Ep 8 - Looking ahead to 2024

In a slight change of schedule, Zoe and Kevin decided to talk about the year ahead and some thoughts as to the big topics. There was a little news to cover as well, especially for all those who love buttons.

We also asked Copilot to do a summary of the show so here's that version!

In this episode of Copilot Connection, Kevin and Zoe discuss the latest news and trends in the world of Copilot and AI for 2024. They share their thoughts on the new Copilot apps for iOS and Android, the AI-powered Windows PCs with a Copilot button, and the emerging hardware devices that use Open AI models. They also talk about some of the challenges and opportunities that AI brings, such as the copyright issues, the data quality and governance, and the extensibility and customization of Copilot solutions. They give some examples of custom Copilots that they have built or seen, and how they can help users get more value from their data and documents. They invite the listeners to share their feedback and suggestions for future episodes, and to follow the Copilot Connection on social media and podcast platforms.

Copilots apps for iOS and Android - Microsoft debuts Copilot apps for mobile devices • The Register

Copilot button - Introducing a new Copilot key to kick off the year of AI-powered Windows PCs | Windows Experience Blog

AI phone - Apple's iPhone designer is leaving to work with Jony Ive and Sam Altman on AI hardware (engadget.com)
Mark Rackley's tips for the year ahead - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/markrackley_my-top-5-tips-for-your-organization-in-2024-activity-7148365967381741570-OsLn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Abram Jackson's post on tipping LLMs (1) Post | Feed | LinkedIn
26 principles of Prompts - ATLAS/data/README.md at main · VILA-Lab/ATLAS (github.com)

NYT suing Open AI and Microsoft - New York Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over Use of Copyrighted Work - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Gary Marcus on Twitter - Gary Marcus (@GaryMarcus) / X (twitter.com)

Kevin's Custom Copilot - Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Development community call - 4th of January, 2024
Garry talking extensibility on M365 Community call - https://twitter.com/garrytrinder/status/1742853043018772583?s=20

Transcript

[Kevin 00:21]  

Welcome to Copilot connection.  

[Zoe 00:24]  

We're here to share with you all the news, insights and capabilities of the Microsoft Copilot ecosystem from across the entire Microsoft stack. I'm Zoe Wilson and I'm an executive at Abernathy and I'm Modern Work Business. I'm an MVP and a regional director and the Viva Explorer.  

[Kevin 00:40]  

And I'm Kevin McDonnell. I'm a Microsoft MVP, Aviva Explorer, and well, I've got a new role at Avanade. Zoe and I were just debating this before about exactly what I talk about here, but I've moved into the centre for AI in a global role with a big focus on driving out the Copilot's strategy. So I'm going to find a nice catchy phrase for that. That doesn't sound too scary, but really exciting. And thank you for everyone Avanade who's helps make that happen. But enough about me Copilot connection. We'll be releasing episodes as podcasts and on YouTube with insights from experts across the community and Microsoft on what the different areas of all the Copilots are, the impact they can make to you and your organization, what you need to do to prepare for them and to start implementing now, and even how you can extend them.  

[Zoe 01:34]  

I like the way you just sneaked past your new role there, Kevin, without even giving me chance to jump in and say a huge congratulations. I think it is going to be really exciting having you working with me to to look at all of the different Copilots and yeah, it's going to be really great I think.  

[Kevin 01:51]  

Well, I have to work with you on this role.  

[Zoe 01:56]  

Yeah. So some might see that as a good thing. So, so before we get into things, I just wanted to say a happy New year to everybody who's listening. Welcome to 2024 and this is the first episode of the new year and this week we we're going to be reviewing some of the latest Copilot news. There hasn't been a huge amount that's come out over the festive. But there has been a little bit of news and sharing our thoughts for the year, year ahead in the world of Copilots.  

[Kevin 02:26]  

But hang on, Zoe, didn't we say that I was going to do a solo episode about extensibility? Don't panic. That is coming. We're going to record that next week and talk a bit a bit more about that. But we wanted to prepare and bring a bit more detail to that. So that will be coming on the next episode as well. So don't worry, we haven't forget. Forgotten about that.  

[Zoe 02:46]  

Yeah, 100%, I think. I think extensibility is such an important topic. We wanted to make sure that we could we could really do it justice.  

[Kevin 02:55]  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and because we don't want to just go into the what you can do. We really want to cover the why as well. And yeah, Zoe didn't like what I had. So we we've got to redo that.  

