Proof we're not bluffing

Uli Homann, corporate vice president of Microsoft Cloud and AI, opens the Tech Accelerator “Mastering Azure and AI Adoption” with a practical roadmap for getting to Azure without tripping over your own ambition. He frames the event around Azure Essentials—rooted in the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework and the Azure Well-Architected Framework—then brings in Ram Peddibhotla from AMD to connect infrastructure choices to real outcomes, from AMD EPYC-powered Azure VM families (including general-purpose V6 VMs on 4th gen EPYC) to Instinct MI300X for AI workloads and confidential computing collaboration. They ground it all with customer stories: Swiss Re using the Cloud Adoption Framework and a cloud center of excellence to standardize reliability and improve IT productivity by 40% in three years; Howdens building a gen AI support tool with Azure OpenAI service, Azure Cosmos DB as a vector store, and applied search—supported by an Azure OpenAI Landing Zone; AMD scaling EDA workloads on HB-series VMs with Azure CycleCloud; a Fortune 500 bank migrating nearly 1.5 million vCPUs to AMD V5/V6; and the University of Miami strengthening disaster recovery in “Hurricane Alley” with multi-zone redundancy and redundant Azure ExpressRoute connectivity.

We produced this as a pre-recorded, streamed event that feels confidently live—minus the frantic backstage energy and the “can you see my screen?” ritual. We handled show development, built a cohesive graphics package, prepped the guests, produced the footage, edited it into a crisp opener, and streamed it to multiple social channels using our remote studio and streaming platform. The benefit is simple: your experts look effortless, the message lands cleanly, and you walk away with an on-demand asset that keeps working long after the stream ends.

This demo walks through adding a floor plan to a building in Microsoft Places to improve the Places experience for users—making it easier to understand floor layouts and find points of interest like restrooms, stairs, rooms, and desks. It calls out prerequisites (aka.ms/PlacesRequirements), including having desks, desk pools, and conference rooms already configured and waiting 24 hours before building the floor plan. The video explains that Places uses the IMDF (Indoor Mapping Data Format) standard for interactive maps, then shows the PowerShell workflow: connect with Connect-MicrosoftPlaces, grab the building Place ID with Get-PlaceV3, export spatial data and a mapfeatures.csv via Import-MapCorrelations (alongside an export .csv like Contosohqexport.csv), copy the Place ID/Name/Type columns into the right IMDF elements, create a correlated IMDF file, and upload the floor plan using New-Map. Once uploaded, users can toggle maps on in Places Finder to locate nearby features and resources.

We produced this as a streamlined, low-noise demo built for clarity and retention—starting with preproduction to understand the feature, lock messaging, and script the exact click-and-command path. In production we captured clean screens and recorded professional voiceover with music that keeps the pace moving, then in post we tightened the flow and emphasized the steps that matter most. The result: a demo that makes a technical workflow feel simple, confident, and production-ready—so your audience leaves remembering the process, not the clutter.

This demo shows how to add bookable resources in Microsoft Places—desks, desk pools, and meeting rooms—so a building becomes genuinely useful (and not just a rectangle with feelings). After calling out the prerequisites at aka.ms/PlacesRequirements, it walks through connecting to Microsoft Places and Microsoft Exchange Online with Connect-MicrosoftPlaces and Connect-ExchangeOnline, then using Get-PlaceV3 to grab the place IDs for your building, floors, and sections. From there, it demos creating an individual desk with New-Place, pairing it to a mailbox with New-Mailbox and Set-Mailbox, and linking everything back to Places with Set-PlaceV3—plus adding metadata like wheelchair accessibility and handy desk features (monitor, docking station, height-adjustable desk). It then builds a desk pool (shared desks) in Exchange Online, sets time zone, working hours, and capacity using Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration and Set-CalendarProcessing, and publishes it as a desk booking experience in Places with Set-PlaceV3 (capacity: 10 seats). Finally, it shows adding a conference room the same way—using a recommended configuration for a Teams Room—and closes with onboarding desk peripherals for ad hoc reservations, occupancy notifications, and extra admin insights (see aka.ms/placesdeployment).

We produced this as a tight, low-noise demo built for people who want the steps, not the chaos. In preproduction, we nailed the goals, messaging, and exact click-and-command path. In production, we captured clean screens, recorded professional voiceover, and added music that keeps the pace moving. In post, we shaped it into a brisk, confident walkthrough—clear callouts, clean pacing, and just enough structure that viewers can follow along once and then go do it.

This demo shows how to configure a new building in Microsoft Places, then add floors and sections using PowerShell. It starts with the prerequisites at aka.ms/PlacesRequirements, then connects with Connect-MicrosoftPlaces and enables Buildings and Places Finder using Set-PlacesSettings. From there, it creates a building with New-Place (Type set to Building, with name and address minimums, plus optional metadata like wheelchair accessibility), pulls the Place ID using Get-PlaceV3, adds floors with New-Place (Type set to Floor, using a numeric name and the building as the parent), and partitions each floor into sections—like a north and south section—using New-Place with Type set to Section. It wraps by calling out Set-PlaceV3 as the workhorse for configuring Places entities and points to the next video for setting up bookable resources at aka.ms/ConfigurePlacesVideo.

