Microsoft Teams Insider

Tom Arbuthnot

Microsoft Teams discussions with industry experts sharing their thoughts and insights with Tom Arbuthnot of Empowering.Cloud. Podcast not affiliated, associated with, or endorsed by Microsoft.

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Yesterday · 28 min
Microsoft Teams Voice Agents and Unify Integration, What is Possible?
Gidi Adlersberg, Voca CIC Business Line Manager at AudioCodes, discusses the new Microsoft Teams Voice Agent Certification Program, with AudioCodes being the first vendor to achieve certification. • How the certification builds on Microsoft's Unify integration model, using the same Azure technology stack as the Microsoft Teams Contact Centre certification • The difference between Microsoft's native Teams Phone Agent and the extended, fully managed AI receptionist service from AudioCodes • Real-world use cases including caller authentication, knowledge base-driven troubleshooting, and sentiment-aware bot responses • Why proper bot-to-human escalation is critical and how context is preserved when transferring to a live Microsoft Teams user • AudioCodes' predictable, capped commercial model with no token-based charges • Implementation as a fully managed service, from proof of concept through to production Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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Monday · 14 min
Microsoft Teams Enterprise Update – September 2026
MVP Tom Arbuthnot shares all the latest Microsoft Teams news and announcements in less than 15 minutes for September 2026 Upcoming Events Events are back after the August pause: Teams Fireside Chat — Kim Matlock, Principal Lead Program Manager, Teams Rooms, with Matt Slomka · 10 September — going deep on Rooms, Android and the Pro Management Portal; bring your questions How a Global Legal IT Team Turned Message Center Chaos into Governance · 16 September Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything · 22 September M365 Change Community Round Up · 29 September Microsoft Teams Contact Center Face-Off: 5 Solutions, 5 Demos, 50 Minutes Live · 15 October — five certified vendors in one live session, each walking through their solution and what makes it different. Come and ask questions. Many thanks again to Ribbon, this month's benefactor. Hope this update has been useful
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September 2 · 26 min
Voice AI From POC to Production - The Key Lessons - Chris Bailey, Maersk
Chris Bailey, Lead Infrastructure Engineer (Voice and Contact Centre) at Maersk, discusses the practical realities of deploying voice AI across a global enterprise, from early proof of concepts to live production in 50 countries. • Why the business drove Voice AI adoption, approaching IT rather than the other way around • Inbound vs outbound use cases and why outbound finance collections proved the bigger success • Vendor selection beyond the incumbent: balancing AI voice quality and telephony integration • The integration challenge with PSTN transfers, SIP trunking, and API media streaming as the gold standard • Hidden costs including PSTN, resourcing effort, and the ongoing refinement voice AI demands • The "new hire" analogy for onboarding and monitoring your AI agent • Who should own voice AI in your organisation and bridging the skills gap between telephony and prompt engineering • Why business collaboration and clear ownership of responsibilities matter from day one Thanks to Ribbon, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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September 1 · 34 min
Mahendra Sekaran, Microsoft CVP, on AI Transformation, Copilot, Work IQ, and Multi-Model Agentic AI
Mahendra Sekaran, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, discusses the rapid pace of AI transformation and its impact on the communications and collaboration space. • Azure continues its strong growth at 43%, fuelled by accelerating AI adoption and cloud investment, with remaining performance obligations reaching $678 billion. • Microsoft's product teams are using AI agents to compress planning cycles from six to eight weeks down to days, with approximately 80% accuracy on cost estimates. • Full agentic loops are being built across Microsoft's code bases, transforming the software development lifecycle and accelerating iteration velocity. • Work IQ provides the platform layer that makes enterprise knowledge, including documents, emails, chats, meetings, and transcripts, accessible to Copilot and agents, whilst maintaining data governance and compliance. • Microsoft's multi-model approach gives customers choice across OpenAI, Anthropic, and in-house models, optimising for cost, performance, and flexibility. • Microsoft Teams Phone Agent is in Frontier Public Preview, enabling voice AI agents to front customer interactions with an expected 70-80% call deflection rate. Thanks to Pure IP, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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August 25 · 43 min
Beyond the Licence: Lessons from a Global Microsoft E7 Transformation and AI adoption
Ally Ward and Kevin Spence discuss the practical realities of moving 2,500 of 8,000 users from Microsoft E5 to E7, covering migration strategy, agent governance, consumption costs, Entra Suite, and lessons learned from a global legal practice. • Why E7 is far more than a simple licence swap and the operational complexity behind it • The hotel room analogy: how unassigned E7 licences impact your E5 capacity • The double-hop migration process and why the order of operations matters to avoid service desk chaos • Agent 365's promise versus reality: regional reporting gaps, licensing for agent consumers, and governance challenges • Entra Suite as a sleeper benefit bundled into E7 and the partial-coverage problem • The Cowork consumption credit conundrum: 175,000 credits burned in under a month by 20 users, how do you measure value? • Why agent governance is not an IT problem and needs business-wide engagement This episode is sponsored by Luware Recording - a cloud compliance recording and analytics solution that helps organisations securely capture, archive, and analyse communications across multiple platforms to meet regulatory requirements.