[Zoe 03:08]  

Yeah, blame me, why don't you? OK, so on on to the news and First things first. Copilot apps for iOS and Android.  

[Kevin 03:18]  

Yeah, absolutely. These these were interesting ones. I think they came out for Android first, didn't they? And then you can see they followed up here with the the iOS, the ones for Apple on there and I'm going to do the nice pitch before we get cynical effectively is that ability to kind of have that nice text box that you can ask it things you can, you can use voice as well which is great. So you can almost go, hey Copilot, although you have to click the button before people get too excited, you can You've got that dally integration, so you can create images with words, you can get it easily building up content and yeah, lots of exciting things that you absolutely couldn't do in the Bing app previously.  

[Zoe 04:03]  

Have you downloaded the app? The Copilot app, not the Bing app.  

[Kevin 04:08]  

Do you know that's a good. Quite. I think I did, but I don't think I've opened it. Let me have a yeah, I do it right here. It's splash it up just to prove it. You've got the nice logo that's comes up. One of the reasons why was AII do use the Bing app quite a lot when asking questions. It comes down very helpful at the kitchen table when I'm having arguments with the kids. I just asked Bing and Bing proves me right, which is great fun on there. But one of the problems I had with it, what what I love about the Microsoft Copilot, the artist formerly known as Bing Chat Enterprise is you've got that guarantee that you can wrap that round. So I I've been using that on my personal M365 tenant. We use it on the Avanar tenants within there and it guarantees your data is going no further than that. The Copilot app as it is will only work with personal accounts and therefore you haven't got that guarantee within there, which I think is a bit of a shame that that put me off a little bit.  

[Zoe 05:08]  

Yeah I think I think having that enterprise protection is really key and on the one hand I understand why they've pushed out this Copilot app but the other part of the things almost why why is it necessary? I've got I've I've had the Bing app on my phone for ages and I like you. I Copilot really extensively in so I I don't even use Microsoft designer as a stand alone app anymore. If I want to create images I I do that inside the Copilot part of the Bing app which has and as far as I understand it has all the same functionality as the stand alone Copilot app. So you know I think I think I've definitely in two minds with this. On the one hand I think you know yeah it's good we've kind of got an app and maybe it's just the first in a planned series of things and integrations and stuff. But for for me I I I I haven't even downloaded it because the Bing chat, the Copilot functionality and that does what I need it to do.  

[Kevin 06:08]  

Yeah, I I think it's a brand. I I guess if people are searching for Copilot this will come up now, so I I guess maybe it's been driven by that, but I wouldn't get too excited.  

[Zoe 06:21]  

OK, talking about excitement, what do we have next?  

[Kevin 06:26]  

Another thing to get really excited about. No, I'm sorry I said I was. I was going to start positive on this coming next year, and we're going to talk about this a bit more in a minute. It's going to be, according to this Microsoft blog, the year of AI powered Windows PCs. And what does that mean? What are we going to see with this Windows, sorry, AI powered Windows machine? It's going to be a button called Copilot and what that's going to do is open Copilot.  

[Zoe 06:56]  

Which Copilot windows Copilot No I I yeah it's it's yeah it's it would.  

[Kevin 07:06]  

Be that integrated 1.  

[Zoe 07:08]  

Yeah it's it's just it's not just it's a button that will open Copilot in Windows. So from an enterprise perspective, if organisations haven't rolled out, you know if they're still on Windows 10, if they're not on Windows 11 yet, it it it won't do anything if they're on Windows 11, but they haven't actually deployed at the build that has.  

[Kevin 07:30]  

Copilot for new This will be for new PCs so that will come with Windows 11 anyway.  

[Zoe 07:35]  

Yeah.  

[Kevin 07:36]  

On there.  

[Zoe 07:37]  

Well, yeah, but if it's an enterprise building it. Like, imagine if it's an enterprise organization who buys a whole heap of PCs that have this button on, but their build doesn't. Doesn't actually include it yet.  

[Kevin 07:50]  

I now have this image of someone having to put a little sticker over the Copilot logo for.  

[Zoe 07:54]  

All the Windows 10 ones, yeah, yeah. And I was chatting to Luke Evans about this last night and he, for those of you who don't know Luke well enough to know his hobbies, he one of his hobbies, his mechanical keyboards. And he he was laughing about this because he was saying like what? Why do you need, why do you need a whole new button for it when you could just remap an existing key? And I think Scott Hanselman actually had a video of him mapping an emoji button on his keyboard to turn it into the Copilot button.  

