Kurt Shintaku's Blog

A digital experience that is designed to accelerate your AI ambitions, from strategy to secure, scalable execution.

AI is transforming how businesses operate and compete. The Microsoft Cloud and AI Bootcamp has been designed to support business decision-makers, IT professionals and developers who are ready to move from exploration to scalable success. 

Curated by Microsoft experts, the practical sessions are grounded in what’s working now, so you can move forward with clarity and confidence.

1. Discover what’s working now  – Gain insights from real-world success stories, expert-led demos and partner solutions that show AI in action.
2. Accelerate AI innovation with an actionable plan  – Discover practical frameworks, architectures and best practices to scale transformative AI solutions using Azure’s latest tools, models and platforms.
3. Turn data into a strategic asset – Explore ways to unify and prepare your data estate to feed into trusted, high-performing AI systems that drive results.

Explore the agenda below and get ready to witness AI’s extraordinary potential. Don’t miss out. 

Attend this event’s training sessions at no cost to you or your organization. Register for each session individually at:

• TRAINING: Microsoft Cloud and AI Bootcamp – August 19 – 20, 2025
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/aibootcamp

Ray Reyes, published his latest high-level guide to deploying Defender XDR and made it available for all to download, encompassing:

• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO)
• Microsoft Defender for Identity + Microsoft Entra ID Protection = (ITDR)
• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE)
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDA)
• Microsoft Sentinel
• Exposure Management

From Ray’s post on LinkedIn:

Here’s the latest version of my Microsoft Defender XDR Deployment guide. It’s been close to a year since I wrote the last version, so lots of new goodies on this guide and newly introduce features. What’s also new is I’ve included a mind map of roles and permission which is always a challenge for new customers.

A story goes a long way to support technical deployments. My role at Microsoft is to help
customers deploy our Defender and Purview products. One of the feedback items I had a while
back from a customer is not knowing ‘why they should’ turn things on, and this guide answers
the WHY. The WHY is what allows customers to re-think and visual what the product is capable
of. I work with customers daily across our Security Solutions, this guide is to help customers
find the easiest path to enabling our overall Microsoft Defender XDR and to answer two
common questions we get in my role.

‘Where do I start? What should I turn on first?

• DOWNLOAD: WHITEPAPER: Ray Reyes’ “Microsoft Defender XDR Deployment Guide”
  https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/media/v2/D561FAQHpgQxRm5FfWA/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/B56ZfjijwGHoAc-/0/1751869188944?e=1753315200&v=beta&t=xQkNRjsfgUxthmxGuuBTd0idL2bxYzgyuC63uYK_NzA

San Francisco is embracing the power of AI with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

• San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced that generative artificial intelligence will be available to 30,000 workers across the city government.
• The city will use Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o, for employees like nurses and social workers to improve city services.
• City hall said the move will make San Francisco one of the world’s largest local governments to leverage AI.

We’re excited by how our work here at Microsoft is helping city workers with basic administrative tasks, giving them more time to respond to residents. Read about their deployment at:

• https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/07/14/san-francisco-ai.html

For more information on Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, visit:

• Adoption Resources:
  https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-chat/
• Introduction:
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/get-started-with-microsoft-365-copilot-chat-5b00a52d-7296-48ee-b938-b95b7209f737
• Support guides:
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-microsoft365-chat
• Documentation:
  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/overview

#sanfrancisco #ai #copilot #microsoft #msftadvocate

The Microsoft Unified Enterprise Support Services Description provides information on the support services available for purchase from Microsoft. It is important to familiarize yourself with the descriptions of the services you purchase, including any prerequisites, disclaimers, limitations, and customer responsibilities. The services you purchase will be listed in your Enterprise Services Work Order (Work Order) or another applicable Statement of Services that references and incorporates this document.

The document covers:

• Customer success and support services
• How to purchase
• Flex allowance
• Description of Microsoft Unified Enterprise Support Services
• Mission Critical Services
• Enhanced solutions
• Unified Multi-Country Program
  • Introduction
  • Program Structure
  • Multi-Country Additional Terms and Conditions
• Additional terms and conditions
  • Appendix A: Severity Types Charts
  • Appendix B: Success Management Services

Download the document here:

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Unified Enterprise Support Services Description (.PDF, 43 pgs)
  https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/documents/download/Unified_Enterprise_Support_USSD(ENG)(Jan2025).pdf

Microsoft has 2 tools for customers to create their own Generative Artificial Intelligence solutions:

• Microsoft Copilot Studio
• Azure AI Foundry

Each offers its own value and the following article helps break down what to choose when:

Are you looking to build custom Copilots but unsure about the differences between Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry? As a Microsoft Technical Trainer with over a decade of experience, I’ve spent the last 18 months focusing on Azure AI Solutions and Copilot. Through numerous workshops, I’ve seen firsthand how customers benefit from AI solutions beyond Microsoft Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat offers seamless integration with Generative AI for tasks like document creation, content summarization, and insights from M365 solutions such as Email, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. It ensures compliance with organizational security, governance, and privacy policies, making it ideal for immediate AI assistance without customization.

On the other hand, platforms like Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry provide greater customization and flexibility, tailoring AI assistance to specific business processes, workflows, and data sources for more relevant support. In this blog, I’ll share insights on building custom copilots, and the tools Microsoft offers to support this journey.

