The Copilot Connection

The first episode after a quiet summer, and the thread running through all of it is cost and renames. Kevin opens with a confession: he spun up Cowork to write these very show notes, it ran out of budget overnight, and once he topped the budget up it burned through 2,381 credits, which he puts at twenty to thirty quid for maybe a fifth of what he wanted. That story turns out to be the episode in miniature, because Copilot Studio GitHub Harness has gone generally available in August based on a usage-based credit model, and this time the meter runs while you are still building. Around that we have another rename and a flattened logo, Microsoft's FY26 Q4 results with over thirty million paid Copilot seats, a leaked memo saying the AI app group has to earn the right to exist, a proper argument about whether 43 minutes a day is still how we talk about value, and a long run through the autumn events season. Plus AI slop, blue rings, and a festival planning app nobody asked for but made all the difference. Links: https://www.howmanyblueringsshouldihave.com/ https://amireallyadualawardmvp.com/ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/copilot-studio-blog/more-powerful-agents-and-workflows-for-autonomous-business-processes-introducing/4542969 https://microsoft.github.io/mcscatblog/posts/copilot-harness-cost-governance/ https://futurework.blog/2026/08/14/microsoft-copilot-app-one-app-new-name-new-icon-new-url/ https://robquickenden.blog/2026/08/copilot-unified-app/ https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/30/fy26-q4-microsoft-results/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7490143154260701184-rlGF https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maryleenemeric_microsoft-microsoft365-copilotstudio-activity-7485892013830266880-rUJI Events: https://ainativeworkplace.com/ https://www.collabdays.org/2026-bletchleypark/ https://www.scottishsummit.com https://espc.tech/conference/espc-2026

This week on The Copilot Connection, Kevin and Zoe dive into the growing impact of FinOps and tokenomics in the Copilot era. From insights at Commsverse to real-world concerns, we explore how tools like Copilot and Cowork are shifting organisations from fixed licensing to consumption-driven models - bringing both opportunity and uncertainty. The discussion focuses on balancing cost vs value, the importance of governance and guardrails, and why organisations must carefully pilot AI usage rather than roll it out blindly. They also highlight the challenge of helping users choose the right tool for the right task without driving up unnecessary costs. Useful links: Cowork cost management overview — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/usage-based-billing-manage-copilot-credits Cowork Cost Estimator -https://aka.ms/CustomerCoworkEstimator Cowork Adoption site - https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-gb/copilot/cowork/ai-user/ Cost management demo - https://demos.microsoft.com/app/present/6694#/0/0 An unsuspecting bill - https://www.reddit.com/r/copilotstudio/comments/1ueqedl/woke_up_to_a_47k_bill_after_deploying_one_copilot/ More on unsuspecting bills - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-sabapathy-71a88145_a-post-on-reddit-this-week-described-someone-share-7475913687963467778-xsXa

In this episode of The Copilot Connection, Kevin McDonnell and Garry Trinder dive deep into the biggest developer-focused announcements coming out of Microsoft Build—and what they actually mean in practice. We unpack a fast-moving couple of weeks in AI, from the shift in how Microsoft shares Build news (goodbye Book of News, hello live blog and CLI tooling), to the hands-on, lab-heavy focus that signals a return to Build’s developer roots. Expect plenty of perspective on what stood out, what worked, and what felt different this year. The conversation then turns to one of the headline releases: Copilot Cowork now generally available. Kevin and Garry explore how Cowork changes the way we interact with Copilot - moving from simple chat to task-driven, cloud-executed workflows with deeper Microsoft 365 integration. They share real-world usage patterns, from daily task triage to cross-device workflows, and discuss the impact of its new consumption-based pricing model (and why “value over tokens” is the mindset shift we all need). From there, they step into the more experimental space with Microsoft Scout—a local, autonomous agent inspired by OpenClaw that introduces concepts like heartbeats, browser automation, and powerful extensibility. The duo compare Scout vs Cowork, weighing up local vs cloud agents, flexibility vs control, and the growing importance of governance as agents gain more autonomy. Useful Links https://build.microsoft.com/ Build Live Blog Build Blog - be yourself at work Build Next Steps GitHub Repo Cowork GA The Cowork Cookbook (community link) Microsoft Scout Work IQ GA Work IQ Licensing Windows Platform Security Project Solara Surface Laptop Ultra Surface RTX Spark Dev Box

Kevin McDonnell and Zoe Wilson are back, kicking off this episode with a lively wander through Copilot Cowork in preview — from using it on mobile (sometimes unintentionally…) to early thoughts on skills, plugins, stability, and why data residency still matters if you’re experimenting in the real world. Along the way, there are opinions, tangents, and a few “this is cool, but…” moments that will feel very familiar to anyone testing Copilot right now. The conversation then jumps ahead to Microsoft Build, where agents, observability, and the growing obsession with value and ROI take centre stage. Kevin and Zoe unpack why business goals matter more than shiny dashboards, how Agent 365 fits into the picture, and what all this means for teams trying to move from curiosity to confidence with AI — all wrapped up with event shout‑outs, future episode teases, and the usual friendly chaos

This week, Zoe and Kevin dig into Copilot Cowork and Agent 365. Fresh from a week at the Microsoft campus in Seattle, Kevin shares his key takeaways from MVP Summit — including a surprising amount of cross-product collaboration and a hands-on experiment building a conference bingo app entirely using GitHub Copilot's coding agent. Zoe and Kevin then dive into two of the biggest recent announcements: Copilot Cowork, now available in Frontier tenants, which takes Copilot from answering questions to actually taking action on your behalf, from organising your inbox to scheduling your week and creating reusable skills; and Agent 365, Microsoft's control plane for agents, launching on 1 May, which brings observability, governance, and threat protection for all your agents in one place. They also cover the practical steps to enable Cowork in your tenant, the current data residency considerations for European organisations, and the open licensing questions still to be resolved before general availability. Useful links: Lab that Kevin mentioned https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-agent-lab-soc-ops kevmcdonk/mvp-summit-bingo: Web app for MVPs to track all those common phrases we hear over the week. Who will get bingo first https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/copilot-cowork-a-new-way-of-getting-work-done Get started with Copilot Cowork (Frontier) | Microsoft Learn Microsoft Agent 365 documentation | Microsoft Learn