Recent Discussions
Microsoft Ignite 2025: The Dawn of the AI-Agent Era
Microsoft Ignite 2025 wasn’t just another tech conference — it was a redefinition of the modern workplace. Instead of incremental upgrades and predictable product updates, Microsoft used the event to signal the beginning of a new era: an agent-driven, AI-first workplace where intelligent copilots, governed automation, and deeply connected data systems form the backbone of how organizations operate. From massive transformations in Microsoft 365 to the emergence of fully governed AI agents with their own identities, Ignite 2025 delivered a bold roadmap. In this blog, we unpack the biggest announcements and explore why they matter — not just for IT leaders or developers, but for anyone who uses technology to get work done. https://dellenny.com/microsoft-ignite-2025-the-dawn-of-the-ai-agent-era/Analyzing Sales Data with Simple Natural Language Prompts in Copilot Excel
In today’s fast-paced business world, being able to efficiently analyze sales data is crucial for making informed decisions. Traditionally, this required advanced spreadsheet skills, experience with formulas, or even specialized data analysis tools. But with the introduction of Copilot in Excel, anyone—from beginner to expert—can now analyze data using simple natural language prompts. Instead of writing complex formulas or constructing pivot tables manually, users can simply type a question like, “Show me total revenue by region,” and Copilot does the heavy lifting. This transformation signals a major shift in how organizations and individuals work with spreadsheets. It gives non-technical users the ability to uncover insights that were previously either time-consuming or out of reach. In this blog, we’ll explore how Copilot in Excel works, how to use it for sales analysis, and why this new approach is a game-changer for data-driven decision making. https://dellenny.com/analyzing-sales-data-with-simple-natural-language-prompts-in-copilot-excel/How to Generate Formulas Using Copilot in Excel
In recent years, artificial intelligence has transformed the way we work in productivity tools, and Microsoft Excel is no exception. With the introduction of Copilot in Microsoft 365, users can now generate formulas, automate workflows, and analyze data with natural language commands. Instead of struggling to remember complex syntax or nested functions, Copilot acts as your intelligent assistant—interpreting your requests and building formulas for you. Whether you’re a beginner who always forgets how VLOOKUP works or a power user wanting to prototype formulas faster, Copilot offers an intuitive way to work smarter in Excel. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to generate formulas using Copilot in Excel, step-by-step, along with examples and tips on getting the best results. https://dellenny.com/how-to-generate-formulas-using-copilot-in-excel/Step-by-Step: Your First Data Analysis with Copilot in Excel
Data analysis has traditionally required a combination of technical skills, domain knowledge, and familiarity with complex Excel formulas. Today, Microsoft Copilot in Excel makes the process faster, more intuitive, and more approachable—even for beginners. Copilot works as an AI-powered assistant within Excel, helping you analyze spreadsheets, clean messy data, create insights, and build visualizations using natural language prompts. Whether you are new to data analysis or looking for smarter ways to explore information, this guide walks you through performing your first analysis using Copilot in Excel, step by step. https://dellenny.com/step-by-step-your-first-data-analysis-with-copilot-in-excel/Stop Guessing Your Guide to Asking Copilot Questions About Your Spreadsheets
Let’s be honest—how many times have you opened an enormous Excel file and instantly felt your brain shut down a little? You know the insights are in there somewhere… the trend that matters, the weird outlier, the formula that will finally make the numbers make sense. But digging them out can feel like you need a data science degree—and two quiet hours with no interruptions. I’ve been there too. I’ve spent more mornings than I’d like to admit wrestling with complex VLOOKUPs or manually sorting through hundreds of comments. Exhausting, right? https://dellenny.com/stop-guessing-your-guide-to-asking-copilot-questions-about-your-spreadsheets/How to Measure ROI from Copilot Deployment
“So, you’ve rolled out Copilot. Now what?” That’s the question every IT leader and business owner asks after the initial excitement fades. Sure, Copilot feels like magic—automating tasks, summarizing meetings, and even drafting emails—but how do you prove it’s more than a shiny new tool? How do you measure its real return on investment (ROI)? Let’s break it down in a way that’s practical, relatable, and yes, human. https://dellenny.com/how-to-measure-roi-from-copilot-deployment/Beyond the Code: Setting Up Alerts for Unusual GitHub Copilot Activity (and Why You Need To)
