The Intelligence Age

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Explore how Merethe Stave demonstrates that building a strong Teams culture is essential for successful AI and Copilot adoption in business. This episode unpacks practical strategies for overcoming resistance, integrating AI into daily workflows, and fostering trust and transparency. Gain actionable insights to help your organisation thrive in the evolving digital landscape. 

🎙️ Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/776 

👉 What you’ll learn    

• How to create a collaborative Teams culture for AI success 
• Steps to overcome resistance and guide teams through change 
• Practical ways to integrate Copilot and AI into daily work 
• The importance of trust and transparency in digital transformation 
• How to use data and feedback to drive adoption and improvement 

✅ Highlights    

• “You need a Teams culture before you can succeed with Copilot.” 
• “It is a skill that we need to gain and we need to mature in that skill.” 
• “AI is helping you to get quicker from nothing to something.” 
• “You have to put your voice on top of that.” 
• “We go into Microsoft 365 and check how are they working.” 
• “There’s nothing wrong or right in where you are. This is where you are right now.” 
• “You have to listen to people and understand what the fear is about.” 
• “Moving from private chat in Teams and email into channels and Teams, it challenged the power structure in our organisation.” 
• “It’s about building trust and a culture of, yes, we are building each other good.” 
• “If you have that in the ground, it’s not a problem with AI.” 
• “You need to get order of your stuff, get your stuff in order to work well with Copilot.” 
• “You have to start somewhere and then make a roadmap to what’s next.” 

🧰 Mentioned    

• Microsoft 365 Copilot - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot 
• Copilot in Teams - https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-in-teams/ 
• Copilot Studio - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/microsoft-copilot-studio/  
• Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzf0yupPbVkqdRJDPVE4PtTlm6quDhiu7 

✅ Keywords    
teams culture, ai adoption, copilot, digital transformation, microsoft 365, organisational change, trust, transparency, resistance, collaboration, viva insights, sharepoint 

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM 
 
Explore how Microsoft, through the expertise of Aisha Hasan, is evolving governance and agent management in the age of AI. Learn practical strategies for balancing innovation, risk, and compliance as Copilot Studio and Agent 365 reshape enterprise workflows. Discover actionable insights for building, governing, and upskilling in applied AI.

🎙️ Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/775 

👉 What you’ll learn   

• Define and apply core governance principles for AI and agents 
• Shift from reactive to proactive governance in enterprise environments 
• Empower users and IT admins to manage agent sprawl and compliance 
• Leverage Agent 365 for holistic agent oversight and lifecycle management 
• Build a three-pillar governance strategy: product, admin, and user education 

✅ Highlights   

• “Our principles have not changed, let's say that they have evolved to put more focus on certain things as compared to others.” 
• “With AI, the need for proactive governance, I think, is far greater than ever before.” 
• “Agent 365 is a starting point and it's a very good starting point in terms of the effort of consolidating that view for an IT admin.” 
• “Governance itself is rooted into basic principles. So those principles do not change regardless of the portfolio.” 
• “It takes a healthy balance of three pillars. One is what is available out-of-the-box and product.” 
• “How are you empowering your admins to be able to fill in those gaps that are there in the product, but you need them now to secure and govern your enterprise?” 
• “User education is quite important. Because if the product isn't self-governing, which means that you have gaps that the IT organization needs to fill, but there are some gaps maybe even the IT organization can't fill.” 
• “Continue to educate your users through a centre of excellence or sort of a hub, and also use that hub to upskill on how to not just only build agents, but build meaningful, impactful agents and adopt good hygiene practices.” 

🧰 Mentioned   

• Microsoft Copilot Studio - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/microsoft-copilot-studio/ 
• Agent 365 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-agent-365 
• Microsoft Digital - https://www.microsoft.com/insidetrack/blog/digitally-transforming-microsoft-our-it-journey/ 

 
✅ Keywords   
ai governance, agent 365, copilot studio, power platform, compliance, enterprise workflows, proactive governance, user education, admin empowerment, agent sprawl, microsoft digital, centre of excellence 

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

👉 Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/774

Discover how open-source thinking, practical licensing solutions, and AI-powered development are reshaping the way business and tech professionals build, protect, and scale technology on the Power Platform. Gain actionable insights on responsible AI adoption, developer productivity, and building trust through transparency. Check out this episode of AI Unfiltered Show with Florian Krönert.

