Ep 33 - what to look out for at Ignite 2025

With Ignite just a week away, Zoe and Kevin got together to pick out some interesting sessions as well as several chats about what the key themes coming across are. Naturally, Copilot and agents were our main focus but there were also a couple of other areas that caught our eye.

See the sessions at https://ignite.microsoft.com.

Sessions mentioned (or that we ran out of time to mention):

- BRK402 Our Agentic Era: Building Accessible and Responsible AI for Everyone

 Low code

- BRK1742 Advanced Agent Development with Copilot Studio

- BRK 314 -Building agents with Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry

 Pro code - lots about scaling

- BRK1706 - Innovation Session: Your AI Apps and Agent Factory

- BRK189 AI agents in Azure AI Foundry, ship fast, scale fearlessly

- BRK411 Beyond Models: What No One's Telling you about Scaling Agents

 Securing and managing agents

- BRK306 Innovation Session: Latest AI agent innovation in security, control and productivity

- BRK265  Secure access for AI agents with Microsoft Entra

In-person

- THR821 Copilot for Physical AI

- THR763 Copilot & agent intelligence: Reporting for frontier firms

- THR759 Copilot Trust & Safety: Controls to manage AI risk

One for fun

- BRK 432 Scott & Mark learn to connect the dots

Not mentioned but still interesting

- BRK292 Fireside chat: How customers are unlocking value & growth with Copilot

- BRK319 Build Agents for Copilot with the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit

- BRK167 Maintain regulatory compliance with the Microsoft Sovereign Cloud

- BRK288 SharePoint: The Knowledge Platform for Copilot and Agents

- BRK281 Unlocking the all-in-one AI Advantage of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Transcript

Kevin McDonnell (00:00.93)
Welcome to the Copilot Connection.

Zoe Wilson (00:04.415)
We're 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 the Global Digital Workplace Services Consult Leader at Kindle. I'm a Microsoft Regional Director and an MVP for Copilot.

Kevin McDonnell (00:21.976)
I'm Kevin McDonnell I'm an MVP for Copilot and Copilot Extensibility. And I'm a Solutions Architect who looks after the Copilot and Agents at Avanade in the UK. And we'll be releasing episodes as podcasts and on YouTube with insights from experts from the community and Microsoft on what the different areas of Copilot are, the impact they can make to you and your organization, what you need to do to prepare for them or start implementing them now, and even how you can extend them.

I'm looking at that intro and think we probably need to change that story and mention agents a little bit in there as well.

Zoe Wilson (00:57.547)
Yeah, I think we've had pretty much the same intro, minus the job title and company changes since we first started this more than two years ago, haven't we? And can you believe, we've been doing this for more than two years.

Kevin McDonnell (01:05.184)
Yes. Yes, we didn't talk about the two years.

That is absolutely ridiculous to think that!

Zoe Wilson (01:15.147)
Yeah, I mean if you think how the co-pilot story has changed in that time as well.

Kevin McDonnell (01:24.066)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. the kind of what we talk about, what matters to copilot. I was looking back, I think it was someone was trying to present slides from the early days of copilots. I went, whoa, whoa, whoa. The kind of messaging around that. you know, the fundamental technology has changed a bit, but the fundamental layers are in there are still the same. But what we think about it, the difference it can make has changed massively as well.

Zoe Wilson (01:52.037)
Yeah. And the things that client organizations are looking for, the problems that they have, the questions that they have, the things that they want help with has all changed completely. Like two years ago, it was, what is this stuff? What does it mean? How do we figure it out? Whereas now it's much more focused on real business problems.

Kevin McDonnell (01:58.552)
Hmm.

Kevin McDonnell (02:05.677)
Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (02:11.158)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is which is nice. It's what it should be, really, for these things. Now we've we're kind of running low on time. Plus, we've completely deviated from our notes already, which is a good start and looking good on there. I think today we're going to talk about Ignite. I know you're flying out on Saturday. I'll be trying to convince the kids to go to bed quicker so I can watch as many sessions during the evening as

Zoe Wilson (02:17.129)
Hmm. Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (02:40.462)
possible but before we get on to that we wanted to talk about one other thing

Zoe Wilson (02:46.757)
Yeah, so, gosh, how long ago was it now, Kevin? A few weeks ago we were at the South Coast Summit. Was it four weeks? Three weeks, something like that?

