Microsoft Ignite: 5 top announcements for Microsoft 365 admins

Microsoft Ignite is underway in Chicago, and I am excited to be one of the two Microsoft MVPs attending from Syskit! Now, I don’t know about you, but with the number of sessions, announcements, and blog posts going on, it can be very difficult to keep up with everything important for us Microsoft 365 Administrators. In this blog, I will try to share with you the top announcements that you need to prepare for as a Microsoft 365 IT Professional.

SharePoint Premium Advanced Management & Viva Insights included in your Microsoft 365 Copilot license

I had to start with this one because, let’s be honest, when was the last time we had good news about licensing at a Microsoft Conference? At Ignite, Microsoft announced that both Viva Insights (usually $4/user/month) and SharePoint Advanced Management (usually $3/user/month) will now be included when you purchase Microsoft 365 Copilot. This allows organizations to buy Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses and also get the tools needed to prepare their environment for Copilot and measure adoption. 

You can learn more about the SharePoint Advanced Management announcement here and the Viva Insights one (and more on Copilot Analytics) over here.  

P.S. While this was announced at Ignite, it will be implemented in early 2025.

New admin role for Copilot and AI administrators

As administrators, we know that we must always assign the least privilege possible to an admin for the job they need to do, and nothing more!  However, this was not possible with Copilot before, and too many configurations required the too-powerful Global Administrator role. This role is available today and allows admins to:

• Manage all aspects of Microsoft 365 Copilot,

• Manage AI-related enterprise services, extensibility, and copilot agents from the Integrated apps page in the Microsoft 365 admin center,

• Approve and publish line-of-business copilot agents,

• Allow users to install an app or install an app for users in the organization if the app does not require permission,

• Read and configure Azure and Microsoft 365 service health dashboards,

• View usage reports, adoption insights, and organizational insight,

• Create and manage support tickets in Azure and the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Organizational messages in the Microsoft 365 admin center [in GA]

Let’s take a break from AI for a second and focus on Organizational Messages. This was in preview since March, but they are now in General Availability, allowing more enterprises to use them. Organizational messages enable you to communicate with people in your organization using short-form, branded, and customized messages.

Unlike email, organizational messages are delivered within the experiences your employees rely upon as they complete their workflows, such as Windows 11 or Microsoft 365 apps.  Learn more about this announcement over here.

Copilot in Microsoft 365 admin centers

Microsoft has announced that we admins won’t be left out of using AI to be more productive. We will now get Copilot in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, the Teams Admin Center, and the SharePoint Admin Center. Some of those are in private preview today, while others will only become available later in 2025.

Agents in SharePoint now in general availability

After being in public preview for less than a month, Agents in SharePoint are now in General Availability, and each site will come with a prebuilt default agent. You can learn more about the feature over here, but what you need to know is that soon, you will be able to use agents in SharePoint in a pay-as-you-go method with Copilot Studio billing, so you will not necessarily require Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing.

Final thoughts on Microsoft Ignite

Microsoft Ignite is the biggest Microsoft IT professional conference, and every year, we have thousands of announcements for users, developers, and IT Professionals!  In this blog post, we covered some of the main news for my favorite audience, Microsoft 365 Administrators, but make sure you check out the Microsoft Ignite 2024 book of news to see all the announcements Microsoft has made for all products at Ignite 2024.