Check out these 2 convenient & free tools for the Azure Infrastructure administrator:
AZTAGGER AzTagger is a cross-platform desktop GUI application for fast and flexible querying of Azure resources and tag management. It allows fast search and filtering of all resources, resource groups, and subscriptions using Azure Resource Graph for your Entra ID tenant. It runs on latst Windows 11 (WPF), macOS (Mac) and Linux (GTK). Download the tool here:
ZUREMAP ZureMap is an open-source Angular application that visualises Microsoft Azure infrastructure as interactive diagrams. Connect to your Azure subscriptions, scan resources, and explore VNets, subnets, VMs, storage, and more — with FinOps cost overlays, tag-based highlighting, and exportable architecture maps. Download the tool here:
Microsoft 365 Copilot licensees can now “adjust harmful content protection”, a configuration option controlled by IT Administrators & designed to support roles such as law enforcement, legal personnel, social workers, and medical staff by enabling them to use AI effectively in real-world scenarios. In some cases, these roles & fields may require reviewing or generating sensitive or potentially inappropriate language. (Ex; Medical reports, criminal evidence, or social work case documentation)
To support these job requirements, the feature allows for the ability to adjust harmful content protection settings so that Copilot Chat can respond to queries about harmful content when it’s fit for purpose. Access is restricted by administrators to approved personas only, ensuring it is used strictly for legitimate work purposes.
Adjusting harmful content protection does so exclusively for Copilot Chat & text responses & it will not disable “core responsible AI protections” including prompt injection defenses, copyright safeguards, biosecurity & image protection. Policy changes also do not affect image generation or agents.
When granted the ability to adjust harmful content protection, users can use a toggle to enable or disable harmful content protection in Copilot Chat. The menu includes a Harmful content protection setting, as shown in the following screenshot:
The administrative control is available to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensees & is available for both Commercial as well as Government/GCC Microsoft 365 Copilot cloud instances. For more details, read:
The Microsoft Azure Infra Summit is a free, engineering-led virtual conference built for experienced IT professionals, platform engineers, and SREs using Azure in production running May 19-21. Expect deep technical guidance (300–400 level) on the parts of Azure that matter when you’re the one on-call.
This isn’t “cloud 101.” It’s an ops-first event focused on how to build, operate, and optimize Azure workloads in real-world environments, including tradeoffs, failure modes, and what breaks in production.
Clear mental models for Azure infrastructure decisions
Real-world patterns (and anti-patterns) used in production
Practical guidance you can apply the next day
Fewer unknowns when designing and operating Azure at scale
(Short version: You’ll leave knowing why things behave the way they do in Azure, and how to design around it.)
A semi-live broadcast with a mix of curated sessions (live + pre-recorded), a live host desk, moderated chat, and daily AMAs, plus follow-up “clinic” troubleshooting and hands-on resources. On-demand: sessions posted within 24-48 hours with captions/transcripts and resources retained.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
This event is for:
IT professionals running or planning Azure in production
High Volume Email (HVE) is now generally available in Exchange Online, allowing organizations to send large volumes of internal email (for scenarios where email in excess of 10,000 total to any internal recipients per day is required) without hitting recipient rate limits or risking service health issues associated with user mailboxes.
It delivers a purpose‑built, tenant‑native way for applications and devices to send large volumes of internal email reliably, securely, and at scale without impacting user mailboxes or Exchange Online service health.
…
High Volume Email is designed specifically for transactional and operational messaging, not marketing campaigns. It does not include campaign tooling, templates, or engagement tracking. Instead, it supports the high‑trust, high‑reliability use cases that organizations depend on every day.
Common scenarios include:
Payroll and HR system notifications
IT monitoring and service alerts
Business and line‑of‑business application messaging
Device‑driven workflows, such as printers and scanners
Security and compliance notifications
…
High Volume Email is now generally available in Exchange Online for sending email to internal recipients. Usage will be metered starting June 1, 2026 based on the number of expanded email recipients, with pricing set at $42 per one million recipients through Microsoft commerce (equivalent to $0.000042 per one recipient). This is a pay-as-you-go configuration using billing policies in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
We’ve officially release Microsoft 365 E7 for commercial customers for $99/user/mo, enabling them to license the entire complement of technologies Microsoft offers that organizations need identify, build, monitor, manage & secure/govern artificial intelligence – particularly AI agents from Microsoft & 3rd parties.
Microsoft 365 E7 combines the advanced AI capabilities with enterprise-grade security and governance so organizations can move beyond isolated pilots and deploy AI confidently at scale.
Today, Microsoft 365 E7 – the Frontier Suite – is generally available, offering a single, integrated solution that unifies intelligence and trust, so organizations can move from experimentation to enterprise-wide AI adoption.
Microsoft 365 E7 brings these capabilities together in one suite:
Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI built for work
Microsoft 365 E5: enterprise‑grade productivity, security, identity, and compliance
Microsoft Entra Suite: identity and network access controls that secure employee use of all apps and AI
Microsoft Agent 365: the control plane for governing, observing, and securing AI agents at scale
This integrated approach helps organizations confidently deploy AI and agents at scale while maintaining the security and compliance posture they need, using the enterprise-grade tools they trust from Microsoft.
With today’s general availability, customers can now purchase and deploy Microsoft 365 E7 across their organizations.
Today also marks the general availability of Microsoft Agent 365. Agent 365 is the control plane for agents, extending the visibility, control, and trust that organizations rely on for users to the agents they deploy. To learn more about Agent 365 and expanded capabilities we are announcing read the latest Blog here.
As agents become part of everyday work, Agent 365 provides a consistent way to:
Observe: Gain visibility into agents in your environment, understand how they’re used, and act quickly on performance, behavior, and risk signals before they impact the business.