Kevin McDonnell (02:56.876)
I was going to say two, no, three must be, is it four? Gosh.

Zoe Wilson (02:58.987)
Three, yeah. So three weeks ago we were at South Coast Summit, which was absolutely fantastic. And one of the things that I love about the UK conferences, so South Coast and Scottish Summit, is the community awards that they run. And we had the very great pleasure of hosting the awards and getting to present those to very well deserving people from across the community.

Kevin McDonnell (03:22.87)
And that was, you know, very sad, very sorry to hear that you were ill, Will Rowe, but really happy to step up there and be able to give those out, because it is genuinely something both of us have been involved in, those awards and helping shape them, helping making sure we get the right categories and things like that, since Aaron started them, what, three years ago as well?

on there which is just mad and I think it's important to give recognition to people. I know a lot of the people there would not want to necessarily shout out about the things they do so it's good to kind of bring those things together which is nice on there.

Zoe Wilson (04:04.123)
Yeah, and I think I think that word recognition is super, super important because, particularly as a woman working in tech for me, it's particularly important that younger women or people who come from minority backgrounds are able to actually see people who look and feel like them being visible, being recognized for the work that they're doing. So, it was absolutely fantastic first of all, to be able to present you with the modern work evangelist award, Kevin. but

Kevin McDonnell (04:32.94)
And you absolutely tricked me, you Aaron and others. And I'm going to apologize again to Sharag, who I convinced to come to the awards because I knew I was hosting and wouldn't be getting it. And then you change the names at the very last minute.

Zoe Wilson (04:37.128)
Hahaha

Zoe Wilson (04:48.683)
Yeah, that was a deliberate strategy. And to be perfectly honest, considering how jet-lagged I was coming back from San Diego just the day before, presenting you that award was literally the only reason that I was on the stage with you.

Kevin McDonnell (04:54.99)
you

Kevin McDonnell (05:02.51)
Well, thank you. it was nice. have it here next to me, keeping me company on there as well. And I will say, I think I said possibly after three glasses of white wine, that it was a lovely little ego polish for people out there. it is a nice one that makes you smile, which is why I have it there next to me that I can turn and keep me going on busy days.

Zoe Wilson (05:09.067)
Brilliant.

Zoe Wilson (05:28.081)
Yeah and there were some really fantastic people who won as well. think being able to present Aretti with her award was fantastic and Mark Christie being recognised for the really significant contribution he's had to community over the last few years.

Kevin McDonnell (05:34.882)
Hmm.

Kevin McDonnell (05:44.556)
Absolutely, and some new names coming through as well, which is always, always good to see and I think important on there that's not just the same old boring bald men such as myself winning the awards. Even if Keith Atherton did come up and try and steal as many awards as possible from that, possibly for those who weren't there, but I'm going to say steal them.

Zoe Wilson (05:48.523)
Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (06:02.161)
Hahaha!

Yeah, I mean, we're only taking his word for that, aren't we? So keeping in the topic of awards, one of the next conferences that's coming up after Ignite will be ESPC, which we are both attending. I know we were going to talk about this at the end, but we might as well do it now. On the Monday, we've got a workshop that we're co-presenting with Chris Huntingford called Agent to GEDN.

Kevin McDonnell (06:09.326)
Yes, exactly.

Zoe Wilson (06:33.353)
which is going to be a huge amount of fun. And they also have awards at ESPC as well. And after Co-Pilot Connection winning the podcast award at the Community Awards last year, I'm just really pleased and completely chuffed that we are one of the finalists for the podcast award at such a big conference.

Kevin McDonnell (06:54.142)
I mean, we're on we're up against heavyweights. Two that I actively listen to on there in the the I was going to say Office 365 distilled, Microsoft 365 distilled, whatever they're calling it this week, whether they've updated the stuff for it yet as well. And also, my gosh, I've got the name of it, Code, something deploy, build code deploy, I think with AC and Julie Turner, which I love listening to.

from that one. really good competition in there. And I know, Zoe, you're up for two awards. I think it's Tech Leader and Diversity Awards for that one. I probably should know the exact names for that as well. But I think I got the general themes, which is the important part. So really, mean, to see you up for three awards is fantastic on there. But I think what we want to say to people is please vote.

Zoe Wilson (07:36.043)
You got them right.