🎙️What you’ll learn 

• How to protect intellectual property in Dataverse and Power Platform 
• Practical approaches to offline licensing using JSON Web Tokens 
• Strategies for using AI as a coding partner, not a replacement 
• The value of open-source tools for trust and transparency 
• Key differences between consulting and in-house tech roles 

✅ Highlights 

• “If you have an administrator who decides to mess with your logic to override your assemblies, there’s nothing to do against that.” 
• “Licenses are JSON web tokens which are signed by you digitally so that they can be stored offline, validated offline, and will work as seamlessly as possible.” 
• “I wanted to have a trust relationship with everyone who incorporates my solution.” 
• “You just install the NPM package. You insert some data that you can generate on the Yanis Guard portal.” 
• “I like it a lot for telling it ideas that I want to implement and how I want to implement it.” 
• “What turned out the best for me personally was to use AI like as a partner programming peer.” 
• “If I’m not able to really reliably reproduce what AI wrote for me, then I better not use it as much as I did before.” 
• “You are very nearer to your end users. The feedback is very direct and you really see where the pain points are for the end users of your product and your platform.” 
• “If you want to grind your way up fast, I can only recommend doing so. You can never learn as much in so little time as when doing it in big companies that have so many customers in parallel.” 

🧰 Mentioned 

• Microsoft Power Platform: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform 
• Dataverse: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/dataverse 
• JSON Web Token (JWT): https://www.jwt.io/ 
• GitHub: https://github.com/ 
• React: https://react.dev/ 
• Fluent UI: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fluentui 

✅Keywords 
power platform, dataverse, licensing, open source, ai, json web token, developer productivity, trust, npm, react, chatgpt, consulting 

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

Kurt Rolland shares practical strategies and philosophical insights at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and AI adoption. This episode explores how business and tech professionals can optimise energy use, leverage Copilot and agentic AI, and make ethical decisions in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

🎙️ Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/773 

🔑 What you’ll learn   

• Reduce operational costs with sustainable energy solutions 
• Evaluate the impact of AI agents on business productivity 
• Build resilience in tech projects through local adaptation 
• Balance automation with privacy and ethical considerations 
• Apply practical frameworks for optimising personal and team workflows 

 👉 Highlights   

• “We’re actually able to generate about 100% of our electricity.” 
• “We dropped our energy about 60% annually just going to geothermal.” 
• “Copilot used to be one thing. Now there’s many copilots.” 
• “It still requires a heck of a lot of effort to get an agent tuned enough to my needs.” 
• “We’re data radiators now as human beings.” 
• “For every convenience, you’re giving up some level of freedom.” 
• “Is that what we want? Can we, but should we?” 
• “Human bodies thrive on some level of resistance or friction.” 
• “Surveillance is… it seems like we don’t talk about it enough.” 
• “We’ve got a facade of Brave New World, but the background behind it is 1984.” 

 🧰 Mentioned   

• Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/ 
• SharePoint: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration 
• Office 365: https://www.office.com/ 
• M365 Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot 
• Copilot Studio: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/microsoft-copilot-studio/ 
• Personal Agent Builder: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/extensibility/agent-builder-build-agents 
• Microsoft MVP YouTube Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzf0yupPbVkqdRJDPVE4PtTlm6quDhiu7 

✅Keywords   
ai, copilot, agents, automation, sustainability, energy independence, privacy, surveillance, workflow, geothermal, office 365, ethical technology 

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

🎙️ Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/772

A practical conversation with data and AI manager Eickhel Mendoza about evolving from building Power Apps to architecting secure, mixed Power Platform and Azure solutions. He explains why a fast‑changing ecosystem suits a cookbook approach, how he curates real use‑case recipes, and what it takes to keep guidance current as UI and AI features ship rapidly. Clear takeaways on solution design, reviewer rigor, and creating applied examples that help teams ship performant apps.

