Microsoft Ignite 2022 opening keynote quote
For all the uncertainty we continue to see in the world, one thing is clear. Organisations in every industry are turning to you and your digital capability to help them do more with less so that they can navigate this change and emerge stronger.
Satya Nadella – Chairman and CEO at Microsoft
Powerful words from Microsoft’s Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella at the Microsoft Ignite 2022 event. Here, we’ll delve into some of the key themes and announcements that came out the highly anticipated technology event.
Key themes
The overarching themes of this year’s event were:
- Build agility, optimize, and create data-driven experiences with Microsoft Azure
- Deliver efficiency with automation and AI
- Re-energize your workforce, wherever they are
- Accelerate innovation
- Protect everything, everyone, everywhere
Announcements to keep an eye on
- Mesh Avatars
- Teams Premium
- Natural language to cloud flow in Power Automate
- Microsoft Syntex
- Microsoft Places
Mesh Avatars for Microsoft Teams
Mesh Avatars are now available in private preview. Teams users will have the ability to design up to three unique avatars for those days when putting the camera on is just not the vibe.
This feels like a step towards the world of the Metaverse and with news recently released about the two tech giants (Microsoft and Meta) working together, this announcement doesn’t come as a huge surprise.
Mesh avatars are currently available in the standard Teams meeting for private preview customers. We will keep you posted when this feature becomes generally available.
Teams Premium
A step up to make meetings more personalised, secure and intelligent. Microsoft are introducing an enhanced version of Teams, Teams Premium.
This upgraded version will gives users exclusive access to features such as:
- Customised branding for meetings
- Use of AI to supply intelligent recaps at the end of meetings
- Advanced capabilities for booking virtual appointments
- The option to send text reminders ahead of meetings
- Advanced meeting protection
We’ll be sharing more on what Teams Premium includes and who it’s suitable for soon. We’re expecting to see it generally available by February 2023.
Natural language to cloud flow in Power Automate
Describe it to design it. Describe what you want to automate and this tool will generate some suggested flows that are likely to be what you’re looking for. The users will then need to set up the correct flow connectors, finalise the design and voila.
Natural language to cloud flow will no doubt make it easier for more of us to start adopting automation in our roles to enable us to, as Microsoft put it, do more with less. We’re looking forward to testing this one out and will be sure to share our best use cases.
Microsoft Syntex
Content AI that empowers people and automates processes. This nifty tool announced by Microsoft uses AI Builder and Power Automate to dynamically read, tag and index all types of documents to make it easier than ever to find what you need.
Wondering how Microsoft Syntex could be adopted by your business? Microsoft have put together a few use case examples which might help.
Microsoft Places
Most of us now split our week between the office and home. And we’ve probably all felt the frustration when you come into the office to find you’re the only one in. Well, according to Microsoft, Places is the answer!
This new add-on will provide insights into when employees are coming into the office, to help everyone coordinate their hybrid working week. This will come as a welcome tool to many, with a reported 84% of us stating that we’re motivated to go into the office because of the social aspect. If we can make doing this easier, that’s great news!
Places hasn’t been released yet, but we will keep you posted when we hear a release date.
Get prepared for next year’s Microsoft Ignite
If you’re incredibly organised, you can get ahead of the game and register for next year’s Ignite event. If you’re not, we’ll remind you when it’s coming up over on our LinkedIn page and right here on our blog.