Kevin McDonnell (07:50.664)
not going to be sad if you vote for us, obviously, but more importantly vote for your favourites, vote for the people you feel that make an actual difference with technology, to make these things that inspire you to do more within this, to actually get involved on there. These are the ESPC Inspire Awards. I don't know exactly when the ceremony is, is it Tuesday? I think I heard, I can't remember if that's come out yet.

Zoe Wilson (08:16.987)
Yeah, I think it's Tuesday afternoon in the expo hall.

Kevin McDonnell (08:22.626)
Yeah. So whether you're there or not, you can vote. We'll put the link into the show notes or you can go to SharepointEurope.com and just tell people who your favorites are. And when these awards come up, make sure you're nominating people because it makes a big difference.

Zoe Wilson (08:40.189)
Yeah and like we said on the topic of the SCS awards, I think it's just super important that we are able to have visible strong people in our community who can be a role model to other people who are coming up through the ranks. So every vote matters. You do only have until the 12th which is Wednesday to get your voting so it is only open for another couple of days.

Kevin McDonnell (08:56.631)
Absolutely.

Kevin McDonnell (09:03.438)
I better make sure I get this published today.

And just just very quickly, Zoe. So if you do miss that and you think, damn, I'm listening to this now and I've missed that. Tell you what, those people you're going to vote for, just ping the message. LinkedIn, X, Blue Sky. Just say, I'm really sorry, I didn't vote for you, but I love what you do. Thank you. the X, it will make a big, big difference. I had someone, someone internally who added that I was chatting and trying to organize meetings. She had a note saying.

follow you a lot on LinkedIn, I love what you do there. was just that little sparkly moment that keeps me doing it as well.

Zoe Wilson (09:43.89)
Yeah, so we had another one of those as well, Kevin, where at South Coast Summit we both presented workshops. We were both in different workshops. I did the new speaker workshop with Sarah Fenner, her son Alex and Rex de Kooning, who actually was one of the first graduates of our new speaker workshop the very first time that we did it. And one of the people who came to the workshop actually heard us talking about it more than a year ago on this podcast.

Kevin McDonnell (09:49.549)
Yes.

Zoe Wilson (10:11.427)
and I think he said that he'd listened to it after the date had passed. So he's been waiting ever since then to actually come to one of our new speaker workshops. So just, mean, he's validating to hear that people actually listen to what we're saying, Kevin, but to be able to kind of inspire them to start their own community journey, I think is just brilliant.

Kevin McDonnell (10:16.525)
Mm.

Kevin McDonnell (10:22.839)
amazing.

Kevin McDonnell (10:36.438)
Yeah. Yeah. So so let let people know it's just a little message and we'll cheer them up. Anyway, we should probably come back to the main topic of today, which is Ignite. Now, I'm many of you listening to this and go, bloody hell, it's these speakers who go to all these international events and get to see all these Microsoft people all the time and go to these big events. I think I've said this on the show before. I have never been.

to a major Microsoft conference. I've never been to a build or an ignite over in the US. So I think this is going to be one of the biggest ignites certainly since COVID and it's going to be absolutely huge, but I haven't been to these. So I'm sharing this as someone who loves following them, who will watch the keynote, watch as many sessions as I can fit in my evenings.

trawl through the book of news, which gets announced, who trawl through social media, seeing the different takes from there. And that is how you can also get involved with Ignite. So don't feel it's just those attending, or you could be like Zoe in attending.

Zoe Wilson (11:45.735)
Yeah, but so I've, I'm the opposite to you, Kevin. I've been lucky enough to go for the last few years, but I use the word lucky with probably air quotes around it because for each one of these conferences I've been sent by work. And what that means is that, in addition to actually being able to take part in the conference, are expectations with regard and completely valid expectations in terms of speaking to customers. So you will probably.

Kevin McDonnell (11:52.728)
Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (12:14.461)
watch more sessions than I will. And you'll probably have the opportunity to read the blogs and things like that that are coming out before I do. I think where I'll get the value is kind of that networking and you know this from MVP Summit Kevin, obviously that is in many cases more valuable. But like Kevin said, if you're not attending in person, don't feel like you are getting a subpar experience, you're just getting a different experience and probably...

able to digest the content and the announcements much more quickly than those in person.