[Kevin 08:29]  

Yeah it it's like I I think again with this one it's the sentiment it brings it's bringing Copilot front and centre. I think that year of AI powered windows P CS I think there's a lot more. I think we talked it was in last episode of one before about there's more coming with Copilot in windows on there. I have noticed the the naming of that has occasionally creep buyers being wrong in different places but Copilot in windows in fact yeah they've got it right on. This blog will bring more and more and I hope this is just an indication of more and more of that coming. But maybe I'm being cynical, because a lot of people are getting very excited and sharing this post an awful lot and I'm going, whoa, a new button.  

[Zoe 09:14]  

Yeah, I think I.  

[Kevin 09:16]  

Think, I reply to someone. I hear that noise, That noise of thousands of keyboard manufacturers slapping their heads at the same time to remap things. But.  

[Zoe 09:26]  

Yeah. No, it's it's interesting, isn't it? And I think as the different Copilots become more integrated and what I mean by that is as enterprises roll out Copilot in windows and they can use that as a way to potentially get into other Copilots that are available to them, I think it will become even more meaningful. But yeah, yeah, well, it's it's early days, isn't it? And I think you're right, it's a signal of intent, but I'm not sure it warrants the level of excitement we've seen on on social media. And maybe that's just a maybe that's just a symptom of the fact that it's been 2 weeks without much news and it's a new year and everyone's getting super excited about anything.  

[Kevin 10:12]  

So if you have shared that and I know we did share about this on the Copilot connection Twitter, we're not mocking on there, we're we're just not as excited as some people are. But I think what what this does correlate is that that talk about AI and hardware and and we talked a bit about this with Ignite and the the kind of top to bottom, the fact that Microsoft was looking at their data centres and things like that. This is now an indication that that AI and Surface is going to be coming front and centre. 1 bit of news I did see come through is that Apple's iPhone designers leaving to go and work with Johnny I've, the original creator, the designer for the iPhone and also Sam Altman on AI hardware and I thought this is very interesting, that's going to be something to watch. I know this isn't technically Copilot to to get in with the full theme, but I think that it it really gives that view that we're going to see more hardware that's powered and designed for working with AI on that. So it's going to be very interesting to see what what the reality of that is as well.  

[Zoe 11:15]  

Yeah that that is interesting. And actually when when I was looking for for news to cover I was typing into into the search engine to get the links for the the new iOS and Android apps. One of the auto complete suggestions was will Copilot work with Carpley And actually when I dug into it, it wasn't, it wasn't Microsoft Copilot, it was some sat NAV product called Copilot with a capital P But actually that's when you're thinking, when you think about device integration and hardware and the different ways that we could interact with Copilot and being able to use it with CarPlay is super interesting because you can imagine you know being in the car and asking Copilot to catch you up with stuff and give you insights from meetings and take actions for you. And you know that that's that's that's really interesting I think.  

[Kevin 12:10]  

Yeah I I did start building one of those that was going to be a teams app that would use the teams AI and allow you to do a bit of voice but never quite got there. So yeah if someone else could make that happen that would be really useful. Just remind me of another link and sorry I'm going to go off piece here Zoe the IT reminds me this other one the humane AI pin that was powered with the Open AI integration this instead of being a phone it it's kind of connects your clothing and I think it can project a keyboard. I don't know if there's pictures of it here. Yeah it can project onto your hands and things on that but the general idea is you talk to it and it uses open AI to kind of have those conversations and pull that information through. I think it's another example of that AI powered maybe not phone, maybe you could say this device it's a kind of new way of interacting. And I I think we'll see more and more of these things that the first generation may not be perfect and either the 2nd generations of that or what comes out later and is inspired by that It, it will be a new, different way of looking at it and I think that that could be very interesting.  

[Zoe 13:16]  

Yeah, I mean this. This looks like a a whole new category of wearable devices.  

[Kevin 13:22]  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  

[Zoe 13:25]  

Interesting.  

[Kevin 13:27]  

So yeah, I don't know much about that. And I I I keep looking to see whether I can purchase one. I don't think it's available yet. I know it's been revealed, but I'm going to try and find out more about that. I'd imagine it'll be US only and you can see it's connecting to those AI models from Microsoft and Open AI.  

[Zoe 13:45]  

Yeah, I mean.  

[Kevin 13:48]  

Microsoft's going to come up with a new Windows phone. You know, a Copilot. That's what everyone wants. Maybe not everyone.  

[Zoe 13:55]  

Some people, yeah. I mean, yeah, so the the prices are in dollars, aren't they? And it says T-mobile's network. So I'm assuming that that's T-Mobile in the US to start with, but maybe some of our US friends and colleagues can test that for us.  

[Kevin 14:10]  

Yeah, no, we'd we'd be very interested here how that works as well. I'm also very jealous of the muscles there, but that's a completely different conversation.  

[Zoe 14:22]  

I don't think there's AI to help with that. Well, not in real life, anyway.  

[Kevin 14:27]  

Exactly. Yeah, right. Before I lose it completely on there, Zoe, I think we we said we covered the little bit of news that was there and then maybe talk a bit about the year ahead.  

[Zoe 14:41]  

Yeah. So I mean we kind of touched on it with the the Windows blog where we talked about 2024 being the year of AI powered Windows PCs. I saw you for those of you who are listening rather than watching, Kevin just flinched quite heavily when I said that. But one of one of the things I was asking Kevin before we jumped into this recording was whether this would be the year of AI or year of Copilot. I know that in the past Microsoft has had a year of Yammer or a year of Teams and I, you know, I was wondering if we'll actually see that from a branding and a marketing perspective.  

[Kevin 15:20]  

So yeah, go on. I'm going to go on with cynical how many years of Yama did they end up having in the ends? Because it it definitely went on for at least 18 months, if not two, 2 1/2 years on there. And I I think that's probably where my cynicism of this is. I think we all know it's going to be a big year for AI. There's going to be lots of things happening with it. I plea, please, any marketing teams out there. Don't call it year of it, just it opens it up. I I I think the Year of Yammer makes people flinch still because a lot of that was kind of relaunching Yammer with a nice new look and feel. But many people who've been using Yammer for years were like, yes, but it's the same thing. We've been asking for new functionality and nothing's happened. We want some reality behind this and I think it's one of that phrase. Year of ways makes me a little bit nervous. It's just kind of people jumping on it and trying to make it excitable. So yeah, I I do think it will be the year of AII think it will be massive this year or continue to be everywhere. I think we'll also see that tipping point of us talking about it versus actually doing it and getting into the reality of some of these things. And I think in that sense it'll be the the real year of AI versus last year, which was kind of the hype and excitement. Now we'll see the reality of it hit in in a in a positive way. I know that sounds like I'm being cynical and saying, yeah, it's all going to fall apart. No, not not at all. I think now will become the the reality of this actually happening. And that is definitely what I'm excited about.  

[Zoe 16:47]  

Yeah. And it's, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think the way I first put it to you is, is it going to be the year of Copilot? And then we kind of talked about it and said is it the year of AI? But I actually feel like 2023 you could, you could say that was the year, not the year of AI, but it was the year that AI accelerated with all of the advancements in generative AI and I.  

[Kevin 17:09]  

Was going to say it was more that year of Gen. AI, wasn't it that that was the big phrase that came through and that it feels like that's disappeared? Maybe not disappeared, but it's only been used less and less out there.  

[Zoe 17:24]  

I think, I think generative AI is still a really important topic, but I think what we're seeing now is the impact of the Copilot branding because what what I'm seeing more of is people talking about custom Copilots rather than Jedi. So I I feel like it's almost just a change in vocabulary and everything instead has morphed into this Copilot world. And we've got things that you can, things that you can buy, things that you can extend, and then things that you can build in that custom Copilot space, which is what we were calling Gen. AI before the world went Copilot crazy.  

[Kevin 18:00]  

We should we should do a show on that. But yeah and I think, I think also yeah I think you're right about it going into that Copilot world certainly in the the Microsoft centric space. I think outside of that, it's just become AI. People aren't differentiating between the two different things. It's now just AI, and it doesn't really matter what's using it. To go back to that generic view of that, which I think is easier for people to go, what is this Gen. AI think? Who is she on there? No, it's good moving away from that, which I think is is good as well.  

[Zoe 18:32]  

Yeah, I think. I think it creates an interesting challenge for us though. And actually it's a challenge that we've had with with just with with the, with the fact that everything is a Copilot. Because you know if I look at our organization and the way we're structured and many other tech firms who are structured in a similar way aligned to those Microsoft solution areas. If people are talking about a Copilot, the Copilot solution that a client will get is going to depend on who they're talking to and the the world that they sit in. And one of the things that you know I've talked to lots of other MVPS and R DS about this as well. Because one of the things that that that I worry about is whether people are just going to rush to building Copilot, custom Copilot solutions for things that you can do out-of-the-box. And one of the examples that I use of this is a few years ago I worked at another organization and we use the I was in internal IT at that point big global firm and we used third party GSI to do a lot of the like SharePoint dev work and stuff like that for us. And they've built loads of custom solutions that were custom developed. And when you got under the hood of what they actually were, they could have been achieved with a SharePoint list. And it's, you know, if if you ask a dev to do something instead of thinking about, OK, like what are the basic building blocks of this, can we do this out-of-the-box with just a bit of config, They're like, OK, what do I need to develop to create this fancy thing? So I think that that as technologists, there's this thing that we need to navigate where we actually understand what the right solution is for clients.  

[Kevin 20:08]  

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that fits nicely with one of the articles you you shared from our friend Mark Rackley on five tips for your organization. I think the the bottom one of those, especially of it's not only Gen. AI, you know, not everything has to be a well, certainly doesn't have to be Gen. AI, not everything has to be AI. Some of it is just automating what you do in a more effective way instead of being completely manual. Now I I would take the flip side, you know what if someone improves things and you say it's AI, even if it isn't fantastic, go for it. As long as it's in a sustainable way without technical debt and could be done in a cost effective way soon as what you're talking about SharePoint lists and other things. But I I I think this fits with a lot of the AI stuff we hear about. We'll be marketing. That's going to be the push for it. The reality of what it is underneath will be a whole host of different things within there as well.  

[Zoe 21:04]  

Yeah, yeah, completely, completely. I mean if I look at lots of the lists of use cases that I've seen for Jen AI or Copilot, I'd say as a as a general rule probably 60 to 80% of these lists that I've seen can be achieved out-of-the-box with by the standard Microsoft 365 capability or insert other platform of of choice. So, so I think.  

[Kevin 21:30]  

I think don't insert Google, but yeah you you could.  

[Zoe 21:32]  

Use that other other Microsoft platform of choice. Yeah, so this I thought this list remark was great and one one of the other things I really liked on here was that top one about training your users on how to create effective prompts. Helping people understand how to get the most out of these tools from the start instead of kind of asking them to go and do that all trial and error on their own. I think is is really key. Helping people with better tools to be able to prompt and get good results is is so important.  

[Kevin 22:07]  

Yeah, absolutely. And and even that second one around assessing your all data, I don't know we've got from our notes, these are two next big things of the year ahead. It's going to be getting people ready to work with these prompts and making sure your own data, your own content is in the right way. And I'd say that's, you know, Mark here has talked about security by obscurity is not an option. You know a lot of this AI stuff is things we've been saying for time and time again over the years and we're just kind of reiterating it again now on there is true, but I think also structuring your data, putting it in a way that makes sense, if it doesn't make sense to a human, it won't really make sense to AI as well. You know, the whole point of this generative AI is it's it almost, I don't want to say things like a human that's going to terrify some people, but it it kind of uses that same steps to think through things. So if you can't find stuff as a human, it's going to be the same with these large language models trying to get it to that. So making sure you assess what is relevant, clear out things that aren't relevant, make sure you boost the right things, add the right metadata, all those good things. Make sure your contents there and we'll we'll talk a bit about this in in a minute. It's about custom Copilot built around connecting basically for our custom Copilot challenge that we're setting up. But just because I put all the content I I transcribed all the content from the Ignite videos. That wasn't enough. I had to tweak it. I had to put some information around it to make it useful and you have to kind of iterate with that. It's going to be the same with your content and organisations that are planning ahead for that and thinking about it will be the ones that succeed with this.  

[Zoe 23:48]  

Yeah. And I think, I think that heavy lifting, because it, I'm not going to lie, it is, it is heavy lifting that a lot of organisations have just kind of ignored or put on the back burner or not deemed important enough. And that what what I think we'll see a lot of in 2024 is organisations really having to get to grips with that foundational like information architecture, content management, data governance. Again, regardless of which Microsoft platform this data is in, making sure that your data is in a good state is going to be really key to get the best results. And that's not to say that you can't get good or your OK results out of things like Copilot for Microsoft 365 without doing it. But actually to be able to use it safely and effectively and to get the best quality results and and the the most value out of that investment organisations will need to do that, that heavy lifting. And I think we'll start to see a lot of focus in 2024 on, on on doing doing that heavy lifting and getting things into that that good state.  