It’s 3 AM. You’re sound asleep. But somewhere, a developer’s Copilot instance is working overtime, not on a feature, but potentially on a security breach. GitHub Copilot is a game-changer. It’s the closest thing we have to a genuine, tireless code-whisperer, boosting productivity and making the mundane parts of development vanish. But with great power comes great responsibility—and significant new security challenges. When an AI is operating within your codebase, often with the same access as the human developer, it becomes a crucial new endpoint to monitor. Ignoring Copilot security isn’t an option. Its contextual awareness—its superpower—is also its biggest vulnerability. If an attacker gains control of a user’s session or if a vulnerability is exploited (as has happened in the past), Copilot can become an unwitting accomplice in data exfiltration or the silent injection of malicious code. The solution? We need to treat Copilot not just as a developer tool, but as a privileged system user. We need GitHub Copilot alerts for unusual activity. https://dellenny.com/setting-up-alerts-for-unusual-github-copilot-activity/How to Continuously Optimize Data Quality for Better AI Output
If you’re running a modern business, you’re probably already in on the secret: Data is the new oil. But if data is the oil, then Data Quality is the refinery. You wouldn’t put crude, unfiltered oil in a precision-engineered race car engine, right? So why would you feed your cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) models raw, messy, or incomplete data? The truth is, many organizations treat their data pipeline like a one-off cleanup project. They do a big purge before a new AI initiative, dust their hands off, and expect everything to run perfectly forever. But data—like the real world it represents—is a living, breathing, constantly shifting entity. It degrades. It drifts. New sources introduce new inconsistencies. The old adage “Garbage In, Garbage Out” (GIGO) has never been more relevant than in the age of AI. A model trained on flawed data won’t just give you slightly off results; it can learn and amplify those flaws, leading to biased outcomes, catastrophic business decisions, and a loss of customer trust. The solution isn’t a one-time scrub; it’s a commitment to Continuous Data Quality Optimization. It’s about building a robust, ‘always-on’ system that ensures your AI is running on the cleanest, most reliable fuel possible. https://dellenny.com/continuous-data-quality-optimization-for-ai-the-essential-guide/AI Terms Explained for Microsoft 365 Users
Welcome to the future of work! If your days revolve around Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams, you’ve probably noticed something huge changing: Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t just a sci-fi concept anymore; it’s right there in your Microsoft 365 toolbox. Tools like Microsoft Copilot are weaving AI magic into your everyday tasks, making you more productive than you ever thought possible. But let’s be real. All the talk about LLMs, Prompts, and Generative AI can feel like reading a secret language. It’s a ton of jargon that can make the benefits of AI seem confusing or even intimidating. Don’t sweat it! This blog post is your plain-English guide to the essential AI terms you need to know to truly master the new intelligence baked into your Microsoft 365 apps. Think of it as your translator from Tech-Speak to Human-Speak. By the end of this, you’ll be talking the talk and walking the walk of an AI-powered pro. https://dellenny.com/ai-terms-explained-for-microsoft-365-users/
From PC to Home Window: AI as Data Surgeon
Hello Copilot Community, I’d like to share a vision for the future of AI in Windows and beyond: evolving from a reactive assistant into a Data Surgeon — diagnosing, repairing, and reconstructing the lifeblood of modern life: data. 🩺 Diagnose Scan for corruption in files, registries, and hardware sectors Detect anomalies with machine learning and predict failures before they happen 🛠 Repair Auto-heal OS inconsistencies, registry errors, and driver mismatches Reconstruct corrupted files using backups, metadata, and contextual inference 🧬 Reconstruct Repopulate missing data from previous versions and cloud syncs Fill gaps in documents, databases, or media with AI-driven interpolation 🧑⚕️ Prescribe & Prevent Recommend preventive actions: backup schedules, hardware upgrades, cooling solutions Provide digital wellness reports — like a health checkup for your PC 🛤 Roadmap Toward the “Home Window” 2025–2027: AI-assisted diagnostics and repair tools 2027–2030: Household integration and predictive maintenance — the “Home Window Baby” stage 2030–2035: Cross-domain AI collaboration (social media, banking, utilities) 2035–2040: Fully fledged “Home Window” — essential for every modern home Discussion Prompt: How do you see Copilot evolving into this role? What technical milestones or safeguards would be essential? Could this align with Microsoft’s roadmap for Copilot in Windows and household AI?Monitoring Security and Compliance Metrics for Copilot: A Human-Centered Guide
As organizations continue adopting AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot, one theme keeps rising to the surface: trust. Companies want to leverage Copilot to boost productivity, streamline workflows, and assist employees in their day-to-day tasks—but not at the expense of security or regulatory compliance. That’s why monitoring security and compliance metrics for Copilot has become just as important as implementing the tool itself. While Microsoft provides strong enterprise-grade protections, every organization still needs observability, governance, and ongoing oversight. In this post, we’ll explore what it really means to monitor Copilot security and compliance metrics in a way that feels approachable, human, and aligned with real-world business needs. Whether you’re an IT admin, a security professional, or simply someone curious about how AI governance works, this guide is for you. https://dellenny.com/monitoring-security-and-compliance-metrics-for-copilot-a-complete-human-focused-guide/Building Copilot Usage Dashboards in Power BI A Complete Guide
As AI tools become essential in everyday workflows, organizations increasingly want to understand how these tools are being used. Microsoft Copilot—now integrated across Microsoft 365—promises improvements in productivity, decision-making, and collaboration. But like any tool, leaders need visibility into its usage: Who’s using Copilot? How often? Which features? Is productivity actually improving? That’s where Power BI comes in. With its ability to connect to Microsoft 365 usage data and transform raw logs into actionable insights, Power BI is the perfect platform for building Copilot usage dashboards. Whether you’re an IT administrator, analyst, or a business stakeholder, creating these dashboards helps you track adoption, spot trends, and measure ROI. In this guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know—from data sources and modeling tips to the visuals that deliver the most value. https://dellenny.com/building-copilot-usage-dashboards-in-power-bi-a-complete-guide/Copilot’s Temporary Chat
A temporary chat with Microsoft 365 Copilot is one that forgets everything discussed in the conversation once the chat is over. The idea is that by leaving no trace, Copilot won’t recycle the ideas discussed in the chat later. Copilot absolutely discards the chat thread, but those pesky compliance records remain behind, ready for eDiscovery and other compliance investigations. https://office365itpros.com/2025/11/14/temporary-chat-copilot/Auditing Claude Usage with the Copilot Researcher Agent
The question was asked if it was possible to identify use of the Claude LLM by the Copilot Researcher Agent. Audit records often help, so that’s the natural location to check. As it turns out, some information is captured when the Researcher agent is used but figuring out if the agent uses the default ChatGPT-5 or Claude LLMs is a matter of intuition (or guesswork). https://office365itpros.com/2025/11/12/audit-claude-use-researcher-agent/Copilot for Planner and To Do Automating Task Management
In today’s fast-paced digital workplace, managing tasks effectively is one of the most important skills for productivity and team success. Between meetings, emails, chats, and deadlines, it’s easy for key action items to fall through the cracks. Microsoft’s latest innovation—Copilot for Planner and To Do—aims to change that by using artificial intelligence to automate and simplify task management. This powerful integration between Microsoft 365 Copilot, Planner, and To Do allows individuals and teams to automatically generate, organize, and monitor tasks using natural language. Instead of spending hours setting up task lists or following up manually, you can let Copilot do the heavy lifting. https://dellenny.com/copilot-for-planner-and-to-do-how-ai-automates-task-management/How Azure Active Directory Supports Secure Copilot Access
AI tools like Microsoft Copilot are transforming how people work. They help us write emails, generate reports, analyze data, and automate tasks — all from within Microsoft 365. But as AI becomes more powerful, it also becomes more attractive to attackers. Sensitive data is being processed through these tools every day, and organizations need to make sure only the right people have access. That’s where Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) comes in. Azure AD, now part of Microsoft Entra, is the identity management engine behind Microsoft 365 and Copilot. It helps ensure that every login, every device, and every data request to Copilot is verified, compliant, and secure. Let’s explore how Azure AD supports secure Copilot access and why it’s such a crucial part of Microsoft’s security ecosystem. https://dellenny.com/how-azure-active-directory-supports-secure-copilot-access/Using Microsoft 365 Admin Reports to Track Copilot Adoption
In today’s fast-moving business world, deploying advanced productivity tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot is only the beginning. What truly matters is understanding how your organization is using these tools and whether they’re delivering real value. The journey from “we’ve rolled it out” to “we’re benefiting from it” relies on visibility, monitoring, and informed decision-making. That’s where Microsoft 365 Admin Reports come in — helping organizations track Copilot adoption, analyze usage trends, and drive data-based improvement. https://dellenny.com/using-microsoft-365-admin-reports-to-track-copilot-adoption/
Recent Blogs
- Microsoft Ignite 2025 in San Francisco was an electrifying gathering that brought together over 30,000 tech professionals, business leaders, and innovators from around the globe. This year’s event se...Nov 24, 2025
- Copilot brings together your chats, tickets, docs, and decisions across tools like Jira, Confluence, and ServiceNow to give precise, context-aware answers. It knows where to look, respects access bou...Nov 21, 2025