We produced this as a crisp, confidently paced demo—planned in preproduction down to the exact command path, then captured with clean screens, professional voiceover, and music that keeps the flow moving. In post, we tightened everything into a walkthrough people can actually follow on the first watch, with the important steps landing clearly and the technical bits feeling approachable. After review rounds, we deliver the full package: closed captions, audio description, and thumbnails.

This demo introduces the Microsoft Places experience in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams, showing how employees plan office days and book space. It starts by setting a work plan from the Location icon (choosing in-office days and selecting a building like “Contoso HQ”), then walks through booking an individual desk from the Outlook Calendar or via the Places card. It also covers desk pools (reserving a seat in a shared workspace), using Places Finder to browse and filter by floor and features like monitors, docking stations, and standing desks, and booking conference rooms by filtering for capacity and features—including Microsoft Teams Rooms. Finally, it shows selecting desks and rooms directly on an interactive map, plus automatic desk reservation when you plug into a dock or monitor.

We produced this as a clean, fast-moving demo built to make the workflow feel effortless: preproduction to lock the message and script every step, production to capture crisp screens with professional voiceover and music, and post to tighten pacing and keep the interface readable. The benefit our client: a walkthrough that’s easy for viewers to follow in real time, easy to remember later, and polished enough that the product—not the explanation—gets all the attention.

The film spotlights collaboration security in the modern workplace—specifically how attackers exploit Microsoft Teams with social engineering tactics like impersonating IT support to trick users into installing malware. It positions Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as the safety net across where people actually work, calling out advanced protection capabilities in Teams, signals integrated into the Microsoft SOC platform, time-of-click URL protection, detonation of suspicious links and files, user reporting for suspicious messages and false positives, correlated alerts across Defender, and threat hunting across external Teams messages and URL-based indicators—ending with a clear CTA to aka.ms/MDO under the Microsoft Security banner.

We produced this as a full, end-to-end brand film: shaping the story up front, writing to the message, and building a clean visual plan before the edit ever starts. For this one, we pulled it off entirely with stock footage—lower cost, faster turnaround, and still plenty of cinematic shine—then brought it home with a polished edit, color, sound design, and delivery-ready extras like captions, audio description, and thumbnails. The benefit is simple: you get a bingeable, worthy spot with serious IT swagger, plus calm hand-holding through every step (including the parts where timelines get a little feral).

This video introduces Microsoft Purview Data Security Investigations, built to make data security investigations faster, clearer, and far less “duct-tape-and-three-tools” than the old way. It frames the pain: fractured workflows, costly handoffs, and not knowing the true impact of sensitive data exposure (intellectual property, personally identifiable information, and financial data). Then it gets specific: generative AI and AI-powered deep content analysis help surface risks, correlate impacted data with users and activities, and provide context like risky IP access—so teams can take mitigation steps like protecting or purging sensitive documents. It also highlights tight integration with Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, and closes with a CTA to aka.ms/PurviewDSI under Microsoft Security.

We produced this as a crisp, story-driven brand film from the ground up: shaping the narrative in preproduction, scripting and storyboarding for clarity and cadence, then building a polished finish in post with tight pacing, clean sound design, and visuals that keep complex security concepts understandable (and oddly bingeable). You get the full one-stop shop: a smoother process, fewer surprises, and a final deliverable that’s ready to ship everywhere—complete with closed captions, audio description, and thumbnails. Serious message. Delightful execution.

Cybersecurity is complex. But this animation argues it doesn’t have to be overwhelming—especially with Microsoft Security Copilot. It introduces Copilot as a generative AI experience for security and IT, available as a standalone tool or integrated across the Microsoft security stack and your existing tools. From there, it walks through what Copilot helps teams do faster and better: assess threats and vulnerabilities, investigate security incidents, help secure data environments, resolve IT issues, and secure identities and access. It also spotlights AI agents that streamline and automate workflows, plus the “everyone levels up” effect—junior analysts get coaching, while seasoned experts get an always-ready assistant that helps them move strategically.

We produced this as a polished, end-to-end animation built to make a big idea feel simple and confident. We shaped the message into a tight script and visual plan (with animatics to lock timing early), then paired professional voiceover with music that keeps things moving without stealing the scene. From there, we illustrated and keyframed every beat to match the cadence, and finished with sound design that makes the whole piece feel bigger than its runtime. After streamlined review loops, we delivered the final video along with closed captions, audio description, and thumbnails—so it’s ready to perform anywhere your audience scrolls, clicks, and judges.

