As 2023 approaches its end, it’s time to look back on the previous year and see what was the best and the worst moments for us within IT.

Per-Torben

The best: Github copilot

Earlier in 2023 I started to use GitHub copilot and it’s been an amazing companion for my PowerShell code, both new and existing code has been greatly improved since then. It has also shown me a few tricks, and helped me with things like regex. I still can’t do regex if my life depended on it, but now I’m safe from that scenario.  The personal plan, which I use, is $100/year and for me it is worth every single cent. If you write any code, you should really look into it. By far the best of the copilots I’ve tested so far.

As with all AI, the answers aren’t always 100% correct and they need some verification and tweaking, but it’s an amazing tool to get started or to troubleshoot a faulty script.

The worst: Azure AI Speech – text to speech avatar

In November we had Microsoft Ignite where the topic was almost exclusively copilot(s) and AI. Azure AIs text to speech avatar went into public preview where a photo realistic avatar can “talk” to you, as demonstrated in this link. So why is this the worst?

To me this is the gift that keeps on giving for scammers and con-artists. For as long as I can remember there’s been spam email where they claim to be a long lost relative, or an injured army veteran or a lawyer who is working on some testament for a billionaire or whatever the case may be. It’s always the same: Send me money and you will receive much more in return. This is just bold statements in text with out any form of proof, verification or anything of the sort. Just a simple claim, and people still fall for it and money is being sent. Several speakers talked about this on NIC (Nordic Infrastructure Conference) in Oslo this year, and how with AI this problem will likely get much worse. If people are being tricked by bold claims in an e-mail containing nothing but text, how many will be duped by a video message from a photo-realistic Avatar?

If the e-mail above can trick people in to paying money (pardon the viking-language in the e-mail), then what can the AI-generated avatar below make people do?

Microsoft is far from the only company with avatars like this, but since my work is Microsoft-centric they get the dishonor of being called out on this. In my mind the positive impact of this tech is far, far, far outweighed by the potential for exploitation, and even though the limitations for custom avatars are being controlled by Microsoft for the moment, I fear it’s only a matter time before this can be actively used by scammers.

Åsne

The best: New job and Teams 2.0!

The 1st of April (not an Aprilfools joke!) my journey continued from Atea and took me to Crayon. So far I really love it, the people I get to work with every day, like these manificent beings in this blog, and the rest of the Crayon gang are such a inspiring bunch! I obvislouly miss a lot of the amazing people in Atea too, but we keep in touch!

Teams 2.0 was launched!

And with its new rebuild, it’s faster and ensures more efficient use of device resources.

And my personal favorite, is that you can have multiple accounts or tenants, the new Teams help eliminate the silos and bring them together in one place. I can be in a Teams meeting, and easily change to a customer’s tenant to look for specific files or messages without dropping out of the meeting.

Off course, the possibility of Shared Channels in Teams is also one of the biggest changes and a feature that I looked most forward to – It’s not 2023 biggest news, but the feature has really changed the way I can help people achieve more out of Teams. You don’t need to have a team for every single little thing anymore, you can easily just add a Shared Channel 😊

The worst: All the buz and talk about Copilot and not enough about what you actually need to do BEFORE you can even start thinking about using it!

The biggest news from Microsoft has of course been Copilot. And everyone is throwing all the best Copilot seminars, and the buzz is all over the place! And don’t get me wrong, I think Copilt CAN be a wonderful tool, when everything is done right..

Before you start using Copilot, you need to be aware of three important things: data quality, data governance, and data security. Let me explain why.

– Data quality: Copilot relies on the data you provide to generate insights and suggestions. If your data is incomplete, inaccurate, inconsistent, or outdated, Copilot may produce misleading or erroneous results. You need to ensure that your data is clean, reliable, and up to date before you feed it to Copilot. You can use tools like Microsoft Azure Data Factory or Power BI Data Quality to help you with this task. Just talk to Therese, she will guide you!

– Data governance: Copilot needs to know the context and meaning of your data to understand your business needs and goals. You need to define and document the structure, metadata, standards, policies, and rules that govern your data. You also need to assign roles and responsibilities for managing and using your data. You should use tools like Microsoft Purview to help you with this task.

– Data security: Copilot needs to respect the privacy and confidentiality of your data and comply with the relevant regulations and laws. You need to protect your data from unauthorized access, modification, or disclosure. You also need to control who can see and use your data and what they can do with it. You can use tools like Information Protection in Microsoft 365 Compliance to help you with this task.

If you don’t have control over your data, it won’t work – simple as that! And let me tell you, there really aren’t many that has that sort of control over their data in M365..

Tommy

The best: new job (MS Graph PWSH modules close second)

I started in my new role in May, and as everyone that has changed jobs, it usually brings a combination of both anxiety and anticipation. Well, the anxiety part was completely unfounded, as my transition into my new team was wonderful. Helpful and including colleagues abound, and I have felt like a part of the team from day one!

Also, the MS Graph Powershell module had its 2.0 release right before summer break. This release added support for authenticating using managed identities, something which makes secure credential handling a non-issue when working in Azure. More info here.

The worst: generative AI

LLMs and generative AI has been this years hottest topic. It shows a lot of promise, and I’m curious to see where this technology is in a year. I’m also fascinated by the societal changes it has the potential to bring. Nevertheless, as a tech head who likes the nitty gritty details (and don’t have a PhD in AI), it doesn’t excite me on a technical level at all. Maybe that changes next year?

Therese

The Best: New job!

I started working at Crayon in May and got to know this lovely bunch who writes this blog, in addition to a whole bunch of other amazing people! After working all my professional years in internal IT, it’s an entirely new world for me to be in a place where absolutely everyone is interested in the same things as you. Meeting customers with different challenges makes me learn incredibly much, not just technically but also about organizations and people. I love it!

The worst: Lack of Power Platform/Fabric Announcements during Ignite

This is more my own fault than Microsoft’s. I had really hoped for much more information and announcements about Power Platform, and especially Fabric, during this year’s Ignite. Instead, ‘everything’ revolved around CoPilot and AI. Perhaps my expectations were too high?