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19. December 2024
A small delegation of colleagues from Sven Mahn IT took part in Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago in November 2024. The week-long event offered many opportunities to expand their knowledge and find out about current trends. The focus was on AI and its impact on everyday working life in the near future.
One of the most impressive innovations are the "agents", AI helper programs that either come directly from Microsoft or can be configured by the user with the help of Copilot Studio. The area of application is almost freely selectable. In various labs (bookable training courses led by Microsoft employees), we had the opportunity to interact with existing agents or build our own agents. We were impressed by how easy it is to set up and configure new agents ourselves.
But the existing agents in the area of network security were also fascinating. It was clear to see that Microsoft has focused on this area. In addition to a completely separate department, which runs under the name "Secure Future Initiative", numerous agents are also provided which, for example, can trace back within seconds in the event of an attack, where it came from and what measures need to be taken now, right through to checking your own network for security gaps.
We were able to try our hand at self-built and self-learning agents that could either search SharePoint for specific files independently or respond to team messages. These agents focused on a different aspect of security: the security of our own data. For example, we were able to integrate external sources or exclude certain data records, which the agent could then not access. The speed of the process from the initial creation of the agent to the first results was also impressive here. To give an example: It takes 10 minutes to create a simple agent that outputs current weather information about any location in the world.
Another field of application for AI is gaming, where it is not only used to control characters in computer games and their dialog, emotions or reactions, but also to create entire worlds from scratch with just a few key words. Also impressive at this point is how Microsoft has improved in these areas. They have hired players in part to gain a fresh perspective on this whole topic - smart.
In summary, it can be said that Microsoft has not only focused on the topic of AI, but is also leading the way here. The Secure Future Initiative is already helping to prevent cyber attacks worldwide, new standards are being set in the gaming sector thanks to AI support and Microsoft's entire ECO system is becoming more efficient, more secure and even more connected through the use of agents. Rod Trent, Senior Program Manager in Cybersecurity/AI, said that we are only at the beginning and are already revolutionizing everyday working life with the use of AI in all areas. So it will be interesting to see what is yet to come. In this respect, we are looking forward to the next Microsoft Ignite ...
