Custom Engine Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot

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Agents in BizChat has been available for some time already, but now there is an upcoming update to Agents. The introduction of “ custom engine agents ” in Microsoft 365 Copilot! These specialized agents can be built on any large language model (LLM), toolchain, or orchestration tool, tailored specifically for your domain or tenant workflows. Initially supported in Microsoft Teams, this feature will soon be available in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat ( BizChat ).   The introduction of Custom engine agents enables your organization to create customized experiences using your own AI systems and orchestrators. You can design unique prompts, connect to any LLM, and integrate these custom agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot. After the rollout, users will be able to access these agents, provided they are enabled and deployed in the Microsoft 365 admin center under the Copilot tab.   You can read more about the feature on this page . Eligible users can create agents using Micros...

A couple of favorite news on Teams this week

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There have been a lot of news around Teams the past week(s), and I wanted to share some of the highlights I am excited about this week. The place to be to get these news firsthand is to be a member of the Microsoft Teccommunity, and to follow the Teams blog found right here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog

The first and most important post to read this week, is Ann Michel's post on news in the April release for Teams. There are a lot of cool new features listed there, such as:
- Skype for Business contacts coming to Teams
- Unified presence
- Out of Office messages
- Skype for Business Interop with Persistent chat
- Expanded Guest Access (I'll cover that as my favorite in a later post)
- New Admin Center
- Retention policies
- Teams installed as a MSI package
- Guest Access on mobile (all platforms)
Read the entire post right here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/What-s-new-in-Microsoft-Teams-April-update/ba-p/179801

Thomas Binder has a new post on "IT Pro readiness for Microsoft Teams". It's a quick intro to updated documentation on docs.microsoft.com, and a collection of tutorial every organization preparing for Teams should be familiar with. Take a look for yourself right here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/IT-pro-readiness-for-Microsoft-Teams/ba-p/179216

There is an in-depth post from Christian Schacht on the announced Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/Announcing-the-new-Microsoft-Teams-amp-Skype-for-Business-Admin/ba-p/179534 The portal is just about to roll out, so it could take some time until you see it in your own tenant.

Another great announcement was the "Teams On Air" episode 65 on "Direct Routing for enterprise voice in Microsoft Teams". This is THE feature I've been waiting for, as Microsoft is not currently providing PSTN in my customer's region. It's also a great for those companies who need a co-existing scenario with their own on-premises pbx. Looking forward to test the setup and end-user experience here. Watch the show on Youtube: