Dear Techies,
We’ve got some exciting developments in the AI space this week as Microsoft announces a new partnership with Mistral AI. We’re also bringing you some updates to Microsoft Intune and the new Weather Trends page that provides users with insights into historical and forecasted weather patterns.👇
✉️ Microsoft Partners with Mistral AI
Microsoft has partnered with Mistral AI, a French startup, to accelerate AI development. This new partnership means that Mistral AI becomes the second company to offer commercial language models on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, after OpenAI.
This partnership aims to advance AI research and create specialized government applications in Europe. Notably, Mistral AI's new AI model, Mistral Large, and its multilingual conversational chatbot, Le Chat, will be available to Microsoft customers.
Microsoft's investment in Mistral AI underscores its commitment to fostering innovation in the AI industry and expanding access to AI resources. Additionally, Microsoft is considering further investment in AI chip design and development, potentially entering semiconductor manufacturing.
✉️ Microsoft Start: New Weather Trends
Extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, wildfires, and record rainfalls are occurring more frequently and impacting millions of lives. The past eight years have been the warmest on record, with 2023 being the warmest year in NOAA's history.
To address how climate changes affect people and local weather, Weather from Microsoft Start introduced the Weather Trends page. This feature provides insights based on up to 70 years of global weather history, allowing users to compare recent weather with past data by year, month, or day.
Visualizations like pie charts make the data easier to understand, and the Weather Trends page offers location-specific information, unlike broader regional or national reports.
Microsoft is also testing a Climate Insights Engine that uses AI to identify and notify users of impactful weather trends in their area.
Weather from Microsoft Start is known for its forecast accuracy and is integrated into Windows 10 & 11, Edge, Bing, and Microsoft Start mobile apps.
Learn more about Microsoft Start:
✉️ How Copilot Can Boost Teams Management
Microsoft Teams is the go-to platform for collaboration, but keeping up with conversations can be tough. To solve that, organizations can now deploy Copilot in Teams to explore and summarize up to 30 days of activity, or even specify a particular day.
You can ask Copilot to extract the following information:
Who joined the team?
Which tasks were assigned, completed, or overdue?
Which decisions were made or which opinions were shared?
Which meetings were scheduled, held, or canceled?
Which files were shared, edited, or commented on?
Which topics were discussed or what questions were asked?
Which feedback was given or which praise was received?
Which problems were encountered or which solutions were proposed?
Which announcements were made or which events were planned?
What plans did everyone share for the weekend?
Copilot presents the information clearly and concisely, with clickable citations for more context. You can also customize highlights by filtering them by date, channel, person, or keyword.
Read more about Copilot in Teams:
✉️ New Updates for Microsoft Intune
Microsoft Intune is rolling out updates to help IT administrators balance productivity and security. Here's what's new:
Unified endpoint management
For macOS Automated Device Enrollment, a feature called "await final configuration" ensures that device configuration policies are applied before users start using their devices. This simplifies setup and boosts security.Autopilot improvements
Administrators can now block only for selected apps during Autopilot deployments, making provisioning smoother even if some app installations fail initially.Streamlined updating
Intune now allows bulk approval of driver updates, making it easier for organizations with diverse device fleets to manage updates efficiently. Plus, scheduling driver and firmware updates alongside quality updates reduces the need for multiple reboots.
📢 What’s Up and Coming for Microsoft 365?
Let’s take a glance at some exciting new features that are on the horizon, due to roll out in March 2024.
Microsoft Defender Streamlines False Positive Handling
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will offer a simpler way for admins and security operators to handle false positive files that have been quarantined from OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint.
Trainable Classifiers for Auto-Labeling in Purview
Microsoft is introducing trainable classifiers for server-side auto-labeling policies in Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint. With an additional 23 classifiers, users will be able to detect sensitive content, including intellectual property, trade secrets, and documents related to finance, sales, HR, and material non-public information.
Apple AirPods can mute/unmute in Microsoft Teams
The New version of Microsoft Teams will soon work with Apple AirPods to allow users to mute or unmute themselves on macOS Sonoma. This functionality is already available on iPhone running iOS 17.
An upcoming update for the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web will introduce a button option to initiate email sync. This feature will enable users to easily ensure that their send and receive email experience is up-to-date. You'll find this functionality within the View tab of the Ribbon.
Conditional Formatting in New Outlook
This update in the New Outlook for Windows and Web introduces conditional formatting. With this feature, users can make messages that meet defined conditions stand out in the message list by using different font colors. Users can specify conditions that incoming messages should meet, such as a sender's name or email address.
📹 How to Update Graphic Drivers in Windows 10 & 11
Getting graphical glitches, poor performance, or compatibility issues? It could mean that you need to update your graphics drivers. In this video, we show you how to do that in Windows 10 & 11.
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🪲 Known Bugs!!
Some users have reported seeing an “Update License” message following an Office update. In some cases, entering credentials doesn’t make the message disappear, indicating that it may be a glitch.
If you see the message, try entering credentials associated with the subscription when updating the license. If your subscription is managed by your parents account, you may need to obtain their permission and credentials.
While it may be possible to safely ignore the message after entering credentials, we recommend monitoring the situation and consider reaching out to Microsoft support for further assistance if you’re worried.
✅ Wrapping Up!
That’s all for this newsletter. Remember to keep your eyes peeled for the first newsletter in March, where we’ll be announcing the winner to our Grammarly Premium competition!
Thanks for reading and see you soon! 👋