Yesterday’s Day 1 Keynote at the Microsoft Ignite contained some interesting announcements. Below are the ones that caught my attention.

Disclaimer: There are other announcements than these, and I may be misquoting or misinterpreting what was said. What I heard may or may not be what was said. Look at Microsoft’s official site for the definitive news. This report is what I heard and what resonated with me.

Security

Several people talked about the Secure Future Initiative – attempts by Microsoft to make cybersecurity a higher priority. Announcements included:

A hacking workshop (https://aka.ms/ZeroDayQuest)

The Copilot and AI stack exposes each layer of your AI process, allowing you to build your own Copilot or Agent to enhance the process at any point

The Windows Resiliency Initiative allows users to quickly recover their desktop setup in the event of an attack.

Security Copilot is embedded in multiple products, allowing you to identify and respond more quickly to cyber-attacks.

Microsoft Purview uses AI to identify potential attack patterns

Controls in M365 Copilot allow you to set policies preventing you from oversharing.

Admins can restrict which models are available to which developers

Copilot

Microsoft is releasing multiple “Agents,” which extend Copilot. Users can add moderators or facilitator agents to chats. SharePoint Agents were announced.

Rajesh Jha demoed an agent that offered near-real-time translation of a speaker’s voice. It even spoke in the voice of the original speaker.

Copilot Studio allows you to create CP Agents without writing code. Azure AI Agent Service allows you to write code to create more complex agents. Employee self-service agents can connect to an organization’s SharePoint, Teams, SAP, or other systems via connectors.

Copilot Analytics allow you to compare Copilot usage over time with business metrics.

Copilot pages are dynamic, persistent places to collaborate with others on content within Copilot.

Hardware

Copilot Devices are computers with NPU processors, optimized for AI

Windows 365 Link is a device that allows you to do your computing securely in the cloud.

AI

Azure AI Foundry supports over 1800 models

Azure AI Foundry

Azure AI Foundry is a unified platform to design, customize, and manage AI solutions.

It includes over 1800 models.

Many models are in GitHub. GitHub provides a playground in which you can test a model and compare the results of two models.

Azure AI Agent Service (in preview) allows you to extend your AI solution by grounding it in other data sources.

Azure AI Content Safety provides the ability to check images and text, flagging harmful content and identifying potential hallucinations.

GitHub Copilot

GHCP now offers the ability to make changes across multiple files with a single prompt

You can use GHCP to find vulnerabilities in your code. It now offers an option to fix those vulnerabilities automatically.

GitHub Copilot for Azure (in preview) generates and deploys code and services to Azure.

Windows and Windows Server 2025

The new Windows Hot Patch allows faster operating system updates with 65% fewer restarts

The Windows Admin Control Center v2 allows you to manage Hyper-V machines and migrate virtual servers seamlessly.

Conclusion

I did not hear a lot of revolutionary changes announced this year. Microsoft is evolving its offerings and doubling down on its commitment to AI and to increased Security.