Jeff Teper | Community News Desk

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]the reminder that these things are tools for human beings to work together and get things done and the most passionate people about that get together and form a community that transcends their organization that is needed more than ever.

[00:00:20]Good afternoon. My name is Jonathan Jones. We are here reporting live from the M365 community conference and I am here with the one and only Jeff Teeper.

[00:00:29]Thank you Jeff for joining us today.

[00:00:31]>> Oh thank you Jonathan. Excited to be here.

[00:00:33]>> It's been an amazing electric day so far. We had your keynote. We had the SharePoint movie premiere. So lots of eventful activities taking place here at the conference. What has been one of the most exciting parts of you being here so far?

[00:00:44]>> Uh I think it's you know we're excited about the technology news but it is the people. You know there's so many people here I've known for so many years haven't seen in a year. So, it's great to see them, but it's also I've run into some new people who've >> uh new to our community and it's great to welcome them as well. So, it's it's always the people first.

[00:01:03]>> Yeah, for sure. And one thing that we like to to praise and really hone in on is that aspect of community here. And um as you mentioned, you know, years long's friends and and new people that you meet as well. So, what is it like, you know, really like reconnecting with the the people that you've grown so many relationships and just, you know, living out that experience again here at the >> conference? Yeah, obviously when you see somebody you want to catch up on their personal lives, their professional lives, but you reminisce a little bit that we've went through this journey of taking this product, you know, SharePoint from a server and growing it to be successful and then going through the cloud era with Office 365, the pandemic with Teams, now AI with Copilot. So there's a lot of shared history that people sort of hey we worked hard together to get where we are and and now everybody's the latest thing to talk about of course is AI and co-pilot and agents. So it's fun to hear from uh people what they're doing with that. Uh so it's we get to celebrate the past but then we sort of get on with it and talk about what's next.

[00:02:03]>> Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really cool, you know, having that experience and being able to connect with the people and talk about, you know, all of these technology products before AI was a thing, when AI first became a thing and now in this new wave of AI. Um, and it's a lot that you talked about in your keynote about, you know, what's next and sort of what to expect with AI and our products. What would you say is one of are one of those things that people can really actionize on right now and begin to, you know, continue their AI journey?

[00:02:29]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things we've always tried to do with these tools is give them to makers or builders that would build solutions for themselves, but more typically their team or organization, give people a platform, if you will, where you can be, but you don't have to be a hardcore developer. And so now AI is evolving to the point where it can help on some of those things. And so one of the ways we're democratizing the building in Microsoft 365 is the latest a agent models and skills. So we I you probably heard it in the keynote. I couldn't contain myself that skills in a SharePoint site for preparing customer RFPs and contracts and analyzing um research, doing a marketing plan that people will be able to in natural language express some workflow that they will want done robustly and then share it with other teams. And so I'm very excited about AI being both a new thing but also embracing what we've always done which is give people tools to get more done.

[00:03:33]>> Absolutely. And one of the amazing thing about agents is how user friendly we're making it. You know people who are brand new to this world of AI and agents they can get involved with it and people who are developers and heavy in that field can you know experience it as well. What would you say in this new era of AI and agents would you say is really important in that design process? you have speed, clarity, you know, security.

[00:03:56]>> Yeah. Yeah. all those things. You know, it's some of what we're doing in AI is learning from what we did with the community first on SharePoint sites and apps, then Teams, uh, channels and bots, Power Apps, Power Automate, uh, where what customers want from us is the ability to automate their workflows in a robust, predictable way and do it democratized, but also have great security and compliance when they lock down information. They don't want some SharePoint site or uh Power App or new agent to share the information with somebody who doesn't have access to it and they want ways to be able to inventory all the agents, see which ones are being used, ones that are getting used a lot, maybe look into uh so exactly like you said, we've got to balance both empowerment of teams to address their local needs, but given a governor platform to it so they don't have chaos on their hands and a lot of what we're doing now in agents is precisely learning in the history of SharePoint teams and power apps.