👉 What you’ll learn 

• How to architect Power Platform solutions that integrate Azure and customer APIs securely. 
• Ways to infuse AI into existing business processes and automations. 
• A repeatable “cookbook” method for producing practical, up‑to‑date guidance. 
• Techniques for organising ideas into actionable recipes with real constraints. 
• How to maintain performance, quality images, and clear instructions through review. 

✅ Highlights 

• “We are improving those solutions with the inflection of AI in their processes.” 
• “Customers are focused on having everything secure in their infrastructure.” 
• “I didn’t want to replicate Microsoft Learn.” 
• “We want to do something like a cookbook.” 
• “The book is filled with tips and tricks.” 
• “Copilot is still in the early years.” 
• “Stop the presses. I need to update the images.” 
• “Power Apps Everywhere tries to include Power Apps everywhere.” 
• “My best ideas come from the shower.” 
• “Rebecca builds every actual recipe to see if it checks out.” 
• “Use case scenarios, best practice and stuff like that.” 
• “If that helped you in any way, it checks out.” 

🧰Mentioned 

• Power Apps: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/ 
• Dataverse: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/data-platform-intro 
• SharePoint Online: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration 
• Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot 
• Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Power-Apps-Cookbook-user-friendly-ebook/dp/B0DHDBLCCM?ref_=ast_author_mpb

👉KeyWords 
power apps, canvas apps, model‑driven apps, power platform, azure, dataverse, sharepoint, power bi, copilot, dataflows, microsoft fabric, teams

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

AI adoption is accelerating, but compliance alone won’t protect your business. In this episode, Santosh Kaveti explores practical strategies for managing AI risk, securing data, and scaling responsibly while unlocking new revenue streams.

👉 Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/771

🎙️ What you’ll learn 

• How to move beyond compliance to build security-first AI systems 
• Four stages of AI adoption and where your organisation should be now 
• Why data quality and governance are critical for AI success 
• How to manage cultural change and workforce fears around AI 
• Practical steps to create agents and leverage multi-agent ecosystems 

✅ Highlights 

• “Compliance is a result of really good security hygiene.” 
• “Organisations will lose more by not embracing AI than worrying about what it might do.” 
• “Most companies are still illiterate when it comes to wrapping their head around AI risks.” 
• “Regulation is not moving as fast as it should. And it won’t.” 
• “Security has to be the foundation and basis for everything that happens in the AI world.” 
• “Most organisations should be in the low-code, no-code phase by now.” 
• “You cannot bolt on security after the fact in AI.” 
• “Everybody in every organisation should have created at least one agent for themselves.” 
• “AI is not going to work just because you have an AI team deployed.” 
• “You have to become AI native and then you have a huge opportunity in front of you.” 

🧰 Mentioned 

• ProArc – https://www.proarch.com/
• RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) – https://open-rag.ai 
• MCP servers – https://www.mcplist.ai 
• AIExamine – https://www.proarch.com/services/aixamine
• Mondra – https://www.mondra.com 
• Meta Llama – https://ai.meta.com/llama 

✅Keywords 
ai compliance, security hygiene, data governance, multi-agent systems, low-code platforms, ai risk management, responsible ai, enterprise ai, agentic frameworks, synthetic data, ai adoption, ai literacy

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

Alax Cox shares how Microsoft Copilot is reshaping productivity, compliance, and workflow automation for business and tech professionals. Learn practical strategies for maximising ROI, overcoming adoption barriers, and building robust AI governance. This episode delivers actionable insights for leaders and teams integrating AI into daily operations.

