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carlydanner24
Iron Contributor
Nov 15, 2023

Microsoft Ignite Announcements

Release Summary

On November 15-16 at Ignite, Microsoft is announcing new Microsoft Copilot experiences that empower organizations to unlock value from a range of systems of record, with tight integration with Copilot for Microsoft 365. In conjunction with these new Copilot experiences, Microsoft is also announcing new and updated Copilot capabilities for Dynamics 365, and updates in Power Platform.

 

The Ignite announcements include: 

  • Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code tool to customize Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and build standalone copilots. Copilot Studio exposes a full end-to-end lifecycle for customizations and standalone copilots within a single pane of glass—you can build, deploy, analyze, and manage all from within the same web experience.
  • Microsoft Copilot for Service, which includes Copilot for Microsoft 365, helps organizations boost agent productivity and deliver compelling service experiences by modernizing existing contact centers with generative AI.    
  • Microsoft Copilot for Sales, which includes Copilot for Microsoft 365, allowing sellers to seamlessly harness the benefits of generative AI across all sales and productivity workflows, including Teams and Outlook
  • New Copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 to drive efficiency across the organization, featuring updates that help marketing, sales, and field service professionals provide exceptional customer experiences.   
  • New Copilot capabilities in Power Automate, makers can use natural language to generate scripts, saving time and increasing proficiency, and CoE teams can now analyze the health and performance of their automation activity. 
  • New capabilities in Managed Environments for Power Platform, allows admins to establish environment groups and set rules, along with an advisor that will provide a simpler way to gain insights into what is happening with all environments.
  • Enhancements to Power Apps to help create AI-infused apps at scale, enabling copilot for all canvas apps users, and a native UI/UX experience which optimizes all mobile apps for devices with more reliable performance. 

 

Event Information

Microsoft Ignite is where IT Professionals, administrators, implementers, developers, cloud architects and decision makers come together to develop technical skills and take careers to the next level by learning from Microsoft leaders, experts, and industry partners. Attendees will be the first to hear about the latest news and announcements around Microsoft products and have an opportunity to tune into over 200 sessions. Digital registration is open! Register here. 

 

Product Announcements

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Introducing Microsoft Copilot Studio, which enables organizations to customize Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 (Public Preview) or build their own copilot from scratch (Generally Available) using the visual copilot development environment. Citizen IT and pro developers can use their organizational data, plugins, and data connectors to extend and create copilots that suit each organization’s needs including managing specific scenarios that require authored responses or workflows.

With this new announcement, Power Virtual Agents capabilities will join with Microsoft Copilot Studio, our new conversational AI platform. As a result, the Power Virtual Agents name will no longer be used. This will not require any action or impact to the customer.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Dynamics 365 Field Service updates

On November 15, Microsoft announced new Copilot capabilities and more integrated experiences to streamline service operations with Dynamics 365 Field Service:

  • The integration with Microsoft 365 Chat will enable frontline workers to access key work order information in the flow of work in Microsoft Teams via natural language (public preview in December).
  • Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile will boost technician productivity by streamlining workflows - from providing summaries of key points in work orders to suggesting work order updates - saving them time so they can focus on exceeding customer expectations (public preview in December).
  • Access to Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist within Dynamics 365 Field Service at no additional cost will enable Dynamics 365 Field Service customers to equip technicians with step-by-step instructions and real-time expert help - key for improving important KPIs such as first-time fix rates (generally available in December).
  • Dynamics 365 Field Service Contractor (New SKU) for providing essential work order management functionality to vendors will make it easier to scale service operations to meet demand (generally available in December).
  • Seamless financial and inventory data flow between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Finance and D365 Supply Chain Management will help ensure the frontline and back office stay in sync (available now in preview).

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

New Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights features, enhancements, and partnerships

Microsoft announced new capabilities in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights that help marketers, sellers and customer-centric teams collaborate. AI-generated customer profile summary including demographic, transactional, behavioral, and analytics data to generate key insights instantaneously for quick customer understanding (for organizations that have both D365 Customer Insights and D365 Sales Enterprise or Premium subscriptions; available in public preview in December).  Already in public preview, marketers can qualify their leads using metrics such as engagement scores and provide seamless handoffs to their sellers, ensuring marketing and sales teams maximize the opportunity pipeline and increase win rates.