[Kevin 24:53]  

And and I also say look at you know for you don't want to or can't certainly can't transform a whole organization quickly look at those point areas where you could do something more effectively in a small area, control that, build your Gen. AI around that as well. I I feel we're veering onto stuff I know we're going to talk a bit about in the next episode. So we're going to jump ahead. I'm going to be a little bit rude to Mark and say which Microsoft Copilot is he talking about there, but maybe that's a conversation for another time.  

[Zoe 25:23]  

Yeah, so I I know knowing Mark, I think he's probably talking about all of them.  

[Kevin 25:28]  

I I hope so, yeah. Because I I think that's. I think that is true for a lot of these. That logic holds for all of them as.  

[Zoe 25:36]  

Well, I think, I think, I think like us he, you know Mark, he's, he's an MVP as well, isn't he? He's quite particular about naming and things like that. So I I I think that he's talking across the board here.  

[Kevin 25:50]  

Well, given the benefit, you're far too nice on that. Come back to you, you were talking about that main one about creating effective prompts and learning how to use it. I did see a nice post for someone Abraham Jackson who's the PM for extensibility of Microsoft 365 Copilot and he he made a comment. I think I remember seeing the original one of this about offering large language models. A cash tip will probably improve the output and actually scientists have found this. There's a link and I'll put this into the show notes to his post and to the scientific paper where they they did some analysis of this but they're actually put out off the back of that 26 prompt principles that if they found useful net and they found that if people but if you're out of there I'm going to tip you X amounts of dollars for a better solution you get a more effective solution and I think Zoe you you said you were talking to someone recently who who found similar things with asking about code as well.  

[Zoe 26:49]  

Yeah, I was talking to an old colleague of mine last night and he so he used to work for me. He's now a front end dev working at a start up and he was saying that he's using AI PED programming. I don't think it's GitHub Copilot, but he's he's using something similar and he was saying that, you know he can give a give a really well constructed and detailed prompt about what he wants and the result that he'll get back won't be the most optimal code. So then he'll say can you give me the same thing but more efficient please and it what he'll get back that second time will be much more efficient code that achieves the same thing. And he was saying to me it just doesn't understand why it's not giving that most optimal efficient response that first time.  

[Kevin 27:35]  

Because it's been trained on humans.  

[Zoe 27:37]  

Yeah, well, maybe. Maybe it needs to offer tip.  

[Kevin 27:43]  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You should get him to try that actually and see what it is. So I I I really like this. This page on there is different examples. You know it's how do we get to these different ways of doing it. You know getting the examples in incorporate the following phrases your task is your must is that that way of getting what you want out of it will change And now we've talked about a lot around that for Copilot for Microsoft 365 getting those trained prompts there. I think these more generic ones that you'd use in Microsoft Copilot and the the kind of wider large language models getting to know these different ones and making those natural to you. It's really useful. I love this one of use leading words like think step by step Again we we we've covered this in the show where we've talked about more senior managers used to delegating and explaining things to people and being more successful. This just fits in with a lot of that different ways of putting through. I forget a lot of this. I've now bookmarked this to kind of come back and remind myself when I don't get the results I want. Think about these different things as well. I don't like that stick version of you will be penalised if you don't do it. That's a bit nasty. I'm different actually 2 two things that sorry, sorry I keep cutting you off. But two things on that one. One is there they the kind of being nasty. I wouldn't do that because you know, if Terminator does happen, I don't know upset the machines. But it does say here that there is no need to be polite. I know. I always talk to Alexa and the other voice ones. Sorry, I hope that hasn't triggered anyone's off. I always say please and thank you because I think it's the nice thing to do, but it's it's saying.  

[Zoe 29:25]  

Here especially, yeah. Especially in the event of a Terminator type incident. You know you you want the machines to recognise that you've been nice and polite.  

[Kevin 29:34]  

Because because I'm sure they'll recognise me and say ah yeah you're the one that said please so we'll we'll be OK. I I also do it because especially with some of those where it's been trained on hopefully it trains on slightly nicer language versus do this do that. But anyway, definitely going off topic again there for.  

[Zoe 29:53]  

Those of you who are listening who can't see this on screen, we'll put all the links in the show notes as well. I definitely recommend taking a look at these prompts. I think this is really fascinating.  