🎙️ Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/770

🔑 What you’ll learn 

• Evaluate Copilot’s ROI and time-saving potential for your organisation 
• Implement a structured Copilot onboarding and training programme 
• Address compliance and governance challenges in AI adoption 
• Leverage agentic AI for workflow automation and business processes 
• Build effective AI governance boards and policies 

 👉 Highlights 

• “Copilot has completely transformed my entire direction as far as my focus around the 365 stack.” 
• “Microsoft has a much bigger story to tell. As part of that evangelist for 365, we all now have a better story to tell.” 
• “If a person is drawing a salary of 70,000 US dollars a year, they only have to save themselves 54 minutes a month in order to recoup that value.” 
• “83% of their people see that it saves them about 29% of their day.” 
• “We run a jumpstart programme for Copilot to help organisations keep going with Copilot.” 
• “By the time they're done, they're like, that's going to save us so much time just in Teams, maybe just in Outlook, maybe in Excel.” 
• “There's a side of Copilot that people don't even realise exists, and that's the whole agentic side of Copilot.” 
• “A big question of compliance and governance, which is why I tell clients, you can use ChatGPT, but where does it go from there?” 
• “Copilot is about the data. Copilot is not going to access anything that you don't already have access to.” 
• “Start off with a pilot group. I always start off with executives that probably have access to everything anyway.” 
• “Treat it as if it's an assistant. Give it very detailed instructions when you're working with it.” 
• “You can't, you're not going to hurt anything. Just look Copilot, just do it.” 

🧰 Mentioned 

• Microsoft Copilot - https://copilot.microsoft.com/ 
• Microsoft 365 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365 
• Teams - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app 
• SharePoint - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration 

✅Keywords 
copilot, microsoft 365, ai, productivity, compliance, governance, workflow automation, agentic ai, roi, onboarding, training, purview, teams

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

🔴 For full Show Notes 
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/769

Hosts: Mark Smith, Meg Smith

In this season finale, Meg and Mark explore how to future-ready your career before layoffs hit. They use Earl Nightingale’s “The Strangest Secret” as a springboard to talk about AI-driven disruption, the illusion of job security, and why side hustles, weak-tie networks, and daily learning matter. Meg shares her 10-minute podcast habit that reignited her career, while Mark unpacks planning A, B, and C, trimming fixed costs, and using StrengthsFinder and structured interview prep to translate your strengths into new opportunities.

👉Join the private WhatsApp group for Q&A and community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0iyXcUVhpl9um7DuKLYEz

🎙️What you’ll learn

• Recognise the illusion of job security in an AI dominated world
• Design plan A, B, and C so a layoff does not put you in panic mode
• Start small, sustainable learning habits even when you only have 10 minutes
• Use StrengthsFinder and your strengths language to target better-fit roles
• Prepare interview stories with the SBI method to prove impact with evidence

✅Highlights

• “We become what we think about.”
• “There is a coming risk of us to bury our head in the sand and think that the way we work is going to be there forever.”
• “I honestly believe that there's going to be a scenario where entire companies that have been around for decades are going to disappear.”
• “Maybe you can find 10 minutes to start with. And then you might be able to set the ball rolling.”
• “The first time they were on LinkedIn was because they got laid off.”
• “Out of that becomes the ability to connect you to potentially your next opportunity.”
• “One of them was to look at our personal finances and cut the fat.”
• “For me, trying to figure out how to transfer my or translate my skills, the thing I started with was StrengthsFinder.”

🧰Mentioned

• The Strangest Secret - Earl Nightingale https://amzn.to/3Mb99GM 
• 90 Day Mentoring Challenge https://www.90daymc.com/
• StrengthsFinder / CliftonStrengths
• SBI (Situation, Behaviour, Impact)

✅Connect with the hosts

Mark Smith:  
Blog https://www.nz365guy.com
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nz365guy

Meg Smith:  
Blog https://www.megsmith.nz
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/megsmithnz 

Subscribe, rate, and share with someone who wants to be future ready. Drop your questions in the comments or the WhatsApp group, and we may feature them in an upcoming episode.