 

A new partnership with Optimizely will enable organizations to leverage segments and journeys built in Customer Insights in Optimizely to build campaigns that can be personalized in real-time without writing any code (available in public preview mid-December).

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

New Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales Features

Building on the momentum of copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales, earning distinctive leadership positions from Gartner and Forrester, today, Microsoft announced two new copilot experiences in Dynamics 365 Sales that allow sellers to interact with their data using natural language. Available in public preview in December, use natural language with Copilot in D365 Sales to get contextual insights and recommendations for leads and opportunities. Copilot in D365 Sales also has a new full-screen view where sellers can use natural language or pre-built prompts to gain a quick understanding of customers, deals, meetings, forecast, and more. The full-screen view is rolling out starting November in Asia/Europe, and December in North America.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Microsoft Copilot for Service

Copilot for Service synthesizes vast amounts of data already available from an organization’s trusted knowledge sources to provide relevant, timely guidance to agents in their flow of work. Without costly development time or rip and replace efforts, organizations can simply point to their data—such as public websites, SharePoint, knowledgebase articles, and offline files—and in a few minutes unlock generative AI-powered conversations across all of their data with out-of-the-box integrations for Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk. Agents can simply ask Copilot questions in natural language to receive relevant answers that leverage existing contact center knowledge to enhance agent productivity and customer satisfaction. And since Copilot for Microsoft 365 is included in Copilot for Service, organizations will also benefit more broadly from productivity enhancements in the tools agents already use every day, such as Outlook and Teams.

 

Copilot for Service will be available in public preview in early December. General availability is targeted for the first quarter of 2024. Pricing will be $50 per user/month.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Microsoft Copilot for Sales

Microsoft Copilot for Sales is the next evolution of Microsoft Sales Copilot, bringing the power of Microsoft Copilot for M365, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and seller specific insights and actions in the flow of work. Copilot for Sales works with any CRM, helps sellers save time and energy, generate innovative ideas, build stronger customer relationships, and ultimately close more deals.

 

Copilot for Sales, inclusive of the Copilot for M365 subscription, will be available first quarter CY24 at $50 per user per month.  Customers who own Microsoft Copilot for M365 will be able to purchase Copilot for Sales as a $20 step- up SKU. D365 Sales Premium customers can purchase the Copilot for M365 subscription ($30) to unlock the full power of the new Copilot for Sales product. 

 

For current standalone Sales Copilot customers, Microsoft is working on a plan to support them and/or transition to the new offer. There will be more specific details available by December.

Continue using the hero motion of Dynamics 365 Sales, where Microsoft has both product leadership, value leadership, and momentum against Salesforce. For existing and new Dynamics 365 Sales customers, there will be no loss in copilot capabilities, and Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales will continue to receive significant innovation.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Advanced governance features in Managed Environments for Power Platform

Microsoft announced three new governance capabilities for Microsoft Power Platform allowing IT admins the ability to proactively govern their enterprise at-scale. Now in public preview, advisor in Managed Environments for Power Platform provides recommendations and inline actions for ITDMs to govern and secure their platform. AI-generated app descriptions, now in public preview, provide automatic descriptions of applications to help IT admins understand their applications. Environment groups and rules, currently in private preview, gives IT admins control of environments by creating environment groupings and applying custom rule sets to those groups.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Announcing new time-saving experiences for Copilot in Power Automate

Earlier this year, we launched Copilot in Power Automate with functionality for cloud flows and later for process mining. Now we announced further integration with Copilot for desktop flows and orchestration, enabling faster assistance in Power Automate for desktop and for analyzing automation in “desktop flow activity” within the web portal. This helps extend Copilot across multiple key touchpoints in the product and provide a seamless user experience.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

Power Apps adds more Copilot options by default and improves mobile experience

Copilot will now be able to respond to queries about Dataverse data in canvas apps without needing any configuration from makers (limited preview in December, public preview in Q1 2024). Copilot will also create text input in apps and can be set up to reply to pre-set prompts using the new Copilot answer control capability (public preview in December), saving users time. For advanced use cases, makers will be able to fully customize Copilot in apps through Microsoft Copilot Studio straight from Power Apps Studio. Developing native apps for mobile users also becomes easier with native mobile UI/UX (public preview in December), making mobile apps more reliable and useful to end users.

 

Readiness & Enablement Resources

 

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