Kevin McDonnell (12:50.678)
And I find that when you're there, you know, I find for the MVP Summit, that you're almost swayed by all the messaging or whatever people are doing and you're getting so much bombardment that when you're not there, you've got a little bit longer to think about what does this mean to me? How does this impact me, my customers, my clients, what I'm going to be building with this as well? think thinking about those different elements and thinking about the kind of overall

Zoe Wilson (13:14.899)
Yeah, and...

Kevin McDonnell (13:18.626)
themes of what's happening and that's what we'll cover a bit today.

Zoe Wilson (13:21.925)
Yeah, and for that point that you made, Kevin, about what does this mean to me? How do you know? How do I absorb and internalize this announcement? We will help you with that. We'll have another podcast episode that we'll record after Ignite where we'll distill some of those announcements and try translate them for you as well.

Kevin McDonnell (13:41.122)
Yeah, absolutely. So let's get on to Ignite. I guess the first question is how do you actually find out about it? How do you follow it? How do you get involved with it on there? And the simple answer is go to ignite.microsoft.com from there. Let me bring that window up, make sure I'm sharing the right one and don't get in trouble on there. So yeah, ignite.microsoft.com

I don't think that's showing the URL I've just noticed on the screen, but when you get there, you can then register. And interestingly, certainly when I looked the other day, I think it was Thursday when I finally realized I hadn't registered for it, that there are still tickets. So you could get an in-person ticket that is still available on there, but otherwise select the digital online within there.

And then you can set up your sessions. So you can see my events, I've added various things. When you go through, actually let me customize my schedule and just show people who are watching on the video, you can add your items to the schedule within here. It's got things like the opening keynotes I've got there, I've added to my schedule. But you'll find a lot of the time you get a lot of clashes. That's fine. Either add them to your schedule. And if you're there, decide which is closest and you want to go to the time.

or save it your favorites and then you can see the things and watch them back later. So pick the one you want to watch live, add the other to your favorites to pick up on those as well.

Zoe Wilson (15:11.921)
Yeah, I think I think that's really good advice. I think one of the things that's worth pointing out is if you're only watching in law, if you're only watching online, you can filter to just show you the sessions that are available online. Likewise, if you're

Kevin McDonnell (15:25.73)
Yeah. And sorry, sorry, just quickly, it will filter that by default if you are registered online only. do be aware of that.

Zoe Wilson (15:31.755)
Hmm.

Zoe Wilson (15:35.323)
Yeah, and then for those of you who are attending in person, one of my tips would be look for those sessions that are in person only and will not be recorded. Now, some of them will be sponsor sessions. So if you look at the speakers, you can usually tell whether it's a Microsoft only session or whether it's a sponsor only or joint session.

Kevin McDonnell (15:45.176)
Mm. Yep.

Zoe Wilson (15:57.279)
but there are some really interesting sessions which look like they will only be available if you're in person. And as an in-person attendee, you want to prioritize the things that you're only going to be able to do there. And you can catch up on the ones that are available online on the flight home or when you get home.

Kevin McDonnell (16:15.566)
Absolutely. And I would say some of those sponsor sessions, it's very interesting the takes that they take on some of the build-its, generally because they're using things that have been built already. Some cases they've been working with Microsoft on new stuff, but listening to those, a lot of people go, sponsor sessions, don't necessarily always do that. There's some really interesting takes that pick up from those as well.

Zoe Wilson (16:42.737)
So what are the themes then, Kevin?

Kevin McDonnell (16:45.292)
So it was interesting. I've lost where it is. Topic. There we go. So for, again, those following on the screen, you can see that there are different topics. And before it's been like AI or modern workplace, it felt very different. And I know Microsoft's gone through the AIBS and very, sorry, AI business solutions.

different kind of ways of slicing up the organization, but it feels to me quite different in terms of how they group these things together. So there's things like migrate and modernize your estate, innovate with Azure AI apps and agents, unify your data platform, secure your data, copilot and agents at work, agentic business applications, scale with cloud and AI, innovate with low code AI and agents and the Microsoft AI cloud partner program.

of feels like the topics are not really in those traditional pillars that many of us are used to within them. And I think we've seen and talked about this a lot, that this kind of AI and copilot world is really breaking down a lot of those silos that are in there. And this feels a way of recognising that as well.

Zoe Wilson (17:59.247)
Yeah, so I think that the naming here aligns with the new sales plays or go to market categories that they have as part of the reorg that they did starting in July. I wonder if the book of news is well, I don't wonder. I'm expecting the book of news is going to be structured similarly as well. But I think it's a good point where, you know, typically you might look for modern work and then look for SharePoint or something like that. We're moving away from a product centric.