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August 18 · 27 min
How Pure IP Is Transforming Voice With AI and the Intelligent SIP Edge
Adnon Dow, Chief Product Officer at Pure IP, discusses how Pure IP is evolving from a traditional voice carrier into an intelligent SIP edge platform powered by AI. • How AI is reshaping voice infrastructure across three layers: network management, data intelligence, and service enablement • The shift from over-the-top services to embedding intelligence natively at the network edge, enriching calls at the point of entry • Why Pure IP's platform-agnostic approach works across Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom, and Contact Center environments • How a best-of-breed partner strategy delivers recording, fraud detection, and analytics without building everything from scratch • The rising threat of AI-driven robocalls and deep fakes, and how trusted call scoring and LRN networks help combat fraud • Where voice agents and agentic AI workflows are heading, and why network fundamentals remain critical to making them reliable Thanks to Pure IP, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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August 12 · 17 min
Microsoft Teams Phone: Recent New Features and What's Coming with Emily Kirby, Microsoft
Emily Kirby, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Teams Engineering, discusses the latest developments and future direction for Microsoft Teams Phone. • Multi-line calling: a multi-year effort now shipped, allowing multiple phone numbers on a single account across geographies • Consult and merge in meetings: dial out to an external party, navigate an IVR, and merge them back into the call - a big win for financial services and similar industries • Call transfer improvements: presence visibility for transfer destinations, blind handoff, and streamlined control bar buttons for faster workflows • Teams Phone Agent: an intelligent AI frontline to answer and route customer calls for your organisation • Intelligent call delegation: a personal AI delegate that screens calls, communicates on your behalf, and helps you stay focused • Automatic recording for call queues: now on the public roadmap, decoupling recordings from individual agents and centralising them in SharePoint • Making Copilot intelligence seamless: efforts to simplify turning on transcription, recaps, and other AI features in everyday phone workflows • Teams Phone Community: a quarterly initiative from the Microsoft calling team — join to connect with product managers and shape future topics Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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August 11 · 21 min
Javed Khan, CEO of Neat, on the Future of Meeting Rooms and New Capabilities with On-Device AI
Javed Khan, CEO at Neat, discusses his return to the industry and his vision for simple, open, intelligent collaboration experiences. • How advances in edge computing and smaller AI models are enabling a new wave of innovation in conference room experiences • The benefits of running AI locally on devices, including reduced latency, enhanced privacy, and real-time transcription and translation • Neat's vision for simplifying room setup and device management through Neat Pulse and their new MCP server integration • Supporting multiple platforms as the "Switzerland" of the devices industry, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google • The partnership with Microsoft on MDEP and what it means for manageability, security, and standardisation across devices Thanks to Neat, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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August 6 · 14 min
Microsoft 365 AI Workplace Update August 2026
MVP Tom Arbuthnot shares all the latest Microsoft Teams and Copilot news and announcements in less than 15 minutes for August 2026 Link to the deck: Microsoft 365 Enterprise Update - August 2026.pptx Fresh on Empowering.Cloud AudioCodes: Multi-Camera Teams Rooms on Android - with Alex Tan Teams Insider Podcast Microsoft Places Updates Explained - with Martin Boam, Microsoft. Desk booking, room booking and where AI fits. Dynamics 365 Contact Center Explained - with Alpana Bajaj, Product Lead, Microsoft. A great walk through where D365 Contact Center sits. Why Microsoft Is Quietly Winning with Enterprise AI - with Rishi Kumar, Logitech. A really interesting take on Microsoft's enterprise AI position. Thanks to Landis for their support of Empowering.Cloud
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August 4 · 43 min
Understanding Agent 365 Hands On: Managing and Securing AI Agents with Microsoft's Graham Hosking
Graham Hosking, Senior AI Solutions Engineer at Microsoft, breaks down Agent 365, Microsoft's approach to observing, governing, and securing AI agents across multi-platform environments. • How Agent 365 builds on existing Entra, Defender, and Purview capabilities to provide full visibility over AI agents • Live demo of a fully autonomous LangChain agent automatically flagged for risky behaviour by Defender • How third-party agents from Amazon, Google, Databricks, and Salesforce can be brought into a central registry • The Agent 365 SDK and how partners like Adobe, Atlassian, and Lovable are already baking in observability • Shadow IT monitoring for local AI agents via Defender for Endpoint • MCP tools and plugin management for controlling end-user access • Licensing breakdown: end-user based, one seat lights everything up, and the E5 to E7 step-up path • Bonus demo of Morgan, a fully autonomous digital CFO with voice and avatar interaction built on LangChain Thanks to Crestron, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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July 30 · 39 min
Microsoft Places Updates Explained: Desk Booking, Room Booking and AI with Martin Boam, Microsoft
Martin Boam, Architect - Centre of Excellence at Microsoft, walks through Microsoft Places, the AI-powered workplace solution for coordinating hybrid work, booking rooms and desks, and optimising space management. • The licensing shake-up: key Places user features now included in Microsoft Teams Enterprise licences from April 2025, plus a new Shared Spaces licence for desk and room booking at four desks per licence • Room reservations with Places Finder and Places Explorer, featuring enriched search with room images, occupancy details, and Microsoft Teams Rooms device information • Desk booking with map-based reservation, multi-day booking, desk pools, finding desks near colleagues, and ad hoc check-in via USB-C peripherals • Automatic work location updates using corporate Wi-Fi, now generally available with admin and user opt-in • Microsoft 365 Copilot integration for natural language scheduling, room finding, and conflict rescheduling via Work IQ • The new Places admin portal replacing PowerShell for managing buildings, floors, desks, auto-release policies, and space analytics • Upcoming investments including deeper Copilot alignment, enhanced location intelligence, and expanded extensibility Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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July 28 · 43 min
Dynamics 365 Contact Center Explained with Alpana Bajaj, at Microsoft
Alpana Bajaj, Partner Group Product Manager at Microsoft, discusses how Microsoft is reimagining the contact centre with AI-first design and agentic capabilities. • How Dynamics 365 Contact Center evolved from Omnichannel to a standalone, CRM-agnostic platform born in the AI era • The five out-of-the-box AI agents: Customer Assist, Quality Assurance, Case Management, Knowledge Management, and ServiceOps • Real-world customer stories, including double-digit improvements in call deflection, wrap-up time, and CSAT scores • How Microsoft uses its own contact centre as a testing ground, serving over a billion customers across 40+ languages • Licensing simplified: per-seat for human agents, consumption-based Copilot Studio credits for AI capabilities • A practical ROI framework covering customer experience, operational efficiency, and revenue generation Link to the deck: Agentify Your Contact Center Alpana Bajaj Link to the Commonwealth Bank case study Thanks to Ribbon, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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July 22 · 16 min
Why Microsoft Is Quietly Winning with Enterprise AI with Rishi Kumar, Logitech
Rishi Kumar, Director of Alliances and Go-to-Market at Logitech, discusses how Microsoft is positioning itself as the enterprise AI leader, the growing role of edge computing in meeting rooms, and what it all means for IT professionals. • Why Microsoft's enterprise-first AI approach with Work IQ and trusted data boundaries is resonating with IT teams • How meeting recaps have become the top AI use case, including new video and custom recap features • Microsoft's multi-model strategy and the new E7 Frontier suite for enterprise AI deployment • Logitech's work on AI at the edge, from beamforming microphones to the Logitech Spot sensor for room intelligence • The evolving role of the meeting room, including facilitator room skills and camera-based room management Thanks to Logitech, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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July 14 · 46 min
Craig Durr, The Collab Collective: Why the Device Market Forecast Dropped From 6% to 3%
Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder at The Collab Collective, discusses his revised five-year video conferencing device market forecast and why he has taken his compound annual growth rate prediction down from roughly 6% to just under 3%. • The "triple replacement wave": Windows 10 to 11, Android 10 to 12, and ageing BYOD devices are driving room refresh priorities across enterprises • Budget compression: rising DRAM costs are pushing device prices up, meaning IT teams can refresh fewer rooms with the same budget (for example, 85 rooms instead of 100) • How the Mythos AI model creates an unexpected new variable. Cisco reviewed over a billion lines of code, and upcoming network infrastructure refreshes could pull budget away from collaboration devices • Regional outlook: North America stays competitive, EMEA remains strong, and Asia Pacific (including India) emerges as a key growth opportunity • AI in the room: the "brain in the room" concept is driving excitement, but feature velocity continues to outpace adoption • OEM competition: with more vendors entering a slower-growing market, management platforms and support models are becoming key differentiators Thanks to Nuwave, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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July 13 · 15 min
Microsoft 365 AI Workplace Update July 2026
It's the start of Microsoft's new financial year and there's already a lot to unpack. In this month's update we cover the new Microsoft Frontier company, Cowork going GA (and the new consumption cost model), a wave of Copilot and model updates, plus a huge run of Teams calling, meetings and devices news from InfoComm - including the big Teams Phone Agent announcement. Huge thanks to this month's benefactor, Neat, for their continued support of the community. Neat have just announced an MCP server for their management platform (a first for OEM tooling) and their intelligent framing beta. Details on the Neat blog — and check out Graham's video on the Neat MCP server. 🔑 Key topics • Microsoft Frontier - new $2.5bn company, 6,000 embedded ("forward deployed") engineers to drive enterprise AI adoption • M365 price rises now live (business/frontline/enterprise up ~8-15%, frontline up 25–33%); annual local currency adjustments coming each January • Cowork now GA - fully consumption-based (Copilot credits); example use cases range from ~$1 to $7+ and can climb fast with heavier models. GPT-5.5 available in the EU data boundary • Copilot - Sonnet 5 selectable, Work IQ reasoning over Power BI, new vision capabilities, Notebooks rolling out to Copilot Chat • Models - Fable back in Claude, GPT-5.6 rumoured, Microsoft leaning more on first-party models • Agents - Planner agent GA, Sales agent GA (in M365 Copilot license), Dynamics Service agent announced, AI content watermarking • Copilot Super App due August - merges Copilot Chat, Cowork & GitHub Copilot; plus a look at Anthropic's Claude Tag • Teams Phone Agent - Microsoft's AI auto/mainline attendant, tied into Copilot Studio • Multi-line GA, Queues app GA on mobile, dedicated Recap app, Facilitator with internet access + voice mode • Admin - new transcript access controls, auto-block bots; Live Events and Together mode retiring • Rooms - 1.5M active rooms (1,000+ added/day), IntelliFrame People Labels (Huddly first), Express Enrollment, new AVIXA training • Devices - Android devices coming to Pro Management portal; Cisco native Zoom Rooms, Crestron Compute GA, Jabra new service plans 📅 July events • 21 Jul - Teams Devices AMA (with AudioCodes) • 22 Jul - Microsoft Partner Kickoff (summary to follow) • 23 Jul - Teams Phone Agent webinar (with Pure IP & Microsoft) • Late July - Copilot Fireside Chat • Ongoing - M365 Community Change Roundup 🔗 Links • Empowering.Cloud • Ilya InfoComm keynote (speed edit) • Neat MCP server + Graham's video • Teams Phone Agent demo • Slides and Links
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July 7 · 29 min
Microsoft Teams Phone and Recording - API Integrations, Automations - Ben Richardson at SmartSearch
Ben Richardson, Infrastructure Engineer at SmartSearch, and Andy Whiteside, VP of Sales at Numonix, discuss SmartSearch's move from legacy on-premise call recording to Numonix's IX Cloud platform for Microsoft Teams. • SmartSearch needed more than compliance recording, with usability, QA reporting, and third-party integration as critical requirements • How SmartSearch integrated Numonix with Attention to automate sales call scoring and update HubSpot CRM via API • Deploying Numonix took just 20 minutes and five PowerShell commands, compared to days with legacy on-premise recording systems • Bring-your-own Azure storage allowed SmartSearch to meet strict InfoSec and data sovereignty requirements • Practical advice for organisations evaluating Microsoft Teams compliance recording, from cross-department requirements gathering to vendor certification checks Thanks to Numonix, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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July 1 · 39 min
How Microsoft, Zoom, and Cisco Are Approaching AI Differently With Kevin Kieller, enableUC
