⭕️ Most AI adoption fails not because the tech doesn’t work, but because there’s no clear business case. Harnessing AI helps you create policies, training, ROI measures, and governance so AI delivers value instead of chaos. amazon.co.uk/stores/Rob-May/…

A breakthrough in AI defence strategy...

“We’re building Copilot as a new OS,” says Satya Nadella. Satya Nadella is calling Copilot a “new OS for work,” and this time, the idea makes more sense because Microsoft is not really talking about replacing Windows 11. It is turning Copilot into a work hub that sits above Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, code, agents, files, meetings, and business data. The new Copilot app now has Home, Chat, Cowork, Code, and Autopilot. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can run inside Copilot, and changes still sync back to the normal Office apps. So you have Code, which lets you describe an app, tracker, dashboard, or workflow in plain English and generate it inside the company tenant. And my personal favorite is Autopilot, which is the bigger step: a persistent agent with its own identity, memory, workspace, and governance. Microsoft is trying to move Copilot away from being a button stapled onto every app and toward becoming the AI layer across work. This version of Copilot at least looks closer to the product Microsoft has been trying to describe for three years!

Introducing dots, powered by GPT-6 Astra. Remarkably capable, always-on agents built to handle everything.

I've delivered four AI sessions up and down the country this week, and one line on one slide has landed every single time. "Don't send me something that will take me longer to read than it took you to create." Different audiences, different rooms, same reaction. A laugh, then a pause, because everyone's either sent that email or received it. AI hasn't made writing easier. It's made producing volume easier, and those aren't the same thing. The gap between them is where trust quietly erodes, one unread report and one skimmed update at a time. If it took you thirty seconds to generate, don't expect someone else to give it three minutes.

AI governance doesn't have to mean slowing everything down. This practical six-layer framework covers everything from AI inventory and responsible deployment through to human oversight and compliance, giving you a clear map of where your organisation stands and where the gaps are. I’ve explained it in more detail on my blog: thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/s…

⭕️ Did a French-speaking robot called PMF start my fascination with AI? thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/d…

More model choice coming to Copilot. Welcome Grok!

Official Trailer - iPhone Duo

What did the task you just automated used to teach the person doing it? thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/w…

Don't let unapproved AI use cast a shadow over your organisation’s security. Understanding employees' needs with AI tools will help ensure they can access the benefits securely. Read our new blog on shadow AI here ⬇️ ncsc.gov.uk/blogs/the-hidden…

Less prompting. More delegating. OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra is rolling out in Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio—expanding model choice and what you can hand off to Copilot. Grounded by Work IQ in your files, meetings, chats, and business data, within your existing permissions, Copilot brings frontier model reasoning into AI built for work.

⭕️ OpenAl Astra (GPT 6): the hype, the risk, and the bit nobody's actually verified yet. @OpenAI's new model can find and exploit security flaws on its own. Its president says it might be AGI. Most businesses won't touch it this year. Consider this. The capability inside a frontier model today is the capability inside your everyday tools within eighteen months. Copilot, your CRM, next year's finance system update, all of it inherits from this generation. l've written a piece on what leadership readiness actually looks like before that capability lands, not panic, not dismissal, but three genuine questions about ownership, security assumptions and the difference between delegation and abdication. The capability curve isn't waiting for anyone's governance to catch up. The only real choice is whether you build that readiness now, while it's still your decision to make. You can read my blog here: thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/o…

⭕ I've just added a new section to the Thought Provoked website called Thinking out loud, in public. Most of what I write ends up in a book, in one of my masterclasses, or in a keynote, which means it's usually been through several rounds of thinking before anyone sees it. This is the opposite. It's the earlier stuff, the ideas still forming, the practical questions that come out of a client conversation or a room full of leaders asking what AI actually means for them. You can expect commentary on AI, cybersecurity and cyber resilience, shaped directly by the questions I get asked and the challenges I see inside the organisations we work with. Some of it will be fully formed. Some of it won't be, and that's the point. If you want a more honest, in-progress look at how I'm thinking about this stuff, you'll find it here: thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog Have a look and tell me what you think, I'd genuinely like to know. You can also sign up to automatically receive these posts in your inbox if that's of interest.

Explore the latest features and updates for Microsoft Copilot in the August What's New in Copilot blog! msft.it/6017artyL

Let me tell you a story... thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/l…

OpenClaw 2.0 has arrived openclaw.ai/blog/openclaw-2-…

⭕️ Scout is Microsoft’s clearest signal yet that AI is moving from simply answering questions to doing the work itself. It’s Microsoft’s new desktop agent launched through the Frontier preview programme, it doesn’t just sit in a chat window. It reads and writes files, runs commands, works across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint, and takes action on your behalf rather than waiting for you to ask. What caught my attention wasn’t the capability, it was the access model. Getting Scout running takes two separate admin gates, an Intune policy, a formal opt-in covering third party data routing, and a dedicated licence on top of your usual Microsoft 365 setup. Sensitive actions still need your approval before anything sends, shares or updates. That’s exactly the balance I keep coming back to with clients. Govern what matters, don’t slow what works. Scout is built with real guardrails, not because Microsoft doesn’t trust the technology, but because handing an AI agent the keys to your files, your inbox and your calendar is a genuinely different risk profile to a chatbot that only talks. If you’re an SME leader watching this from the sidelines, the question isn’t whether agentic AI arrives in your business. It’s whether your governance catches up before it does. I’ve written a more in-depth explanation and and answered more questions in my latest blog post which you’ll find here: thoughtprovoked.co.uk/blog/m…