[00:05:02]>> Yeah, absolutely. That's amazing. Um and it's so many era areas across you know different products and teams that you can really get involved with and you know automate these different flows and get more efficient with your processes.

[00:05:13]We have you know teams, we have you know content creation, we have so many different things that you can really lean in on in this AI era. What do you think are some of those early wins that people who are maybe new to agents and new to AI um can really hone in on?

[00:05:27]>> Yeah. Um you know I think about a few things. You know we have a we've announced a lot of stuff some of which is in preview or frontier but let me first start with uh some of the things that are broadly available that um your researcher researcher using the latest models in copilot. You can go do some research based on internal or external resources. Ask it prepare a three-page market analysis. You know what a huge timesaver or uh facilitator in teams meetings. Uh we you know if you are okay with using AI in your meetings uh it can be there to answer questions, create a summary afterwards. You know one of the things I love about this is not everybody has to go to every meeting.

[00:06:11]And so if it's an appropriate meeting to transcribe and share a recap of what a huge timesaver that you know say some there's all sorts of meetings going on while I'm here and I'm sort of you know it you know when I get back I'll say what's the >> summary of this meeting. Uh so those are some of the big wins today like researcher and facilitator. Uh but some of the newer agents that are coming out like Dan home in the keynote showed the latest uh you know Excel, PowerPoint and Word have new agent capabilities on the latest model. People should try them out. These things can make slide decks amazing. Co-work is something that has just rolled out to Frontier can do much more complicated tasks than just say a chatbot interface. So uh co-pilot studio is out there available now. Anybody can build an agent as long as it's uh they're empowered to by their IT organization and of course typical that people allow it on M365 data but the business apps is much more governed and locked down. So those are a few things from what you can do now versus what's coming that you might want to >> absolutely a lot that people can start with and you know really get comfortable with our products and with the AIA. Um and it's a interesting theme in there as well with so many products especially you know as it comes to your job and comes to you know really help you in your work environment. There is still a bit of apprehension around AI as people you know fear oh AI may be taking our jobs and things like that. What would you say and one thing one quote that really comes to mind for me is uh Carowana Gatimu my manager she often says it's not coming for your job it's coming to your job. So how do you rationalize this idea of really using AI as a tool as a co-worker as a component to help you and not replace?

[00:07:53]>> Yeah. No, I think it's you know this is a a really important area for us as a society and each company to discuss because there sometimes automation comes along and it does cause a restructuring of jobs. We would be naive to pretend otherwise but I do think in the in aggregate it will create significant acceleration in GDP growth. It'll give companies new opportunities and it'll give employees opportunities for either their role to evolve or transform. Uh you know I think if you ask most people they wouldn't say at the end of the day oh my god I got so much done. You know I think they'd say wow I you know I I probably spend a few hours of my day in sort of more grunt work. And if I only could have automated some of that and had more time to think or talk to customers or learn about new technologies, I would have been far more productive for my organization.

[00:08:54]>> Uh so I I we don't want to be naive and say there's not going to be any change.

[00:08:58]That at the extreme wouldn't be true.

[00:09:00]But I do think that uh you know well-led companies can uh make more fulfilling roles for people. And so do like you like Caruana says, you know, embrace the technology, be the change agent to help redefine how your team or even company works.

[00:09:15]>> Absolutely. And being a part of that frontier, you know, you could get comfortable with it and not be as fearful of it. You know, how powerful of a tool it really can be. Um, and you mentioned early as well, you know, some of these new agents that are that are surfacing and really, you know, make it to the forefront of how we work. Um what would you say also are one of these early products again that may feel like a nuance or something you know out of the ordinary now that would be normal in let's say a year from now >> you know co-pilot studio is an example where a few people not a few many people have found it but nowhere near as many as will you know we quoted the stat of there'll be a billion agents in the next few years uh I do think these tools because you don't have to be a hardcore developer put closer to the business user who's trying to solve their problems. They're going to discover these agent building tools and they'll define their workflows and processes. Um and and so I would say Copilot Studio is a good one to check out that maybe people thought of as only for it before and and can be much more broad-based than that.

[00:10:21]>> Absolutely. Again, just the the constant theme of just embracing it and being willing to to learn and adapt. Um and we have so many you know business leaders, other execs here at the conference. Um we know the exec track is going on as well. So a lot of amazing leaders at the conference here. What is something that they can take back to to their teams to their groups to really join that frontier movement of adopting AI in the workforce?

[00:10:44]>> Yeah, good question because I think more than the cloud AI is bringing it into the boardroom. uh the cloud was sort of a transition of who runs the software and it could be run more efficiently in the cloud than on prem whereas AI is is qualitatively different uh and so I think you know as I listen to IT and business leaders who've been successful they're appro it's not either or top down or bottoms up it's both that they are uh like John Wear from British Airways did said they are giving co-pilot to all their employees and evangelizing them broadly how to use it in their workflows to automate their work and increase the satisfaction with their work. And that sort of bottoms up approach is essential. But at the same time, you know, the every company's got core business processes that it wants to analyze and transform thoughtfully, which will be more top down. Let's have a plan. Let's make sure the technology works. Let's evaluate its success. So I think you know the thing I would say to leaders is don't pick between top down and bottoms up. Try to get broad-based adoption in your organization of the AI tools. share best practices, but pick some, you know, highv value higher agents, maybe five, 10 to sort of monitor >> and figure out your playbook for your company to to to really transform these highv value >> parts of your business.

[00:12:13]>> Yeah, for sure. And, you know, it's it's obvious that it can be overwhelming, you know, with so much to to learn and grow into, but to your point, you know, picking a few and starting there and then that gets you comfortable um and really gets you in the momentum of wanting to to learn more. Um, in that same instance, we have so many, you know, amazing community leaders here as well.

[00:12:32]>> Yeah. What is one thing that you will ask for from the community to also help accelerate adoption?

[00:12:37]>> And there's this this theme that again goes back from AI to cloud to onrem. Um, you know, the community will uh meet a set of resistance from customers. It may be budget resistance. Oh, we we don't know how to make the business case for investing in this stuff. We got other priorities.

[00:12:58]>> It may be cultural resistance like hey I don't want to change how I work or um it may be security resistance. And so we would say to the community look uh let's tackle those that feedback headon by helping customers with the business case the adoption plan the security plan things that actually this community has always understood for decades part of any successful technology adoption is getting all those things right. the business case, the >> the the adoption model and and the security um and and lean into it. Uh I think we have good answers for all those things and you know the community will continue as always to give us feedback on on things where we could do better.

[00:13:46]But you know I think the other thing is um it's still early. So focus on the customer opportunities where you can learn the fastest there. You know some of the last customers to move to the cloud were the financial institutions.

[00:14:04]It was pretty understandable. Uh they didn't want to be the first. Uh so we went and learned with a lot of other more um I don't want to say risk-taking because at the point we were doing it the risks really weren't that great. Uh but uh you know sort of companies willing to be on the leading edge uh companies that wanted to be first not last. And so I'd say with AI in the community that gets to work with a lot of different organizations uh if you're a partner say a consulting firm you know try to find the more progressive early adopters if you're in IT and I've talked to so many people in IT look in every organization there's going to be departments who want to embrace this quickly and departments who want to follow and so let's learn as fast as we can from the early adopters uh because in the year, two, three years, this will mainstream like everything else does. Uh but right now is time from from learning from the the the early drivers.

[00:15:06]>> Yeah, absolutely. And and you touched on one thing that we really find invaluable here. Um which is the feedback directly from customers from that community. So, you know, we have our champions program, our MVP program. What's it like, you know, really being on the ground and hearing some of that feedback, hearing the reactions to our products from, you know, our community directly?

[00:15:25]>> Yeah. Um feedback's uh is a huge gift.

[00:15:29]The uh you know I was listening to this podcast yesterday about uh interviewing with somebody who was talking about how product management was going to change in the AI era and they were saying you know we don't really need that many product managers who just um uh you don't need to talk to customers you just tell the AI to build a great product and it'll know everything. And you know, I thought that was kind of rubbish that um we have this powerful technology that can help us build more solutions. So all the more reason to try to listen to people about what their needs are and what their feedback is so that we can do a better job with this, you know, AI automation. And um so the feedback that comes in is, you know, sometimes very direct and we encourage it. We try to not be defensive about it. Uh we don't have to agree with every bit of it or you know one thing that I think is really key for us to remember is you know with office we serve over a billion users. There is no interesting average user of office. There's cohorts. Uh the power users or Excel are different than somebody who's just trying to figure out teams for the first time. And so we uh we listen very carefully to the feedback and which cohort it represents to try to build a product that works for a variety of different people, personality, organizations. Um so I guess I'd say if you run into any of us from Microsoft, bring it on. We want to hear it. Uh, >> you know, I would so I'm so grateful that uh you care enough about what we do to be direct. And if you know, if you can be polite about it, great. That makes it easier to hear it. But I actually don't care. I'd much rather you tell us what you think than you not talk to us.

[00:17:20]>> Yeah, for sure. And that in that feedback relationship, you know, that we we build. And I like how you say, you know, it's not necessar not necessarily them just telling us what to do with our products, but it is an ongoing relationship. We have conversations. We have sessions with them to to showcase.

[00:17:34]Was there ever a moment you received a piece of feedback that really made you step back and evaluate, you know, how we're doing things as a business, as a team?

[00:17:42]>> Yeah, probably the the interesting inflection point that taught me a lot in my career is it's like 2014.

[00:17:53]So we had launched Office 365 in 2011.

[00:17:56]We had been offering cloud services since 2007 or eight and at the some of our community members, the MVP at an event we had said, "You guys are crazy.

[00:18:08]Nobody's going to the cloud. Uh maybe small businesses, not the big companies, stop talking about it." And you know I listened to that and I listened very carefully because it was clear to me you know nine times out of 10 when somebody gives me feedback they are right.

[00:18:24]>> Uh in this case I knew the cloud was going to happen. It was just a way more economical way for technology companies to serve customers and that uh you'd get the latest tools faster. you get better security, not worse than running the servers yourself. And but the MVPs, a set of them who just said we were we were driving the bus off the cliff, um spoke very clearly for a cohort of customers who are just terrified about losing control of technology deployment in their organization and security and user experience and change management.

[00:19:07]And so what I heard was that we had to step up to a better job of change management in the industry to shifting to cloud. But I actually walked away saying, okay, there are places where we'll follow customer feedback. This is a place where we have to lead. We have to be clear. We are all in the cloud and we're going to move things forward. Uh not dismiss their feedback, understand it's things we had to address. Uh but that was sort of a moment where when you listen sometimes the right thing to do is realize you have to slow down and follow. But sometimes the right thing to do is to lead.

[00:19:43]>> Yeah, for sure. And it's a like you said a relationship of receiving that feedback but also being confident in your product and your team and the mission you're trying to drive as well.

[00:19:51]>> Yes, exactly.

[00:19:52]>> That's amazing. Um quick pivot here. We just left the the SharePoint movie premiere. More than code.

[00:19:57]>> Oh gosh.

[00:19:58]>> What do you What do you >> How many people cried during that?

[00:20:00]>> Right. quite a few tears in the audience. What What were some of your takeaways and what would you want the community to really take away from that film? whenever we were far enough along to to actually say there was a community, uh we we would we didn't say the words more than code, but that's sort of what we meant that the whole point was to work with other people to build this product and then people would get together and build solutions for their organization and they would build whatever they were building whether it was their consulting practice or cars or client engagements, whatever it was. And the technology was a tool to help people work together and the people that were most motivated to be a part of that and join the community. Um, and it, you know, it's just heartwarming to see it sustain because, you know, right now there's a lot, you know, a lot of the stuff you see about tech doesn't come from that kind of humanist perspective. In some ways, it's >> almost the opposite perspective that, you know, some people talk about AI is like building a god and, you know, disrupt this and disrupt that. and the reminder that these things are tools for human beings to work together and get things done and the most passionate people about that get together and form a community that transcends their organization that is needed more than ever. So while we celebrated this 25year-old thing, it's not like something that isn't needed anymore. Uh, as you can see, you know, from this vibrant conference, >> we need to remind ourselves that technolog is a tool for people more than ever. And we need the community to go out there and help people get the benefits of technology as opposed to feel like victims of like technology vendors, you know, and frankly including us. So, we're very grateful people build on our tools, grateful we have the community. And gosh, that that video, oh my god, the team that included I mean, you all work so hard. I would watch the channel and like edit this, tweak that.

[00:22:17]>> Um um and I thought you captured uh I the love note that you and Carowana and others did for the community so well.

[00:22:28]I'm so proud. So proud and grateful.

[00:22:30]>> Thank you. And it was a it was a team effort. It was a community effort. Yes.

[00:22:33]>> All right. And last question here. We know again so much happening in the era of AI and you've been doing this you know in this technology space for for a while now even though you don't look a day over 25.

[00:22:43]>> Oh yeah.

[00:22:43]>> But what's something that you would say you know really keeps you going um in this space of AI and the the mindset of really learning and continuing to lean in?

[00:22:53]>> Yeah. I've talked about the people and that is the number one thing that gets me going is to get to work with smart people every day and and talk to customers. uh but I do love the technology as well and so I am a voracious reader and tinkerer with these tools. Um you know I felt like when we entered the cloud era there was different architectures of how you build products and different engineering practices to build massive scale cloud services where you shipped every day as opposed to every 3 years different architectures for four and 59's availability. you know, I learned so much and you know, pandemic, we learned a set of things about you, audio, video, but oh my god, this this is um so cool. And so I um you know, to get to work with uh I think there's over now a hundred scientists in our team, uh people with PhDs that know how the models work all the way to the bottom. And it is just the most fun to talk to them >> because they know a hundred times more about this than me. But I try to keep pace and um you know when they share things to read it's just it's super fascinating uh to learn about a new technology domain. Um so I think you know it's fun to learn. I think we were wired as human beings to be curious and learn new things. And while the point of this is making teams more productive, the fact that there's this complicated math stuff at the bottom >> makes me intellectually curious about, >> you know, how do these AI models work?

[00:24:33]How's the, you know, what's the math of the brain, the math of the universe?

[00:24:36]It's just, you know, a fascinating technical and philosophical problem to think about.

[00:24:41]>> Yeah. And ultimately, you continue to learn by just staying curious, you know, staying staying innovative and wanting to be at that forefront of, you know, what's new and what's next, as you talked about in your keynote.

[00:24:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. My dad's uh my dad's 88. He was an aerospace engineer. He taught me how to program >> and, you know, he hasn't worked on this stuff uh for a while. And so over the holiday break, I used AI uh to write a book for him to explain awesome >> how the AI worked in the language in the terms of the technology of his era.

[00:25:12]>> And like you said, uh you know, I see, you know, the energy it gives my father in his late 80s to be curious and and it's a great reminder to me and hopefully everybody that uh stay curious. that like you said that is like if you're if you're grateful and you're curious a lot of other things take care of themselves.

[00:25:34]>> Yeah, absolutely. The learning doesn't stop. It's not a finish line. It's a continued journey. Absolutely. Well, Jeeoff, thank you. It's been so amazing here talking to you again here live at the Microsoft 365 community conference.

[00:25:45]We hope you enjoy the rest of your time here and we looking forward to connecting with you as a community.