Kevin Kieller, Co-Founder and Lead Analyst at enableUC, discusses how the major unified communications vendors are taking distinctly different approaches to AI and what this means for IT professionals and organisations. • How Microsoft, Zoom, and Cisco are each pursuing different AI strategies, from rapid deployment to simplicity-first to proactive ambient intelligence • Why UCaaS platforms have reached feature parity on core capabilities and what that means for vendor selection • The shift towards consumption-based AI pricing and the challenge of balancing enterprise cost predictability with encouraging adoption • Why data and context matter more than having the best model, and the risks when AI assistants access information without clear boundaries • Google's underappreciated position in the AI and collaboration space despite strong foundations in DeepMind and Gemini • Why vendors may be over-rotating on agentic AI and the importance of focusing on real business outcomes rather than technology for its own sake • How AI is reshaping the role of IT admins and why technology professionals need to keep pace with rapid change • The growing importance of edge AI processing for meeting rooms and video systems Thanks to Momentum, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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June 23 · 39 min
Microsoft Scout Explained: Microsoft's OpenClaw-based AI Autopilot Agent That Works for You 24/7
Michel Bouman, AI Powered Workplace Lead EMEA, India and SEA - Teams Engineering at Microsoft, shares a deep dive into Microsoft Scout, the new desktop AI autopilot that acts on your behalf around the clock. • What Microsoft Scout is, how it evolved from Project Lobster, and how it differs from Copilot Chat and Copilot Cowork • How Michel onboarded a personal agent called Red to manage email triage, calendar scheduling, and complex multi-step reporting tasks • Real-world autonomous workflows including expense filing, booking appointments, and even monitoring EV battery charge for road trips • Agent-to-agent orchestration in practice and how teams share skills and automations across their agents • The security model behind Scout, including resistance to prompt injection and impersonation safeguards • The psychology of working alongside AI agents, why treating them as human can be a risk, and Michel's upcoming book "When Your Next New Hire Isn't Human" Thanks to Momentum, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.
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June 16 · 37 min
Copilot Cowork vs. Scout with Microsoft's Alev Tamer and Chris Wheeler
Alev Tamer, Sr. Partner Solution Architect at Microsoft, and Chris Wheeler, Senior Copilot Solution Engineer at Microsoft, discuss the latest Microsoft Copilot announcements fresh from Microsoft Build. • Multi-model strategy: how Microsoft brings together models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft AI to offer genuine choice • Critique and Council: using multiple models to validate and challenge each other's outputs for improved accuracy • The DRACO (Deep Research Accuracy, Completeness, and Objectivity) benchmark and how Research with Critic achieves the highest score for deep research completeness and accuracy • Copilot Cowork vs Scout: cloud-based fire-and-forget task execution versus local desktop agent capabilities • Work IQ as the personalisation layer that makes Copilot genuinely relevant to your role and daily work • Real-world use cases including automated demo pack generation, fitness apps built on Azure, NHS website creation and AI-assisted performance reviews • Skills and plugins: creating reusable instruction sets for repetitive tasks and new integrations including Dynamics 365 and Fabric IQ • Data residency and security: navigating Anthropic data processing, EU data boundaries and flex routing for European organisations Thanks to Shure, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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June 9 · 30 min
Microsoft Planner Roadmap - AI Agents, API and MCP With Howard Crow, Director of Product, Microsoft
Howard Crow, Director of Product at Microsoft, joins the podcast to discuss the evolution of Microsoft Planner, its deep integration with Microsoft Teams, and the growing role of AI agents in work management. • Howard shares his nearly 30-year journey at Microsoft, from the founding days of SharePoint to leading the Planner and Project teams • The genesis of Microsoft Planner and how it democratised project management beyond specialist tools like Microsoft Project • Microsoft's unification strategy, bringing To Do, Planner, and Project for the Web together under a single Planner brand • How Planner integrates deeply with Microsoft Teams across meetings, channels, and chats • The Planner Agent and Microsoft's multi-agent runtime service, the first production multi-agent harness shipped at Microsoft • How MCP (Model Context Protocol) is becoming the "USB for APIs" and unlocking new integrations for Planner • The future of work: managing teams of humans and AI agents together, and why a visual planning surface matters for knowledge workers Thanks to Luware, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud
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