Aria Hanson, a product manager at Microsoft focused on commercial AI and Windows updates, offers a practical “untangling AI” tour of what Microsoft provides and how it fits together. She starts with security and compliance as the foundation, then explains why data governance matters even more once users can ask tools like M365 Copilot to instantly surface documents—highlighting sensitivity labels and governance with Microsoft Purview, and organizing data with Microsoft Fabric. From there she moves into building AI-powered apps across client and cloud: Windows Copilot Runtime and Onyx Runtime for running models locally on NPUs (especially on Copilot+ PCs), and Azure AI Foundry for larger cloud-based workloads—often used together. For developers, she calls out GitHub Copilot as a productivity boost. For end users, she breaks down Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (rebranded on January 15) with Entra ID protections, and Windows experiences on Copilot+ PCs—including improved Windows Search, Windows Studio Effects, Click to Do, live captions, live translations, and Recall, which she notes will be off by default for commercial devices and only enabled if IT chooses.

We produced this as a pre-recorded streamed session engineered for clarity: we shaped the talk into a clean narrative arc, designed the graphics to keep concepts and product names easy to track, and guided the presenter so the pacing stayed human and confident. Then we captured and refined the program in post—tightening transitions, smoothing the flow, and ensuring the technical details landed without viewer whiplash—before streaming it out to multiple social channels through our remote studio and platform. The result is a polished on-air moment now, plus an on-demand asset that keeps explaining the story long after the stream is over.

Katie Anderson (product marketing) and Christiaan Brinkhoff unpack “Migrating Windows to the Cloud” as part of the Microsoft Technical Takeoff, showing how the Windows Cloud story fits together—from Azure Virtual Desktop’s evolution to today’s Windows 365 lineup. They break down Windows 365 Enterprise vs Windows 365 Frontline (including shift-friendly flexibility), when high-GPU Cloud PCs make sense, and how to plan a “Windows 11 your way” migration while keeping users productive. The session also spotlights the modern access experience through the Windows App, purpose-built hardware with Windows 365 Link and its boot-to-cloud flow, and hands-on admin work like building provisioning policies, choosing region and images, enabling single sign-on for a smoother sign-in experience, and using passwordless options like FIDO keys.

We produced this pre-recorded streamed session to feel like a confident live broadcast, without the usual “who touched the audio?” energy. Our team handled show development, built a cohesive graphics package, and guided the presenters through run-of-show beats so the story stayed clear and the demos stayed clean. Then we captured, tightened, and polished the program in post—turning dense technical material into a smooth viewing experience—and delivered a reliable multi-channel stream from our remote studio and streaming platform, plus an on-demand version ready to keep performing after the live moment.

Harjit Dhaliwal (senior product marketing manager, Cloud Endpoints) and Ben Watt (cloud solution architect and accessibility champion) go under the hood on enabling accessible Windows 11 experiences—specifically the features that rely on speech and audio intelligence. They recap Live Captions and Voice Access (including handy shortcuts like Windows+Ctrl+L and Windows+Ctrl+S), then focus on the IT-pro part: deploying the right speech packs and languages at scale, preinstalling Natural Voices for Narrator so screen reading is easier to listen to all day, and avoiding the classic “the feature exists but nobody can turn it on” trap. The session gets concrete with Microsoft Intune workflows, Microsoft Store distribution details (including the need for product IDs for speech pack apps), and even a practical registry-based option for enabling Voice Access before sign-in—so users can access the feature without needing local admin rights.

We produced this pre-recorded streamed session as a clean, confident on-air tutorial—equal parts practical and watchable. We shaped the segment flow, built the graphics package to keep the settings-and-demos easy to follow, and worked with the speakers so every “click here, then here” moment lands clearly (without wandering into the weeds). Then we captured, polished, and delivered the stream across multiple social channels using our remote studio and streaming platform—giving our client a smooth live-style experience and a replay-ready asset that keeps helping long after the broadcast.

Sandeep Patnaik (who leads Microsoft’s “like-local” team) is joined by Rinku Dalwani, Angelo Gacad-Sioson, and Jordan Marchese to unpack how Microsoft is making Windows in the cloud feel suspiciously local—especially for demanding workloads. Using a game-developer scenario (two 4K monitors at 60 fps, instant connection, reliable peripherals), they walk through the streaming and connectivity tech behind Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop in the Windows App: RDP Shortpath (plus TURN support) to chase the shortest network route, multimedia redirection for video playback on the endpoint, and optimizations for real-time communications like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. They also dig into graphics and platform improvements, including hardware encode/decode support for HEVC and color formats like 4:4:4 with H.264 and 4:2:0 with HEVC, plus what’s coming next—RDP Multipath for higher reliability across multiple UDP/TCP paths, faster connection times (30 seconds down to ~10), quicker drive and folder enumeration at scale, and better peripheral performance for devices like scanners, pens, and cameras.

We produced this as a pre-recorded streamed session that feels clean, quick, and human—because we did the heavy lifting before the audience ever hit play. We shaped the run-of-show, designed the graphics package, and worked with the speakers so the handoffs and demos land smoothly (including the Multipath walkthrough) without that “live demo roulette” energy. Then we captured, edited, and delivered the final program through our remote studio and streaming platform to multiple social channels—so the content comes across polished and effortless, and the replay holds up just as well as the premiere.