Like every year, inspire is the biggest Microsoft partner event of the year where Microsoft informs all its partners around the world of its news, investments, and innovations.
Artificial Intelligence was at the core of this event and much of the Microsoft Inspire keynote presentation was devoted to partner opportunities.
Here’s what to remember.
During the Keynote, Satya Nadella, Judson Althoff, Nicole Dezen, and others shared how Microsoft is creating new opportunities across their partner ecosystem in this new era of AI.
Partners get the value and benefits of the previous program plus access to new offerings and benefits specific to AI. If you’re an existing Microsoft partner, you will either be moved into the new AI Cloud Partner Program immediately, or very shortly. You do not need to take any action to be brought into the program and all your existing benefits and designations will be maintained.
Microsoft 365 Copilot was announced earlier by Microsoft and it’s an AI-powered tool designed to revolutionize the way we work. Copilot understands natural language and can help users with various tasks, such as summarization, post meeting recap, writing, editing, formatting, researching, presenting, and collaborating. And secure productivity is the first step to helping our customers get ready for Copilot.
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be priced at $30 per user, per month for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium customers, when broadly available
This is an additional charge on top of the existing Microsoft 365 subscription.
Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced the new AI-powered Bing, your copilot for the web, fundamentally reinventing search as a category with complete answers, a full chat experience, and features to unlock creativity. Today, Microsoft is launching Bing Chat Enterprise that is more secure for your company. With it, user and business data are protected and will not leak outside the organization.
Bing Chat Enterprise is rolling out in preview today and is included at no additional cost in Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium. And in the future, it will be available as a stand-alone offering for $5 per user, per month.
More to explore:
Microsoft announced the next wave of generative AI for Teams, with the introduction of Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams Phone and Teams chat. Incorporating advanced AI capabilities into unscheduled phone calls and written chat conversations, Copilot will now help you stay on top of your discussions, capture important information, and follow up on action items.
Accelerating business growth with Microsoft Teams
Enable AI-powered flexible workplaces with Teams (Phone, Rooms, & Premium)
Microsoft Copilot for sales is a role-based copilot designed for sellers that empowers them to increase productivity and personalize every customer interaction so they can close more deals. Designed to be a seller companion, Sales Copilot can be accessed in the tools where sellers work, whether that is Outlook, Microsoft Teams, or Dynamics 365 Sales, and connects to other CRM systems like Salesforce.
AI Powered Process Mining in Power Automate provides AI-powered insights that enable customers to optimize existing processes and drive efficiencies with low-code automation. Power Automate Process Mining offers two industry standard capabilities, task mining and process mining, that break down barriers that might make it difficult for an organization to identify inefficiencies in their workflows and where to improve. Process Mining includes functionality such as the Process Mining desktop app with advanced analytics and Power BI customization. It will become generally available on August 1, 2023.
Accelerate and scale innovation with AI and the Power Platform
Microsoft have expanded their backup capabilities with the newly announced Microsoft 365 Backup. It’s a backup and fast recovery solution of OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange data. You’ll be able to access Microsoft 365 Backup directly in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Microsoft 365 Backup will be available for public preview in Q4 of this year.
Microsoft 365 Archive is a game-changing solution that offers a cold data storage tier within SharePoint. By archiving the content in its original location, you retain the robust security, compliance, search capabilities, and rich metadata provided by Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 Archive will be available as a public preview in Q4 of this year.
Microsoft shared new product innovations that enable customers to stay more secure and partners to deliver security services more easily to their customers:
Springboard customers into the era of AI with end-to-end security
Take advantage of the expanding opportunity with end-to-end security
More to explore:
Microsoft introduced the AIM program (Accelerate, Innovate, Move). It’s a brand-new program that offers a tailored path for the customers to move from on-premises to cloud-first Dynamics 365 business applications. AIM (Accelerate, Innovate and Move) is a comprehensive offering that unlocks the potential of AI-powered business systems while reducing costs, providing agility for business model innovation, and operating securely with resilience. AIM provides access to a dedicated team of migration advisors, assessments, offers, tools, and support to give customers a faster route to innovation and success.
Azure Migrate and Modernize and Azure Innovate are two hero partner offerings to help you accelerate your customer’s end-to-end cloud journey on Azure. These comprehensive offerings help you increase deal velocity and reduce time to value with funding that ranges from pre-to-post sales, all accessible right within Partner Center.
New pre-sales assessment offers (Solutions Assessment for Rapid Migration, SAP Migration)
New pre-sales Pilot/POC offers (Analytics, Build and Modernize AI Apps)
New post-sales deployment offers (Analytics, Build and Modernize AI Apps)
Coming soon: Support for ‘Extra Small’ sized engagements
More to explore:
Azure Migrate & Modernize and Azure Innovate (microsoft.com)