Kevin McDonnell (18:10.35)
Mm.

Kevin McDonnell (18:25.283)
Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (18:28.629)
grouping to something that's much more aligned with the way they're presenting all of this to their customers.

Kevin McDonnell (18:36.396)
Yeah, absolutely. Which I think makes sense. think Microsoft have been trying to do for years. I remember when SharePoint was renamed Sites and things like that, and then the product name came back. So I don't think we'll see, I was about to say we won't see any of those product names disappearing. Yeah, there might be a rename, who knows. There always seems to be. But I think we'll still see those traditional products be there. It's just not the core way that Microsoft's communicating it.

Zoe Wilson (19:04.651)
Yeah, I mean, how many renames do we think we might get? How many rebrands? How many new products?

Kevin McDonnell (19:11.489)
you

Kevin McDonnell (19:15.63)
I'm not gonna guess. Yeah, I'm not even gonna shoot myself in the foot by talking about something I shouldn't talk about already. And there's lots I don't know about as well. So

Zoe Wilson (19:24.883)
Well, mean, it's like the last couple of years, people have said, I think two years ago it was the co-pilot drinking game with a challenge to take a shot for every time they said co-pilot during the main keynote. And then last year it was agents. I suspect it's still going to be both this year.

Kevin McDonnell (19:35.384)
Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (19:41.176)
Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (19:45.058)
Yeah, I think Copilot plus agents, I can see coming up an awful lot, but yeah, yeah, we'll see. So again, some of you may not have followed an Ignite before. You've got these keynotes that kick off. You've got the main keynote. Yeah, sorry, I meant to say this earlier when we're preparing and forgot. Is there anything interesting about the list of people speaking on that first opening keynote?

Zoe Wilson (19:54.251)
Hmm.

Zoe Wilson (20:14.859)
Well, I think it's interesting that Satya isn't there. I know that he, yeah, so they, I mean, Satya is still the overall CEO, but this, they announced after Judson came back from sabbatical that he was taking over as the CEO for the Microsoft commercial business. So I think this is really interesting that they are actively positioning Judson as the face of that commercial business.

Kevin McDonnell (20:18.019)
Mmm, and we've got Judson instead.

Zoe Wilson (20:44.395)
And also slightly sad that it's actually not going to be at the event because I do love listening to him talk.

Kevin McDonnell (20:48.046)
I'd be surprised if he wasn't at Build as well. I think that would raise some noise, but...

Zoe Wilson (20:54.827)
Yeah, to be honest, I personally think he will still be there. He's just gonna be hidden in a back room for customer meetings.

Kevin McDonnell (21:03.478)
Yeah, yeah, that's a point. That's a very good point. And interesting that the world Judson's more from the commercial world, you've still got very much the the tech people standing up there. So you've got Scott Guthrie, Charles Lamanna, Ryan Roslansky and Asher Sharma. And Ryan's security. I should know this, but I think he's the CEO of LinkedIn, course, on that one. So an interesting group of people.

Zoe Wilson (21:25.419)
Interesting. And yeah, no Jared, no Jared Spataru.

Kevin McDonnell (21:31.822)
Yeah. And interesting because I know Ryan Ruslansky was also at the Power Platform Community Conference with Charles Lamanna as well. it feels like sort of growth in his name in these circles as well. And Asha Sharma from the, I think it's Core AI, isn't it, as her world on there being the visible people in front of this.

Zoe Wilson (21:55.259)
Yeah, so all of the AI platforms essentially, isn't it? So you've kind of got, it's interesting because you've got kind of Scott and Asher who are more infrastructure. You've got Ryan who's very much kind of jobs and people. And then Charles Lamanna who's the plus agents bit of co-pilot plus agents.

Kevin McDonnell (21:59.294)
Mm. She's intriguing.

Kevin McDonnell (22:06.658)
Hmm.

Kevin McDonnell (22:19.418)
Yeah, so it's intriguing, always seeing the names there. And then you'll find that the kind of follow ups with the some of these sessions are trying to find the different ones. And here we've got like Jeff Teper. I'm showing on this view, I think I've filtered them to the next page, but you'll see this sort of Jeff Tepers is our good friend, Jeff. We're to say that now.

