AI is a Team Sport – Announcing our first wave of Guest Speakers at M365 Community Conference 2026
What do championship athletes, enterprise innovators, and community leaders all have in common? They know that transformation does not happen in isolation. It happens when teams come together with a shared goal, the right strategy, and the courage to try something new. That is why at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference in Orlando, Florida from April 21 to 23, 2026, we are bringing the spirit of collaboration to life in a whole new way by welcoming a dynamic lineup of guest voices from the worlds of professional sports, innovation strategy, and real-world AI adoption at scale. This year, we are proud to host legendary athletes Chasity Melvin and Kia Vaughn, alongside innovation thought leaders Dan Toma, Manjunatha Sivanna, Maral Taak, and Christopher Blakeley as they join Microsoft leaders on stage to explore how teamwork, leadership, experimentation, and trust are shaping the future of AI powered organizations. Chasity Melvin is a former WNBA All-Star and coach, with over two decades of experience in professional basketball. As a first-round draft pick, she played 12 seasons in the WNBA and spent over a decade winning championships internationally. She is a multifaceted coach with experience at the collegiate and professional levels including a stint with Charlotte Hornets as the first female coach to coach men. Her accolades include being an author, motivational speaker, and co-host of the Washington Mystics pre- and postgame show, where she shares her informed perspective as both a player and a coach. She is passionate about the business of sports and technology and is intentional about lending her voice in conversations that drive impact and inspire change. At the conference, she will join Corporate Vice President and Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan in a fireside chat to share insights on AI and its collaborative future in changing roles, leadership, and transformation. This fireside chat will be hosted by the Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, Karuana Gatimu. Kia Vaughn is an international champion known across WNBA in the United States and worldwide. Immersed in basketball from an early age, she honed her craft at Rutgers, delivering standout performances on the championship stage. Throughout her 14-year career on several WNBA teams, including the New York Liberty, Washington Mystics, Phoenix Mercury, and Atlanta Dream, she developed a reputation as a consummate professional. Known for her preparation and reliability, she is geared up to bring an impact-driven global perspective to our Women in Technology Lunch in a conversation with Karuana Gatimu, Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration. Don’t miss her insights as she navigates the challenges of an ever-changing league. Dan Toma is the CEO and Partner at Outcomes Consulting, where he helps global organizations in enhancing their approach to technology. He is an acclaimed author with a key focus on leadership, technology strategy, and delivering business outcomes. As co-author of the recent text, “Innovation Accounting”, he offers practical, detailed, and focused guidance on fostering a culture of experimentation and innovation, essential for organizations adopting generative AI. We’re excited to have him join the Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, Karuana Gatimu, in a fireside chat on real world adoption best practices at scale. And because AI is only as powerful as the impact it drives in the real world, we are also excited to spotlight customer voices leading enterprise transformation today. Real world customer stories Across our product keynotes, Microsoft customers will bring AI transformation to life by sharing how they are moving from experimentation to impact inside their own organizations. These global brands offer a real-world look at how teams are adopting AI, modernizing operations, and building for the future with greater confidence, creativity, and scale. Their stories ground our keynotes in practical insight and show what it really takes to turn innovation into meaningful business outcomes. Featured in our day one keynote Building for the Future: Microsoft 365, Agents and AI, What's New and What's Next with Jeff Teper, Executive Vice President, Collaborative Apps and Platforms: Maral Taak, Associate Vice President and Head of Enterprise Generative AI at the National Basketball Association, leads enterprise-wide AI strategy, architecture, and governance. Maral has more than 20 years of experience using cutting-edge technology to create and identify practical solutions that drive real-world impact. Since joining the NBA, she has focused on shaping the league's enterprise AI capabilities, including deploying intelligent agents, scaling agentic workflows across business functions, and driving broad adoption of generative AI across the organization. Prior to joining the NBA, Maral spent four years at Amazon, where she led the delivery of generative AI solutions across healthcare & life sciences. She also previously spent nearly a decade at IBM spearheading AI-driven automation projects across industries ranging from finance to healthcare. Her experience spans large-scale cloud deployments, AI infrastructure management, and compliance for Fortune 500 clients. She started her career as a computer vision researcher at L.R.V (Laboratoire de Robotique de Versailles). Featured in our day one keynote Business Apps & Agents with Ryan Cunningham, Corporate Vice President: Christopher Blakeley, Principal Program Manager and AI & Agentic Automation Enablement at NASA. In this role, Chris leads the Agency’s Intelligent Automation strategy and drives the expansion of NASA’s Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem that supports more than 50,000 employees across all Centers. He oversees secure and scalable platform adoption, enabling mission and administrative teams to rapidly build automation solutions that streamline operations and advance NASA’s digital transformation goals. brings a unique perspective on applying advanced technologies in mission critical environments. Chris leads the Federal wide Power Platform Focus Group, collaborating with government agencies to coordinate best practices, governance approaches, and enterprise adoption strategies. With more than 20 years of service at NASA, including roles at Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, Chris contributes to government‑wide modernization by championing responsible automation and empowering the federal workforce with ai-enabled digital tools. In our day two keynote Securing AI: Building Trust in the Era of AI with Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security and Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Purview will be joined by: Manjunatha Sivanna, Principal Platform Manager at Cummins Inc., will provide a look into how enterprise organizations are integrating AI into core business functions to improve decision making, streamline workflows, and empower teams to innovate faster in a rapidly changing technology landscape. In his current role, he is responsible for enterprise-wide adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot and Enterprise AI, establishing information governance and compliance foundations using Microsoft Purview, and enabling low-code innovation through the Power Platform. He works closely with legal, compliance, security, and business teams to ensure AI is deployed in a way that is secure, compliant, and pragmatically useful for employees. He has been a key driver behind large-scale Copilot rollouts, enterprise AI governance models, and ECM modernization initiatives, helping organizations move from experimentation to real-world, production-ready AI outcomes. He is passionate about bridging the gap between technology capability and business value, and about shaping practical patterns for Responsible and Agentic AI in the enterprise. Together, these voices reflect the very best of our community: diverse perspectives, shared challenges, and a willingness to learn from one another as we shape what comes next. Because in the era of AI, progress is not built alone. It is built together, with trust, curiosity, and teamwork at the center. Because when it comes to AI, success is a team sport.
Users unable to determine who has access to document library due to security groups
Greetings, Maybe I went about this the wrong way. Looking for advice on either the proper way we should be moving forward on this or any other comments or insight we should be considering. This is for SharePoint online via Microsoft 365 Business license. Scenario: 1. SharePoint Document Library per department (Each Document Library exists in its own SharePoint site), essentially being used as a company drive. 2. Some users should only officially have access to specific folders in some of the document library. 3. If say a person in accounting has access to some specific folders, and either they are replaced or a new accounting user comes in.... should be able to reference the access the existing person has in order to give the same access to the new user. 4. Common Request: Give UserB the same folder access as UserA. 5. Some users should have access to the entire document libraries while other users only have access to specific subfolders. Current Implementation: 1. In Entra, created Security Groups that tied to specific folders. -- For Example for the accounting folder, only management has access to the entire folder but the accounting staff only have access to specific folders. So like there is a FiscalYear2024 folder, so I created a security group called sec-Accounting-FiscalYear2024 and assigned the members that should only have access to that folder and not the rest of the library. -- My thought behind this was if a new user was replacing the existing user or joining the department, I can just reference the existing user security group membership and copy it to the new user. 2. In the SharePoint document Library, I create a shareLink that is assigned to the security group I made for that access. Then I give that link to the users I assigned the membership to. Current Issue: 1. Aside from the official document sharing/access that is being done from the security groups above. There are occasions where users of a sharepoint need to share specific files or folders to other users. 2. However, they are all panicking and confused because aside from themselves they are unsure who has access to the existing folders/files in the document library. 3. When going to manage permissions of a file/folder, it only shows the group assigned to it but not the members of the group. 4. So since users can't see the members of the group assigned to a folder, they have no idea who has access to that folder and are getting confused. If this was an NTFS drive, it would be super easy for users to see who has access and etc by looking at the properties but I'm stuck behind some limitations of sharepoint I didn't realize existed until I tried to implement certain workflows. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated, as my implementation has turned into a point of frustration for end users. Thank you in advance!