[Kevin 30:02]  

Yeah, yeah. It's a really nice way to put in there. So I feel we've got a slightly negative show. It's that kind of post New Year, too many hangovers, too much food and things like that. OK, Sorry that's just me. But another one I and I know you kind of get into a social media bubble with things. But I I feel like I've seen this a lot with from Twitter of the the kind of counters to AI and things like the New York Times is suing Open AI and Microsoft over use of the copyrighted work. And I think I'm hearing more and more stories coming through. This feels like something that's bubbling up within there and I'm seeing a lot of people who've said no, no, we we've hidden things. But I I think the example is like could you draw a picture of a yellow sponge creature And funny enough it creates SpongeBob almost exactly within there because it's obviously been trained from some of that copyrighted material. Even if you ask it to create SpongeBob, it won't do that. It obviously has that material underneath. I know we we've Microsoft and I think this is a great one. If you're using Copilot for Microsoft 365 has guaranteed that copyright protection that if you are sued there's a protection in place there. But it feels like there's this swell starting to happen and I I hope this is something. Oh goodbye. Sorry, just being said goodbye to someone there not sure who that was. I I hope this well isn't coming through too much from it and this is a kind of counterbalance to the excitement, not a blocker to a lot of this as well.  

[Zoe 31:44]  

Yeah, it's it'll be interesting to see how how this plays out. And again, I've I've got kind of two minds on this because you know, on on the one hand I think it's really important that people's copyrights are respected. But on the other hand, it would be such a shame if innovation and and all of the potential change and good that this technology could bring, is slowed down or Hanford by lawsuits.  

[Kevin 32:12]  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's finding a balance. I I don't want to, I can completely understand. And I think things like musicians, you know we're hearing more about AI generated music, artist who's living is based on this. It's finding a balanced team, finding a way that they can change and still make things from it and seeing them lose their business while others make a lot of money from it. I I can see the challenges and I just hope it's not ridiculous. I can see in here it says that the the New York Times approach Microsoft and Open AI in April to raise concerns and those haven't come to anything. So hopefully this is just a kind of step forward to try and push something more happening. But I I I will say the other person, Gary Marcus probably this is where some of my social media bubble I've seen a lot of his friends. In fact, yeah, there is the the picture of SpongeBob and animated Sponge pulling those through. He's been doing a good good job at highlighting a lot of those things that have come through from that. So if you are interested that do go and follow Gary Marcus on that one, should we go on something more positive?  

[Zoe 33:26]  

Yes, let's.  

[Kevin 33:28]  

So on there, I think the other big thing that we'll we'll see this year is the extensibility. You know Zoe you were you were talking about custom Copilots and that being there. But I think extensibility and going beyond that off the shelf will be the big theme for the year. As people get more used to what you can do and where the limitations are, they start to want to bring more of their own data into it. They want to start doing their own custom Copilots for specific solutions. I I think this will be the year that really jumps ahead with that as well.  

[Zoe 34:02]  

Yeah, and I think so. So there's there's a couple of different levels to this because I think that we'll see a level of Microsoft driven integration and this you know this isn't something that I've had confirmed this is, this is just kind of my read of of where I think the Copilot ecosystem will go. I think we'll start to see more and more examples of the different Copilots integrating with each other and playing well with each other. So coming back to that windows, Copilot key or Copilot in windows, being able to use that as the front door through to other Copilots that a user has access to. If a user has Copilot for Microsoft 365 and they have access to other Copilots being able to access those other Copilots inside that Copilot for M365 ecosystem. So I think we'll, I think we'll see much more of that and then there'll be all of these different layers of extensibility and plug insurance and bringing data in and it's just going to create this really awesome web of data and information and a whole new way for.  

[Kevin 35:09]  

People to interact with the Internet web.  

[Zoe 35:11]  

No, not a no, no. But I just, I think it's super exciting, super exciting.  

[Kevin 35:18]  

And and I think again we'll see the hype cycle of people like yeah I want to bring everything in. The reality of I want to create a task typing that away. OK what sort of task do you want to create? Do you want to take a task for this, a task here, a task that the reality of how you work out the direction that you want to go, especially for these almost Copilot of Copilots that will come together, that there's going to be an interesting juggle juggling activity. What people expect and the reality of it that I think will settle down very quickly. I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that. I know there's a lot being worked on around that and around how that works. And I think you can see for those who've used Copilot for Microsoft 365, a lot of the early feedback that people get is like, oh hang on, I can only do this here and not there and why can't I do this in that place? And I think a lot of that is to make sure that it works well with what it's intended to do. And then gradually how they make sure that works effectively with other things will be the evolution of it.  

[Zoe 36:18]  

Yeah, absolutely.  

[Kevin 36:21]  

So talking, talking on that I did actually my my first sharing session of the year was on the Microsoft 365I can never remember which call it is, but one of the formerly known as PMP calls now the Microsoft 365 and power platform development community call and shared. I was going to say 15 minute intro it crept into 20 minutes and big apologies to those who came after and I ate up some of their time. I'm still feeling guilty about that, but I talked about the custom Copilot that I built there and you can see for those on the screens that the challenge was Ignite is big, there's loads of stuff, loads was about AI, Can I use AI to digest it and look at that and looking at some of the tools that that we could use there within Azure. So this is very much in that custom Copilot world of things, exposing that out to people so people could query that information and turn that content into knowledge. So I'll put a link to that for those who want to watch the rest of it. I would also say there was a great call from ENEA Linkage afterwards about forms, but especially John Russell and Mike Galloway afterwards. And I think we're going to try and get them onto the Copilot connection fairly soon talking about model driven apps and power platform using some of that open AI goodness as well. And really that was another custom Copilot. So we're seeing more of them, all of these come through and being, as Zoe said earlier, called Custom Copilots 2.  

[Zoe 37:52]  

Yeah, I think. I think the future episodes on extensibility are going to be super interesting. I'm very excited.  

[Kevin 37:59]  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So looking forward to that next show and also if you are interested in that and getting more into the detail not necessarily of why, but how you extend Copilots, Gary's, I think it's actually a series of sessions. I might be wrong in that, but certainly his first session on that on the 9th of January, that's going to be on one of those community calls as well. He's going to talk about extending Copilots within that one. And I know he's got some great samples and that will definitely be available to recording once that's taken place as well, which is good because we'll be hearing from Gary in the next episode as well.  

[Zoe 38:43]  

Fantastic.  

[Kevin 38:47]  

I think based based on those little bits of silence that we've just left in there and and if I was a little bit more energetic would have edited out but instead I'm just going to apologise because I'm rubbish at doing things like that and it just sounds awful. So we'll we'll leave those in for you to get confused, but we'd love to hear from you somewhere around you know, what do you think about this year ahead? I almost said what do you think about this year of AI? Don't don't talk about that, but what do you think is going to be in the year ahead? What are the challenges that you see? What are the opportunities and excitement on there? We'd love to hear what people think around that.  

[Zoe 39:21]  

Yeah. And what what you'd like to see as well. So so not just what you what you think will happen, but actually what would you really like to see from Microsoft from open AI in this in this world of of Copilots and generative AI?  

[Kevin 39:38]  

And if you send it to us and we talk about on the show when it actually happens, you can go back and tell your friends say, look, I said it, they mentioned it, I told you I said that and and they they will probably still nod and go, yeah, yeah, whatever.  

[Zoe 39:52]  

But Oh yeah, what are you talking about?  

[Kevin 39:56]  

On that.  

[Zoe 39:57]  

Brilliant. Well that was a great discussion, Kevin. Good to catch up, Good to kick off the Copilot connection with the first episode of 2024. Episode eight overall, I think.  

[Kevin 40:08]  

Episode eight. Yeah, exciting lucky number in Chinese.  

[Zoe 40:13]  

Yeah, it's a lucky number in Chinese, obviously, New Year, big thing. I know it's not the Chinese New Year yet, but the New Year is a big thing for the Chinese as well. So yeah, this is going to be a lucky year for us, I think.  

[Kevin 40:24]  

I hope so. I hope so as well. And yeah, we we've got a lot more guests lined up that we probably need to talk about in a minute to try and line some of those up and get those on board and brought along as well. But if they're people you want to hear about, I will be honest, that extensibility show that we've got lined up was driven by someone messaging me and saying really want to hear more on that. So do let us know. We do genuinely listen to that. So let us tell us what you want to hear, especially this particular people. You want to come on or you want to come on? Let us know and we'll try and make that happen as well.  

[Zoe 40:58]  

Yeah, we've got lots more planned. We've got a few guests who we're we're already working with to line up those interviews. So lots of exciting things coming for you and stay tuned for the rest of 2024 as the Copilot connection will be here to hopefully cut through some of the hype and the noise and and help make things make a little bit more sense.  

[Kevin 41:20]  

Maybe broadcast some of it, but what could we do? And don't get subscribe and get everyone else subscribing as well. But otherwise, thank you very much for listening.  

[Zoe 41:30]  

Thanks everyone.