choose which information the feature can capture on the device. Moreover, IT admins can prevent the Recall from capturing any snapshots with Microsoft Intune. Microsoft also plans to introduce new policies that will let administrators filter specific apps and websites.

Live Captions

Microsoft also announced several enhancements to Live Captions on Copilot+ PCs. This feature can translate over 40 different languages into English from video calls, recordings, and streamed content. The real-time translation occurs directly on the device, without needing to connect to the cloud.

New Windows Studio Effects

Microsoft announced new features for Windows Studio Effects to enhance the meeting experience on Copilot+ PCs. Windows Studio Effects already lets users reframe videos, blur backgrounds, adjust gaze, and more. With this release, users can now virtually improve lighting conditions and apply creative filters to their webcam video feed. These new features will be accessible in Quick Settings.

Updates for Copilot and Cocreator

Microsoft also detailed new AI-powered features coming to Copilot and Cocreator in Paint by Designer. The company highlighted that users will be able to generate images and text directly on Copilot+ devices. Additionally, the cocreator tool will collaborate with users in real time on drawing projects and provide artistic suggestions.

Microsoft plans to begin shipping the first Copilot+ PCs this summer. The company will launch the consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop Pro 6 with Qualcomm’s X Series processors.

Microsoft also said that all popular OEMs (like Lenovo, Dell, Asus, HP, Samsung, and Acer) are expected to debut Copilot+ PCs next month. However, keep in mind that most of the new AI experiences will be available to customers later this year.

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Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft will enforce MFA for all Azure customers in July 2024.
• The rollout will begin with the Azure portal and extend to CLI, PowerShell, and Terraform, but won’t affect apps, websites, or services hosted on Azure.
• Administrators can tailor MFA requirements using Entra ID Conditional Access policies, and monitor MFA adoption and status with dedicated reports and tools.

Microsoft is stepping up its security game for Azure customers by mandating multi-factor authentication (MFA) starting in July 2024. This move aims to bolster account protection by requiring users to verify their identity through multiple methods, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security feature that requires users to provide two or more verification methods to gain access to a system, application, or account. It adds an extra layer of security to make it difficult for attackers to compromise accounts and steal sensitive data. Multi-factor authentication helps to prevent unauthorized access due to credential stuffing, phishing, brute force, and password reuse attacks.

Starting in July, Microsoft will gradually introduce a new security setting that requires multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users signing into the Azure portal. After this rollout is complete, the company will implement a similar enforcement policy for CLI, PowerShell, and Terraform. Microsoft plans to provide additional information about specific rollout dates through official emails and notifications.

“Students, guest users and other end-users will only be affected if they are signing into Azure portal, CLI, PowerShell or Terraform to administer Azure resources. This enforcement policy does not extend to apps, websites or services hosted on Azure. The authentication policy for those will still be controlled by the app, website or service owners,” Microsoft explained.

Which MFA methods does Microsoft Entra ID support?

Microsoft Entra ID supports various multi-factor authentication methods, including the Microsoft Authenticator app, Windows Hello for Business, SMS, voice calls, and hardware tokens. Admins can use Entra ID Conditional Access policies to customize when MFA is needed. These policies can be based on various signals, such as the user’s location, device, role, or current risk level.

Microsoft recommends that administrators enable MFA within their tenants using the MFA wizard for Microsoft Entra. They can track which users have registered for multi-factor authentication with the authentication methods registration report. Additionally, IT admins can use a PowerShell script to generate a report showing the MFA status for all end users.

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The use of React Native in Windows 11. Research shows how Microsoft is using React Native, a web technology created by Facebook, to build some of the new features in Windows 11, such as the recommended section in the Start menu. Microsoft controls the desktop version of React Native and is using it everywhere.

The challenges of modern app development on Windows. Paul and Brad discuss how Microsoft has failed to provide a consistent and easy framework for app development on Windows, and how they have to resort to different technologies such as WinUI, XAML Islands, and WPF. They speculate that Microsoft might move on from WinUI 3 and that WPF might make a comeback.

The trend of web-based technologies for cross-platform development. Paul and Brad compare the situation of Microsoft with that of Google, which is also using web-based technologies, such as Flutter and Dart, to create apps that run on multiple platforms. They suggest that web technologies are becoming the common way to get to the web, regardless of the language or framework used.

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