Expert insights on Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, and Enterprise Technology
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Microsoft Research's annual New Future of Work report arrived this week carrying a finding that deserves more attention than it will probably get: AI is not automatically making organisations more productive, and the people most at risk from it are the ones organisations can least afford to lose.
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Your organisation has diagramming tools, a CMDB, an architecture repository, and a risk register. So why can't any of them tell you what your AI systems are actually authorised to do? The tools aren't broken. They were just never built to hold this kind of information.
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Most organisations deploying AI can't answer a simple question: what is this system actually authorised to do? With the EU AI Act creating real pressure and Microsoft's own security researchers flagging the same gap, the documentation debt from two years of fast AI deployment is about to get expensive.
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I do not tend to write follow‑up articles this quickly. Usually, if something feels incomplete, it is better to let the thinking settle rather than rush back to the keyboard. In this case though, I realised I had missed a genuinely important point in the previous piece, particularly around how organisations, and service providers too,… Continue Reading →
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This week I got introduced to a term I somehow missed: Forward Deployed Engineer, or FDE. I will be honest, it felt like one of those phrases I probably should already have been aware of, but clearly it passed me by until now. The slightly annoying part is that once you see it, you cannot… Continue Reading →
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A few days ago, and yes, I am technically still on holiday, I was standing at Foz do Iguaçu, watching an unreasonable amount of water throw itself over a cliff. It is loud, chaotic, and completely indifferent to whether you feel prepared for it. The mist gets everywhere, the ground is slippery, and the closer… Continue Reading →
Read articleDuring the most recent podcast recording I made an offhand remark about feeling surrounded by agents. It was not a planned insight. It was just a moment of noticing how routine the whole thing has become. Agents now appear everywhere without invitation. They sit inside Microsoft 365. They assist in GitHub. They pop up in… Continue Reading →
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Introduction, and the source of the uncomfortable truth This week, I have been revisiting the IBM Institute for Business Value research, Secure by design, smarter with AI. One finding should make every leadership team pause: 42 percent of executives rank their own operational shortcomings among their top cybersecurity threats, ahead of nation states and just… Continue Reading →
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Last month, I took you on a little journey into “vibe coding”—building apps and tools without writing a single line of code, thanks to the magic of AI assistants. If you missed it, you can catch up here: https://themicrosoftcloudblog.com/2025/11/21/adventures-in-vibe-coding-building-apps-and-tools-without-writing-a-single-line-of-code-introduction/. This week, I want to dig deeper. Not into the “no-code” hype, but into the real,… Continue Reading →
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For the past month, I’ve been running an experiment: could I build multiple full-stack applications and supporting tools—without writing any code myself? Not a single line. Instead, I relied on natural language instructions, documented protocols, and a conversational workflow with my AI assistant. The result? Two apps, two MCP servers, and a mountain of lessons… Continue Reading →
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If any of you are like me, you’ll have seen Microsoft’s recent piece detailing SesameOp—a novel backdoor that exploits the OpenAI Assistants API for command-and-control in cloud environments. There’s something deeply unsettling about attackers co-opting our most advanced tools against us. This isn’t just another run-of-the-mill malware story; it’s a wake-up call about how generative… Continue Reading →
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In this week’s newsletter: a deep dive into the recent AWS and Microsoft cloud outages, what caused them, their ripple effects on businesses, and how (theoretically) to keep the lights on next time. As usual I also attempt to cover key Microsoft product updates (Azure, M365, Copilot) and a brief recap on our fortnightly (or… Continue Reading →
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