✅Keywords: ai, layoffs, job security, weak ties, linkedin, strengths finder, cliftonstrengths, digital literacy, side hustles, career resilience, interview prep, networking

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM

👉 Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/768  

Agentic AI is transforming enterprise technology by moving beyond content generation to autonomous actions. In this episode of Copilot Show, Mehrnoosh Sameki explores the risks, guardrails, and governance frameworks needed to deploy AI agents safely and effectively.
 
🎙️ What you’ll learn 

• How agentic AI differs from generative AI and why it matters 
• Key risks: task misalignment, prohibited actions, sensitive data leakage 
• Practical guardrails and evaluation strategies for AI agents 
• How to manage agent sprawl with Microsoft Foundry Control Plane 
• Why red teaming and observability are critical for AI safety 

✅ Highlights 

• “Everything that I hear at work is about agentic AI.” 
• “Agents don’t just output text or image. They take actions.” 
• “Task alignment and staying on task is a huge one.” 
• “Sensitive data leakage is more and more important.” 
• “Bad actors could overwrite those information with different techniques.” 
• “If you don’t know how many agents are out there, huge safety risk.” 
• “We released something called Foundry Control Plane.” 
• “Each agent gets a unique identity to suspend, quarantine, or stop.” 
• “You can set org-wide policies against your agents.” 
• “Red teaming is huge for identifying the risks.” 
• “Our AI red teaming agent gives you a scorecard of vulnerabilities.” 

🧰Mentioned 

• Microsoft Foundry Control Plane: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/control-plane/overview 
• Entra: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/microsoft-entra 
• Azure AI Foundry: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ai-foundry  
• Pyrit (open-source toolkit): https://github.com/Azure/PyRIT  
• AI red teaming agent: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/concepts/ai-red-teaming-agent 
• OpenAI partnership: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/01/21/microsoft-and-openai-evolve-partnership-to-drive-the-next-phase-of-ai  
• Credo AI: https://www.credo.ai  

✅Keywords 
agentic ai, generative ai, responsible ai, guardrails, observability, task misalignment, sensitive data leakage, agent hijacking, foundry control plane, entra, red teaming, ai governance 

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM 
 
AI is transforming identity security and giving cybercriminals superpowers. This episode explores the rise of deepfakes, social engineering, and why traditional MFA and recovery flows fail. Learn how businesses can protect digital trust and secure remote work in an AI-driven world. 

👉 Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/767

🎙️ What you’ll learn 

• Why generative AI accelerates identity theft and fraud 
• How deepfakes undermine video verification and trust 
• The hidden risks in MFA recovery and onboarding flows 
• Practical steps to secure help desks and remote workers 
• How mobile cryptographic attestation strengthens identity checks 

✅ Highlights 

• “Cybercrime now rivals the GDP of the world’s largest economies.” 
• “Generative AI has given superpowers to bad actors.” 
• “Deepfakes make it impossible to trust what’s on a video call.” 
• “Half of IT help desk calls are locked-out employees.” 
• “Recovery flows for MFA are fundamentally insecure.” 
• “North Koreans are applying for remote jobs using live deepfakes.” 
• “The camera on your laptop isn’t connected to the TPM chip.” 
• “We realised identity verification had to move to mobile.” 
• “HubSpot automated account recovery with high-assurance identity checks.” 
• “Okta recommends visual verification—but it’s slow and fragile.” 
• “Passkeys don’t eliminate passwords or provisioning risk.” 
• “AI lets attackers mimic company language and values effortlessly.” 

🧰 Mentioned 

• Nametag: https://getnametag.com/
• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com 
• Okta: https://www.okta.com 
• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com 
• Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com 
• Microsoft Entra ID: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identity-access/microsoft-entra-id 
• Cisco Duo: https://duo.com 
• Beyond Identity: https://www.beyondidentity.com 

✅Keywords 
ai security, identity theft, deepfakes, mfa recovery, remote work risk, social engineering, cybercrime growth, mobile attestation, okta, entra id, passkeys, generative ai

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith