Microsoft Ignite 2025 - A look behind the scenes

ITpoint Systems AG was right in the thick of things with Eve Meier, Sam Jud, and Michael Böbner. Together, they used the keynote, sessions, deep-dive labs, and discussions with the product teams to understand what this transformation means for our customers and for us as a managed service provider. The answer is clear: a new era of cloud, security, data intelligence, and automation is upon us—and we are ready to implement it together with our customers.

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Here are their key findings:

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1. Copilot & AI agents – Microsoft gets serious

What was just a vision last year is now a platform:
Copilot has grown from an assistance tool to an orchestrating work engine.

Agent 365—the new management center for AI workflows

One of the technical breakout sessions clearly demonstrated how far Microsoft has come.
Agent 365 is not just a dashboard, but a complete governance and runtime layer for AI agents in enterprises.

We were able to test the system live. The following was particularly impressive:

• Agents can be managed like identities—including access, roles, and policies.
• Flows, automations, and triggers can be monitored, audited, and documented.
• Risks, data paths, and external dependencies are visualized transparently.
• Companies can "release," "freeze," or automatically limit agents.

For us, this means:
In the future, we will not only be able to maintain systems, but also design, secure, and monitor AI-based workflows.

This greatly expands our role as a managed service provider.

Work IQ - Context becomes a superpower

One of the highlights was the introduction of Work IQ, the new semantic layer in Microsoft 365.

Work IQ...

• Understands roles, teams, priorities, and recurring tasks
• Recognizes patterns, bottlenecks, and dependencies
• suggests suitable agents or automations
• learns from documents, chats, emails, and meetings (in compliance with all compliance rules)

In a demo lab, we were able to test how Work IQ displays live context to an employee ("You already mentioned this topic in yesterday's meeting" or "You often work with person X on document type Y").

It sounds like science fiction—but it's already a reality in the preview.

2. Copilot in Office apps – from "assistance" to "co-creation"

The new features feel completely integrated. A few observations from the hands-on sessions:

Agent Mode in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

In Word, you can now say, for example:

Based on our latest QBR minutes, create an executive summary and suggest suitable visualizations for PowerPoint.

Word creates the summary, Excel generates the KPIs, and PowerPoint designs the slide set— without media discontinuity.

Copilot Voice on mobile devices

Michael Böbner has tested it several times:
While walking through the exhibition grounds, you can use voice commands to summarize an email or prepare for a meeting. The speech recognition works extremely efficiently and is context-aware.

Teams Mode - AI in collaboration

Teams will get a "Collaborative Copilot Mode" that:

• Structured discussions
• Action items automatically distributed
• Documents generated from meetings
• Recognizes follow-up tasks without anyone having to formulate them

The quality is more reminiscent of a personal project manager than a chat interface.

3. Azure, cloud infrastructure, and data—the foundation of the new AI world

Microsoft has spent a lot of time explaining that AI is only half as effective without data architecture.

We paid particular attention to the Azure track because our customers' future requirements are clearly moving in the direction of:

• scalability
• Observability
• Secure data hosting
• Automated workflows

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Azure Fabric & Foundry – Data becomes "AI-ready"

The technical roadmap shows:

• more pipelines for unstructured data
• Automated classification & data governance
• Optimized integration into Copilot agents
• Reduced latency for inferencing workloads

The essence of the Ignite message:
Cloud + data + AI will be operated as a single entity in the future, rather than as three separate systems.

For us, this means:
We must help customers organize their data landscape in a way that is AI-compatible—secure, structured, and traceable.

4. Security—AI is only as strong as its protective mechanisms

At Ignite 2025, one thing was clearer than ever:
When agents make decisions and execute workflows automatically, security must be the top priority.

Microsoft has introduced several features:

Intelligent audit and compliance levels

Copilot records and explains why an agent does something.
This is crucial for governance and risks.

Sentinel + generative AI

What used to be an incident marathon is now becoming:

Describe the attack chain to me and generate an automated response plan.

We were able to see it live—and it was impressive.

Identity & Access for Agents

Agents are given clear identities and are only allowed to do what is explicitly permitted.
This prevents "runaway automation," a real risk in early AI systems.

From ITpoint's perspective, one thing is clear:
In the future, we will need to consider security as AI security.
This affects identity, governance, auditing, lifecycle, and monitoring on a completely new level.

5. What does all this mean for our role as a managed service provider?

After several intense days at Ignite, our conclusion is clear:

We are facing a paradigm shift—and ITpoint is ready to accompany it.

We are becoming our customers' AI operational partner.

Not just infrastructure.
Not just support.
But:

• AI governance
• Agent lifecycle management
• process automation
• data strategy
• Security design for AI

We help companies become more productive

Copilot agents can be used to automate many processes:

• Offboarding/Onboarding
• reporting
• ticketing
• customer communication
• Contract and document processes

We bring order to the new complexity of AI

Many companies don't know where to start.
We build:

• clear roadmaps
• uniform policies
• scalable architectures
• secure governance models

We create added value before "shadow AI" emerges

Without guidance, agents and co-pilot apps will otherwise spring up like mushrooms.

Conclusion: The future of corporate IT is AI-driven—and we are helping to shape it.

Ignite 2025 was not only inspiring for us, but also groundbreaking.
We saw how Microsoft is creating the technological foundation on which companies can build their future.

And we at ITpoint are ready to translate, implement, and sustainably operate this future—together with our customers.

2026 will be the year when AI becomes part of everyday work.
Our task is to turn this into productive, secure, and sustainable solutions.

If you want to know how AI can improve your work processes in concrete terms, where real efficiency potential lies, and how you can keep risks under control, talk to us. We will show you which steps make sense for your company and how you can make the transition pragmatically and securely.