Microsoft 365: The latest innovations from Microsoft Ignite 2023

Microsoft Ignite 2023, the annual event for developers and IT professionals, kicked off on the 15th of November 2023 with a keynote by CEO Satya Nadella. AI dominated the discussion as expected, and the speech in general gave us all renewed hope for the future of our businesses (partners and customers). In this blog, we will highlight some of the most exciting announcements for Microsoft 365 (Modern Work) and explain how they will impact Microsoft partners and customers in supporting their businesses. A separate blog for the Azure announcements from Ignite 2023 will also be available on this site.

Introducing SharePoint Premium

SharePoint Premium is Microsoft’s new AI-powered solution to transform content management, content experiences and get content ready for Microsoft Co-pilot, a set of tools that help people achieve more using AI, is now in preview and will be generally available early 2024. SharePoint Premium will build structure, security, and governance to ground an organization’s content, so Co-pilot has better information to leverage. New features will include:

• Content experiences to help information workers in their flow of work, allowing them to seamlessly discover, interact and collaborate with hundreds of file types, while providing fresh content using AI analytics with branded document packaging.
• Content solutions that optimize critical business processes with AI, security, and automated workflows.

SharePoint Premium also includes content processing and content governance services and solutions, with both new and existing capabilities from Microsoft Syntex and Microsoft SharePoint Advanced Management.

Stay on the lookout and in touch with our SureStep Ambassadors for Modern Work to get clarity on the availability of the services included in SharePoint Premium that will roll out between now and the first half of 2024!

MICROSOFT CLIPCHAMP AND APP INTEGRATIONS FOR MICROSOFT DESIGNER NOW AVAILABLE

Microsoft 365 is enabling a new era of visual content creation for commercial customers. With Microsoft Clipchamp and Microsoft Designer, Microsoft 365 is democratizing video and image creation. Intuitive user experiences enhanced by AI make it simple for anyone to create compelling visuals – no experience required. A point to make here is that this technology enhances the role of Marketing staff and graphic designers as opposed to the persistent narrative about AI threatening job security. Just see for yourself below:

**Microsoft Clipchamp

Clipchamp which is now generally available for commercial customers and can be accessed by users licensed for Microsoft 365 Enterprise (E3 and E5) and Business (Standard and Premium) suites.

Additionally, Clipchamp Premium features and licensing will become available in December 2023. These features will include 4K exports, organization brand kit capabilities and premium stock content (audio, video and graphics), with more premium features being added in the coming months, including AI-powered features. Customers will also be able to purchase Clipchamp independently of Microsoft 365 as a standalone license at https://clipchamp.com.

**Microsoft Designer

Designer is first coming to commercial customers through integrations in various Microsoft 365 apps, so users can create images within the flow of work. Microsoft 365 Enterprise (E3 and E5) and Business (Standard and Premium) users can now use Designer in Edge. Designer in Teams for creating announcement banners will become available in the coming weeks, and Co-pilot in Microsoft Designer for use in Word, PowerPoint and Whiteboard will be available by the end of 2023. A preview of the Designer app will become available to commercial customers in the coming months, followed by general availability later next year.

**Microsoft Loop

The Microsoft Loop app is now generally available for the web and mobile (iOS and Android) for commercial customers. The Loop mobile app (iOS and Android) is generally available for consumer customers as well. Full functionality is available to business customers as part of their Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium Licenses.

Recent improvements and new capabilities for the Loop app include:

• Workspace status: Currently in private preview, Workspace status will provide information such as upcoming deadlines and status changes to provide a simple overview and help people know where to direct their attention.
• Workspace descriptions: When a workspace is created, Loop will intelligently surface files and documents that may be related to the project. A more descriptive prompt can be included with the workspace title to return more refined results and kick off a workspace with everything that’s needed. This capability is in preview.
• Power Automate: Loop will integrate Power Automate to help simplify task tracking and project management. A new rule can be created in a Loop table enabling automatic notifications to be sent when the table is updated. This automation will help teams stay on track while saving time to focus on what matters. This capability is in preview.
• Start a workspace from Teams: After a Teams meeting, a Loop workspace will be able to be created and will be automatically populated with the related documents and notes from the meeting, helping a team get started on their project easily. This capability will be in preview by the end of 2023.

**An interesting observation is that the above Apps can help to drive the sales for Microsoft 365 Business Standard. This license has enjoyed popularity already in the SMB market because it is a comprehensive suite for organisations, but with the above additions, we now have new and exciting business use cases to drive uptake of Microsoft 365 Business Standard.

New Enhancements Frontline Workers

To close off the blog, let’s dive into the exciting changes in the licensing for Frontline workers.

Co-pilot (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) with commercial data protection will be available to all Microsoft Entra ID users starting with F3 licenses in December 2023. This new tool will bring AI-powered web searches, answers and content generation for frontline workers. And with commercial data protection, frontline workers will be able to make smart requests, like looking up inventory or summarizing large internal documents, without worrying they are sharing company data.

Shifts plugin for Microsoft Co-pilot for Microsoft 365: Frontline managers will be able to quickly get a list of important items, specific to their team and location, to speed up time-consuming tasks such as covering shifts and onboarding new employees. Shifts plugin for Co-pilot for Microsoft 365 will use prompts to retrieve insights for frontline managers, leveraging data from the Shifts app, in addition to user and company data it has access to, like Teams chat history, SharePoint, emails and more. This feature will be generally available in December 2023.

Deploy and manage frontline teams with dynamic membership capabilities: Generally available in December, admins will be able to better deploy their frontline by provisioning frontline worker accounts and their teams with group membership in the Teams admin center. Using dynamic groups from Microsoft Entra ID, admins will automatically be kept up to date as people enter, move within or leave the organization. This dynamic membership makes it easy to set up a consistent Teams channel structure to optimize strong frontline collaboration from day one.

Deploy Shifts at scale: A new deployment tool to deploy and manage shifts for frontline workforce across multiple locations in the Teams admin center will be in preview in December. Users will be able to standardize time-off reasons, schedule groups and shift settings across all frontline teams.

Simple authorization with domain-less sign-in: Frontline workers will be able to sign into Teams faster using only their employee ID, without having to type long domain names. This will be simple for frontline workers to use and easy to manage and deploy to reduce distribution and management overhead for IT admins. This feature will be available in preview in early 2024.

Should you wish to discuss any of the enhancements discussed in this blog, book time with our SureStep Ambassadors at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. today to stay future and AI ready!