But coming through as others and the security teams will be having their own keynotes from those areas. So always worth watching those if you haven't got time, find one of those that are most relevant to you as well. I do want to jump on one that I just saw. Actually, no, it's not that one. But I noticed that Jenny Lay Fleury is very involved in Ignite.

which is fantastic. So Jenny Lay looks after accessibility. I think it's accessibility tech at Microsoft off the of my head. Sorry, Chief Accessibility Officer. Yes, she is on that.

Zoe Wilson (23:20.245)
She's well, she, yeah, she's the chief accessibility officer, isn't she?

Kevin McDonnell (23:25.358)
And there's a lot of sessions with her, which I think is absolutely fantastic. And I think it's one of those underrated things that people talk about sometimes, but not enough, is that AI and co-pilot and agents are enabling a new era of accessible content of different ways to consume more easily, whether it's translation, whether it's kind of voice to text, being able to connect with these things. AI is making it easier.

And it's really good to see Jenny and her sessions showing up with that as well, and that it is still a priority for Microsoft in this era.

Zoe Wilson (24:02.643)
Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it on this podcast before and it's something I talk a lot about at conferences. But for me, that human impact of AI technologies, not just Co-Pilot, but AI across both embedded custom solutions, multimodal, there were so many benefits from an accessibility perspective. So it's good to see it a little bit more front and center.

Kevin McDonnell (24:30.338)
Yeah, absolutely. Really, really nice and sort of seeing GitHub involved in that as well. So that's definitely a session I'll be watching from there.

Zoe Wilson (24:35.059)
Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (24:39.441)
Yeah, well, while you were bringing that up as well, Kevin, I was just having a look in the background. Jared Spatara is not actually presenting a single session at this Ignite.

Kevin McDonnell (24:50.664)
interesting.

Zoe Wilson (24:52.883)
and Geoff Teape is only presenting the one that I could see.

Kevin McDonnell (24:56.898)
Jeff often only has one unless it's a particular... I think last year he was in the keynote and in the his own keynotes but he doesn't generally do that many so not not so surprised in that. That's interesting about Jared.

Zoe Wilson (25:00.459)
Mm.

Zoe Wilson (25:05.116)
in his keynote. Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (25:14.763)
And just coming back to this session, so the building accessible and responsible AI for everyone. What I like about this is we've got the chief of responsible AI, Natasha Crampton with Jenny from the accessibility perspective and then with Ed Summers who works at GitHub. So I think that's a really nice, interesting mix of people as well.

Kevin McDonnell (25:37.388)
Yeah, absolutely. So, it looks like he's the head of accessibility at GitHub as well. Yeah, as a blind developer. that could be fascinating as well. Moving on to the other theme I saw is that we were seeing a lot with low code. So this one, BRK1742 with Scott Giro, lovely, lovely Scott Giro. He makes his hair look very sane in this photo compared with how it is.

Zoe Wilson (25:48.139)
Hmm.

Zoe Wilson (26:03.627)
Hahaha

Kevin McDonnell (26:07.118)
normally, but I pulled this one out because it's about advanced agent development with Copilot Studio. And I think I can see that being a theme. I can see that being a theme of widespread. There's people who've been doing Copilot Studio and agents in there for quite some time. There's going to be a lot of people who are new to it as well. So I think we'll see some of the kind of intro sessions balanced out with ones by this really digging into how you get the most of it, where the challenges are and how you

you really scale that up as well. I think this will be a really good worthwhile session from that. And Scott's always good to listen to.

Zoe Wilson (26:41.963)
Yeah, yeah, he was just going to say he was fantastic during the keynote South Coast Summit, wasn't he? The next session that you pulled out as well, BRK 314 is also really interesting, I think.

Kevin McDonnell (26:48.942)
Stop!

Kevin McDonnell (26:57.516)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's this, you know, we talk about low code and we talk about pro code. saw the messaging from the Power Platform Community Conference, the low code is dead on there, which I think was a way of saying that they don't want to keep harping on about this kind of division within there. And this is a great example of that, where you can use Copilot Studio. Yes, you've still got that easy way of getting into it, but you can bring in that real power of Azure AI Foundry. So you've got choices in this blend.

between these different areas is becoming a lot easier and a lot quicker to move between on there as well. really interested by this and Kendra's always great to watch speak even when she's hungover. Sorry, Kendra, if you're listening on that one. But no, she did a fantastic session at ESPC last year on that and is always really engaging.

Zoe Wilson (27:41.263)
Hahaha

Zoe Wilson (27:48.723)
And we wouldn't know anything about speaking like that, would we, Kevin?

Kevin McDonnell (27:53.55)
No comment on that side. I'm determined to behave until all my sessions are finished in Dublin. there it is down on paper. So, I really like this one as the blend over to there. I'm going to skip a few of these, all these session recommendations we're going to put into our show notes. So there's a few I'm going to put in there around pro code and kind of a

AI foundry and agent factories. But Zoe, you called up on this one that I thought was particularly interesting.

Zoe Wilson (28:29.861)
Yeah. So I, I was looking through the session catalog and the thing that really struck me about this one, which is an innovation session called your AI apps and agent factory is that it's a really technical session where they're looking at the workflow tools for orchestrating agents and development across VS code and GitHub, leveraging AI foundry. And it's three women who are presenting it.

So, you know, arenas who is just fantastic, Sarah Bird and Amanda Silver both from Microsoft as well. But I love the fact we've got this really technical, really current session and it's three enormously credible women who are presenting it.

Kevin McDonnell (29:09.678)
And I'll be honest, I love the fact I didn't notice because I feel in that core AI space, there are so many fantastic women leaders that are building and they come from a really strong technical backgrounds. know when we spoke with Yino on the copilot fireside chat and she's reading things out that many of us have no idea on bits on there. So she really has that experience and background. I've spoken to her.

couple of times before that as well and always been impressed with their Sarah Bird the same as well. yeah, I think fantastic and fantastic is becoming the norm as well.

Zoe Wilson (29:49.095)
Yep, 100%.

Kevin McDonnell (29:52.204)
And so there was a few in-person ones. actually, no, before we go on to that one, let me have a look. There was a few interesting ones around security and governance that we'll put in there. I think this one around secure access for AI agents with Microsoft Entra. I think it was Builds that announced you'd be able to kind of...

manage agents with Entra in the same way that you do standard users on that one. So it'd be interesting to see the next evolution of that. And also this one, the latest AI agent innovation in security control and productivity. So I think that governance and security, making sure we can do, kind make it easy to do this responsible way of doing things and have them secure and compliant. I think that will be a key theme that we see coming out as well.

Zoe Wilson (30:44.411)
Yeah, I think these will all be really interesting. And to be honest, it was something that I expected to be quite a big theme of Ignite anyway, when you look at competitors like ServiceNow, who brought out Control Tower. So I think it's important that Microsoft have a strong story in this kind of governance and management space.

Kevin McDonnell (30:56.099)
Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (31:09.917)
I do think, I know you observed this as well, Kevin, when you look at some of these sessions, for some of them it's really hard to figure out what they're going to be about.

Kevin McDonnell (31:17.004)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, yeah, I don't envy people being there in person, and rushing between sessions. Because I think a lot of the time you'll get there and the wording around agents, and a lot of the agentic story is so similar that you could turn up to one it's about something completely different. And the intro that you know, the blurb about it is not wrong. It's just not what you want to hear.

So I think that will be interesting on there. Just keeping in mind, Zoe, there was there was a few that were only in person that caught your eye. I have to be able to get because I'm not there. hadn't looked at these.

Zoe Wilson (31:49.759)
the end.

Zoe Wilson (31:56.155)
Yeah. Yeah. So, so I thought this one was interesting. This is actually a partner session. So I'm assuming that General Robotics are sponsoring. But this one is focusing on Co-Pilot for physical AI. So how you bring AI into that kind of robotics and physical device layer, which I think is really interesting. Because when I look at

some of the future waves of workplace transformation. At the moment, we're trying to embed that very much into the digital workplace. But one of the things I'm really interested to see is how do we actually bring all of these capabilities into the physical workplace? And I don't just mean with robotics, mean with like meeting rooms and signage and for the last couple of years, we've had some really interesting technologies in this space. But for me, it's really interesting to see what

Kevin McDonnell (32:37.824)
Mm. Yeah.

Zoe Wilson (32:50.313)
what this will bring in, particularly for that frontline worker persona. And then there was another one that was in person only, which was called Co-Pilot. Sorry.

Kevin McDonnell (33:00.302)
Just very quickly, please, if you join this session, do not mention Terminator.

Zoe Wilson (33:06.539)
So this next one, co-pilot and agent intelligence reporting frontier firms, focusing very much around co-pilot analytics. I'm unsure why this is in person only and why this is not actually being broadcast because for me, this is a really interesting topic that actually is relevant for a lot of organizations who are wanting to be able to understand their usage and behavior change and patterns.

Kevin McDonnell (33:22.126)
Hmm.

Zoe Wilson (33:36.491)
But again, for those who are in person who want to prioritise things that won't be available on demand, I think this is going to be an interesting one.

Kevin McDonnell (33:44.066)
And it may be because they're putting some things out that they consider they don't want to tell everyone out. It's kind of future facing. I don't know that I'm guessing that entirely, but, you know, it says the latest agent reporting, maybe they're going to talk a little bit there. So if you are there worth checking in on that one.

Zoe Wilson (34:01.457)
Yeah, and then this was just one, I mean, this is only a 30 minute session. So co-pilot, trust and safety controls to manage AI risk. Like Kevin said earlier, I think there are lots of sessions around governance, security, management. So I think this would be an interesting one to see in person if you're there.

Kevin McDonnell (34:24.418)
Yeah, and it's always if these topics interest you, it's always a good chance to go and speak to the people afterwards and dig in more and build those connections. You know, we talked about networking. This is ideal to kind of pick up those names and faces as well as more senior ones. So the last one I wanted to call out, and it will be an obvious one to quite a few of you, but no less worthwhile format is to get Mark Rosinovich and Scott Hanselman. I don't care what they're talking about. If I'm honest, I will go and watch them.

because their session is always entertaining. This one they're talking about the evolution from the Altair 8800 to today's cloud, very demo driven session. And I imagine they're going to just chat and inspire and entertain. I love their podcast video series that they do. But yeah, if you need some light relief, it's quite late in the day, actually. So I'm going to have to watch the recording for this. Oh, no, sorry, that is GMT. That's all right.

Zoe Wilson (34:52.874)
Hmm.

Zoe Wilson (35:18.705)
GMT yeah so it's yeah so it's actually quite early last year I think it was just Rosinovich speaking on his own but there were people who were not interested in the session before him who went to the session before him just to make sure they had a seat and the queue to get into that room was bigger than the capacity of the room.

Kevin McDonnell (35:31.714)
Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (35:41.87)
I can utterly imagine that I'm going to use this. can't remember if I've told this on the show before, but I remember South Coast, sorry, Scottish Summit when we had Scott Hanselman there and I was talking to Donna and Scott came over and chatting to her and a guy came walking over and there's me with Donna Sarkis, Scott Hanselman. So I stepped back going, it's one of these two. And it was me he wanted to speak to. It's my biggest ego moment ever. It was fantastic. But no, well worth listening to those two.

Zoe Wilson (35:44.202)
Mmm.

Zoe Wilson (36:05.161)
Hahaha

Zoe Wilson (36:10.954)
Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell (36:11.224)
So that was a little bit of a whistle stop tour through what we think will be interesting from Ignite on there as well. I'd say do your own digging around, have a hunt through. There'll be some really small sessions that will be exactly what you want. So go looking for those as well.

Zoe Wilson (36:30.419)
Yeah, perfect. And if you are going to be there, come and find me. I will have my recording equipment with me. So I will be looking for people to interview. I want to find out what you think of the announcements, what you're excited about. And then again, two weeks after that, we're both in Dublin for ESPC. And likewise, we'll be looking for people to talk to there.

Kevin McDonnell (36:52.3)
Absolutely. I'm very much looking forward to it. We did mention our workshop is actually fully booked now, which is no pressure whatsoever. Just a nudge, Zoe, if you could have a look at some of those slides as well when you get a chance. I'm doing that publicly.

Zoe Wilson (37:00.763)
No pressure.

Zoe Wilson (37:07.051)
Is that, this, yeah, I was going to say is he's trying to get a public commitment.

Kevin McDonnell (37:12.59)
But no, that would be fantastic. Thank you very much for joining us all today. Don't forget to, yeah, don't forget to like, subscribe, get your details in and drop us a message if there's anything you want to see on the show. But otherwise, thank you very much and hopefully we'll see you in person somewhere soon.

Zoe Wilson (37:21.759)
Thank you, have a good week.

Zoe Wilson (37:35.445)
Thanks for listening everyone. Have a great week.

Kevin McDonnell (37:38.722)
Bye.