Agentic AI, 400 AI use cases and more
Cloud Direct
Cloud Direct is one of the UK's leading Microsoft partners. We help our customers achieve fearless growth.
Did you know the first international rugby match was played on this day, 154 years ago?
Well, now you do.
Scotland scraped past England 1-0 on that day – the same margin by which the result was reversed in their most recent meeting – and since then the world of rugby has exploded. With Cloud Direct's teams split between the Gallagher Premiership's table-topping city of Bath and reigning world champions South Africa, it's fair to say we know our rugby pretty well.
But putting my egg-shaped ball aside for a moment, it's time to dive back into the world of Microsoft and update you on what's been happening, including...
🤖 Microsoft's Agentic Security AI
🔎 Copilot's new deep research capabilities
🧮 400+ ways businesses are using AI
🐘 Reporting live from London Zoo
🔒 Our next Security Lab livestream
Let's get stuck in, shall we?
Security AI Agents, at your service 🫡
Earlier this month, we raised the issue that two in three cybersecurity workers are facing burnout. Teams don't have the support they need to face increasingly complex, and increasingly common, cybersecurity threats.
Now, Microsoft has announced its latest raft of AI agents – tools that perceive an environment, understand contexts, and perform tasks independently – designed to tackle that specific issue.
Six new agents, which are designed to do things like triage and process phishing and data loss alerts, prioritize critical incidents, and monitor for vulnerabilities, will be available in preview from April, "enabling teams to autonomously handle high-volume security and IT tasks while seamlessly integrating with Microsoft Security solutions,“ according to Corporate VP of Microsoft Security, Vasu Jakkal .
Additionally, Microsoft is working with five third-party organisations to develop additional agents that will tackle tasks like analysing data breaches and performing root cause analysis of network outages and failures.
Microsoft launches deep research tools 🔎
With several other AI platforms releasing deep research tools of late – including ChatGPT and Gemini – Microsoft has joined the party with the addition of Researcher and Analyst to Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Researcher helps you tackle complex, multi-step research at work – delivering insights with greater quality and accuracy. It combines OpenAI’s deep research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advanced orchestration and deep search capabilities.
Analyst thinks like a skilled data scientist and transforms raw data to insights in minutes. It is built on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model and is optimised for advanced data analysis at work, using chain-of-thought reasoning to progress through problems iteratively.
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Copilot's deep research capabilities go above and beyond that of its competitors with the ability to access to work data, as well as the internet. For example, Researcher can tap into third-party data and draw on data from AI agents, tools, and internal apps like Confluence, ServiceNow, and Salesforce, to give you deeper insight into your organisation.
The two new tools will be available as part of the Frontier programme and accessible from April.
A treasure trove of AI ideas 🪙
We spend a lot of time talking about AI. It has come a long, long way in the past couple of years, and it's transforming the ways in which we work. But I appreciate there's a distinct possibility that it still feels a bit unrelatable to many businesses. Perhaps it feels like AI is just a bit too far down the line, or just out of reach.
To help explain that it's not, Microsoft have come to the rescue by compiling a library of more than 400 real-life business use cases. From Copilot to predictive analytics, multi-agent AI systems to large language models, you can scour this extensive list and find companies like yours, using AI in ways that might be relevant to you. If nothing else, it's a great source of ideas for your next use case!
Mastering AI and Microsoft Fabric 🧵
I'm at Zoological Society of London (ZSL) today, and while I'm yet to find any fellow hedgehogs I have found lions, wallabies, and lots of IT leaders excited by the future of artificial intelligence!
We've gathered a group here today to hear from our team of experts, as well as those from Microsoft , about how they can use AI to the advantage of their businesses, and how to get the most out of Microsoft Fabric. Throughout the day, talks from Mark Holmes , Abdullah Abu-Hassan , Daniel Knott , Leon Godwin and Sophie Marshall will explore the importance of building a data culture, how to build a successful AI strategy, and what a modern data platform may look like for them – as well as learnings from the recent Microsoft AI Tour.
We'll have plenty of learning to share once the team are back at base, so keep an eye on our LinkedIn feed for that. In the meantime, you can catch up on everything we covered on our last trip to London Zoo, when Dan and Leon talked about igniting innovation with Microsoft AI.
We've knocked our next event on 🗓️
Our latest episode of the Security Lab was scheduled to take place today, but a hectic fixture schedule has led to us nudging it into next week. Don't worry, you only have to wait until Monday 31 March to get expert insight from Sneha Bodade !
She'll be speaking to Leon Godwin live on LinkedIn all about data security posture management in the age of artificial intelligence, with the opportunity to ask your questions throughout the event.
For more info, access to our past Security Lab episodes, and to sign up to Monday's session, head over to our LinkedIn events or visit the website.
And that's the full-time whistle! We'll kick-off again in a fortnight's time.
See you there!
Eric 🦔