Apply sensitivity labels with custom permissions in Office for the web
We’re excited to announce that support for applying sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions is now rolling out in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for the web. In the past, users were limited to opening and editing files with existing custom permissions in the web apps; applying new sensitivity labels configured for user-defined permissions or modifying permissions always required switching to the desktop versions. Now, all these actions – applying labels and managing permissions for specific users or domains – can be completed entirely within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on the web. How the Permissions dialog works in Office for the web When a user applies a sensitivity label that is configured for user-defined permissions in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on the web, the Permissions dialog opens to let them choose who can access the file and what each person or domain is allowed to do. This is the same modernized experience that previously shipped in the Windows apps, now available in the browser. Apply a label configured for user-defined permissions. From the Sensitivity menu in the toolbar, the file name flyout, or other entry points your organization uses, the user selects a label that their tenant admin has configured in the Purview portal with the option to let users assign permissions. Specify users and domains. In the Permissions dialog, the user adds individual people (for example, someone@example.com) or whole domains (for example, example.com) who should have access to the file. Choose permission levels. For each person or domain, the user chooses from clear permission levels such as Viewer, Editor, or Owner, which correspond to underlying Rights Management usage rights. Use advanced options when needed. The user can expand additional settings to configure options such as a contact email for access requests. Note that web apps do not currently support setting a custom expiration date for permissions. Apply and update permissions. After saving, the selected sensitivity label is applied to the file with the specified permissions. Users with appropriate rights can reopen the Permissions dialog later from the web apps to add or remove people or domains, or adjust permission levels, without switching to the desktop client. The Permissions dialog in Office for the web is designed to be consistent with the experience in the Windows apps, so users see the same permission levels and terminology wherever they work. All enforcement continues to respect your organization’s existing sensitivity label policies, encryption configurations, and Rights Management Service (RMS) settings. What this means for admins This feature enables organizations using sensitivity labels configured in the Microsoft Purview portal with encryption and user-defined permissions to apply these labels and manage permissions directly in the web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Users can now stay within the browser to classify and protect content, eliminating the need to switch to desktop apps for applying or updating labels and permissions. As support for applying these labels becomes available in Office for the web, consider reviewing your existing sensitivity labels that are configured for user-defined permissions. You may want to update internal guidance and training materials to reflect that users can now complete these workflows entirely in the browser and ensure that security operations and compliance teams are prepared to monitor usage through existing Purview auditing and reporting capabilities. Admin considerations and scenarios Many organizations use user-defined permissions for scenarios where central policies cannot realistically predefine every individual who should have access to a file. For example, you might publish labels that require users to specify recipients for documents that contain deal-specific financials, M&A data, or sensitive HR information. In these cases, granting permissions at the time of labeling helps reduce oversharing and keeps access tightly scoped to the people who genuinely need it. Licensing and configuration requirements To use sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions in Office for the web, your organization must have licensing that supports configuring Purview sensitivity labels, have sensitivity labeling enabled for files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive, and have configured at least one sensitivity label for user-defined permissions. The licensing requirements for applying sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions in the Office web apps is that same as for using sensitivity labels that apply encryption in the Office desktop apps. For more information on licensing requirements, see Microsoft 365 licensing guidance for security & compliance. See Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive for more information about enabling application of sensitivity labels to files stored in the cloud.
BitLocker encrypted fixed drives after BIOS update with no warning
OS: Windows 11 Pro 25H2 Build 26200.8037 M/B: Asus TUF Gaming B850M-Plus Wifi I had been running a BIOS version which is about 1 year old on a fairly recent motherboard model. I have always had an issue show up where PCR7 binding was not possible. I only run under a local account and did not want BitLocker on anyway so no big deal. The few days ago, I updated the BIOS to a later version (not the latest). Yesterday I happened to notice that my drives were all encrypted XTS-AES 128, although BitLocker was not set up. Checking the event viewer, I saw BitLocker-API messages to confirm that starting right after the BIOS update Windows decided, with no warning or indication, to encrypt all my drives. I went to the Settings Drive encryption page (which was not even available before the BIOS update) and say Drive encryption was on. So I turned it off. The BIOS update must have fixed the PCR7 issue. Microsoft does know about this machine since I use a subscription to Microsoft-365, but Windows is only running under a Local account. So is this expected behavior that Windows would just willy-nilly encrypt my drives without telling me? What I read tells me it should not have. What's the best way to prevent this?