Govern: Establish guardrails for agents and people, onboard agents with IT oversight, and govern agent access to resources and data. Be audit ready with built-in compliance and data retention.
Secure: Secure agent identities, control access to resources, prevent data oversharing and leaks, and defend against threats and vulnerabilities with enterprise-grade security solutions.
GPT-5.5 is now available in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio (Early Release) & Microsoft Foundry.
Today, we’re expanding what Microsoft 365 Copilot can do with GPT-5.5 Thinking and ChatGPT Images 2.0 bringing stronger support for deeper analysis, multi-step work, and visual creation.
GPT-5.5 Thinking is now available in Copilot Studio early release cycle environments as GPT-5.5 Reasoning and is rolling out across Microsoft 365 Copilot in Copilot Chat, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. ChatGPT Images 2.0 is rolling out to Copilot in PowerPoint and coming soon to Copilot Chat.
Open AI GPT-5.5 is also available for Azure AI creators & developers through Microsoft Foundry.
OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 is generally available in Microsoft Foundry, bringing OpenAI’s latest frontier model to Azure and the enterprise teams building agents for real production work.
GPT-5.5 continues a clear progression in the GPT-5 series. GPT-5 brought unified reasoning and speed into a single system. GPT-5.4 brought stronger multi-step reasoning and early agentic capabilities for enterprise use. GPT-5.5 advances this arc with deeper long-context reasoning, more reliable agentic execution, improved computer-use accuracy, and greater token efficiency—designed for sustained, high-stakes professional workflows.
Powerful models alone aren’t enough to operationalize agentic AI at scale. Microsoft Foundry provides the platform layer that turns frontier models into usable, governable systems that enable enterprises to apply security policy and management at the platform level. Foundry is a unified, interoperable environment to build, optimize, and deploy AI applications and agents with confidence. Customers benefit from broad model choice, open and flexible agent frameworks, native integration with enterprise systems and productivity tools, and enterprise-grade security, compliance, and governance. When new models like GPT-5.5 become available, Foundry makes it easy to evaluate, productionize, and scale them without friction.
…
Read about ‘what’s new in GPT-5.5 & GPT-5.5 Pro’ in the blog post below:
It’s no longer enough to store and share files— content needs to be governed, structured, and connected to the way teams actually work so AI can reason over it responsibly and help people move from information to action.
We believe this recognition reflects the investments we’ve made in making SharePoint and OneDrive the unified knowledge platform at the heart of Microsoft 365, keeping content trusted and compliant, while making it more discoverable, more actionable, and more valuable as AI adoption accelerates.
In our view, this recognition is also a reflection of the customers and partners who build with us. Every day, users create 2 million new SharePoint sites, add 2 billion files, and run 3 billion automated workflows on SharePoint content each week, a scale that reflects how deeply document management is embedded in daily work. We’re excited to keep building what’s next with you.
For what differentiates Microsoft’s offerings, read the full announcement here:
Customers that licensed “Microsoft 365 E5/G5” or the “Defender Suite” for their organization’s users have access to a very powerful solution to monitoring & controlling the use of cloud services.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps P2 is a SaaS-based security platform that provides a comprehensive Cloud Access Security Broker, SaaS Security Posture Management & Extend Detect & Respond integration. It delivers the following:
Native Cloud Access Security Broker Shadow IT discovery, visibility into cloud app usage, protection against app-based threats & information protection and compliance assessments – native to both Microsoft & 3rd party services
SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) Not just monitoring—continuous configuration assessment + recommendations
Deep Integration with Microsoft Security (XDR + Entra + Defender) Native platform integration vs. “standalone CASB”
Advanced Threat Detection via XDR Correlation Cross-domain threat detection – not just isolated CASB alerts
At each level, follow a guided pre‑learning course with Founderz to build essential skills upfront, increase confidence, and maximize hands‑on impact during the live, virtual agent‑a‑thon. Build with confidence thanks to AI Voice agents (“Fellows”) and live human expert Q&A throughout the event challenge.
Each level aligns to different agent tools and build depths, helping you choose what’s right for you—and build solutions you can use right away at work. Registration is free. To ensure the best experience, please review each Agent-a-Thon level and register for the live virtual session that best matches your experience and access:
Learn how to build and extend agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio via a guided step-by-step demonstration on our early access learning platform (hosted by Founderz).
Get support in real time: with dedicated AI Voice Agents (‘Fellows’) and human expert Q&A during the build challenge.
Learn how to build advanced AI Agents within Microsoft Foundry, via a guided step-by-step demonstration on our early access learning platform (hosted by Founderz).
Get support in real time: with dedicated AI Voice Agents (‘Fellows’) and human expert Q&A during the build challenge.
Comments Off on TRAINING: “Microsoft Agent-a-Thon” – May 6, 2026
Today we are introducing the Legal Agent in Microsoft Word. Whether you are generating redlines or reviewing counterparty changes, the agent handles tedious work, so legal professionals can focus on high-impact decisions.
The Legal Agent was built in close collaboration with legal engineers to reflect how contracts are reviewed and negotiated. Instead of relying on general AI models to interpret commands, the agent follows structured workflows shaped by real legal practice, managing clearly defined, repeatable tasks like reviewing contracts clause by clause against a playbook.
The agent applies edits in the document through a purpose-built insertion algorithm to drive consistency regardless of how each edit was introduced. The agent’s redlining engine understands the structure of a Word document, not just visible text. It understands and structures Microsoft 365 document format into a representation that preserves formatting, lists, tables, and tracked changes. From there, the agent applies a deterministic resolution layer over the edits, including author-specific changes, instead of relying on an LLM to generate every revision directly. This provides a more reliable foundation for handling complex contracts while helping reduce latency and cost.
Read more about the new Legal Agent for Word for Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribers at:
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.