• Navigating AI Solutions: Microsoft Copilot Studio vs. Azure AI Foundry
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-services-blog/navigating-ai-solutions-microsoft-copilot-studio-vs-azure-ai-foundry/4411678

Microsoft Digital on “Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry”
Microsoft’s own IT department, “Microsoft Digital” published an article that may also provide some insight on approaching this challenge

• Customer questions answered: Should I use Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry to build my agent?
  When a customer asked us if they should use Microsoft Copilot Studio or Microsoft Azure AI Foundry to build their employee self-service agent, we knew Ravi Goriparthy was exactly the right person to talk to. He and the engineering team he works on here in Microsoft Digital, the company’s IT organization, had to answer that exact question when they set out to build agents that would help our Human Resources and IT Support teams better respond to requests for support from our employees. We had Goriparthy, a principal software engineering manager, talk with our Inside Track bot, which wrote the following story (with some help from us humans).
  https://www.microsoft.com/insidetrack/blog/customer-questions-answered-should-i-use-copilot-studio-or-azure-ai-foundry-to-build-my-agent/?msockid=06377db5fd83631014c06baefce96218

Integrating Copilot Studio with Azure AI Foundry
Additionally, it is possible to integrate both Copilot Studio with Azure AI Foundry’s capabilities in some instances. Watch this video

• Copilot Studio Agents & Azure AI Foundry: better together
  Join us for a session on how to build agents in Copilot Studio with deep integration into Azure AI Foundry services. Learn to leverage your vectorized indices from Azure AI Search to perform RAG and integrate 1800+ models in the Azure model catalog into your Copilot Studio agents.
  https://build.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/d191c44a-365b-4bfb-bfbf-5bdd9da7bf24

Emily Chang speaks with Microsoft titans Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella about the company’s journey from scrappy startup to global powerhouse, and its battle to outpace rivals in the high-stakes AI era.

• Bill Gates, Satya Nadella & Steve Ballmer on Microsoft in the AI Era | The Circuit with Emily Chang
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egeqfUGiETY

Dr. Nestori Syynimaa, aka DrAzureAD, is a Principal Identity Security Researcher at Microsoft Security Research. He maintains a notoriously interesting blog for Entra ID Administrators & identity security hawks called “AADInternals – The ultimate Entra ID (Azure AD) / Microsoft 365 hacking and admin toolkit”.

Besides an on-going blog about Entra ID security & management, DrAzureAD goes over tools & techniques for breach that all Entra ID Administrators should know, including:

• AAD Kill Chain – a collection of recon techniques and hacking tools DrAzureAD discovered and built over the last 10+ years
• AADInternals & AADInternals-Endpoints PowerShell modules – tools for administering and hacking Entra ID, Office 365, and Entra ID related endpoints. 
• Links to publicly available Entra ID & Microsoft 365 PowerShell modules, tools
• OSINT Tenant Information Recon tool – tool will extract openly available information for the given tenant
• AADInternals Identity Federation Backdoor for GoldenSAML attacks – login to Microsoft 365 tenants using backdoors created with AADInternals
• Annual presentation recordings & PowerPoints at Defcon, Blackhat, BlueHat, Troopers, Disobey

I’m not going to pretend that I understand even half of what DrAzureAD addresses in his blog except to say that the Doctor comes very highly recommended by our security researchers in Microsoft’s cybersecurity incident response team (CIRT).

Visit AAD Internals at:

• https://aadinternals.com/

Microsoft discontinued the EA and MCA-E Support Plan Promotional Offer on 30 June 2024. This offer provided customers with the aforementioned agreements with Standard support at no additional cost to the customer. Starting 1 July 2024, customers who had support through this offer must purchase a support plan. Customers who already have a separate support plan such as Microsoft Unified are not impacted by this change.

Moving forward, customers continue to have access to Basic support for Azure subscription management and billing. In order to receive technical support for Azure, administrators must either:

1. Purchase an Azure support plan (Developer, Standard, or Professional)
   or
2. Contract for a Unified Enterprise plan (which provides technical support for Azure as well as other products & services)

For documentation on the retirement of the EA Promotional Offer for Azure support, visit:

• Enterprise Agreement Support Plan Offer
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/offers/enterprise-agreement-support/?msockid=031003da887f68d20e3e16ad89fb69ac

Q: How much do Copilots & Agents cost if a user is or isn’t licensed for “Microsoft 365 Copilot”?

I get this question a lot so I thought I’d just point to 2 references online to help explain how this works.

1. Using Copilots & Agents are FREE if the user is already licensed to use “Microsoft 365 Copilot”.
2. Using Copilots & Agents by users that do not have a “Microsoft 365 Copilot” license uses “Messages”.
   • Messages can be paid for either in pre-paid Message Packs or pay-as-you-go.
   • Messages are used at different rates depending on what the Copilot or Agent is doing.

The following sites detail the cost of messages as well as the rate at which messages are used depending on the operation.

• For more detail on Copilot Studio message costs, visit:
  Copilot Studio licensing – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn

• For more detail on the rate of billing for Copilot Studio message-based operations, visit:
  Billing rates and management – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn

Registration for Microsoft Ignite is now open! Get your pass today and join us in San Francisco, November 18-21, 2025 at Moscone Center.

This is your opportunity to grow your skills, build connections, and explore emerging technologies across AI, infrastructure, security, and more. Join us for an inspirational event filled with opportunities to learn from industry leaders, strengthen your network, and get hands-on experience with new products and solutions.

Take certification exams on site for free
Validate your skills and enhance your career with free onsite exams. In-person attendees can take one Microsoft and one GitHub certification exam at no cost. Registration required. Browse exams

Stay up to date on all things Microsoft Ignite
Follow the Microsoft Ignite Unplugged blog for the latest updates, session previews, and everything you need to make the most of your experience.
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Key dates:

• November 17: Badge and swag pickup. Optional labs and workshops are available during the registration process as purchasable add-on experiences for in-person attendees.
• November 18–21: In-person event featuring the keynote, breakout sessions, and an expo hall with demos, expert meetups, and networking opportunities across three and a half days.
• November 18–20: Live global digital experience for those who can’t join in person, with the keynote and select sessions streamed online.

Register today!

• https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/home