Weekly Update 2 June 2025 – Exploring Agent Mode, Agentic DevOps, Entra Auditing, and Copilot ROI

This week:

Agent mode has arrived in preview for Visual Studio

Agentic DevOps in action: Reimagining every phase of the developer lifecycle

Track Microsoft Entra Application Operations Using PowerShell

Driving adoption and measuring impact with the Microsoft 365 Copilot Dashboard

You can also listen to the audio-only podcast episode: Thoughtstuff Podcast – Tom Morgan on Teams Dev: Weekly Update 2 June 2025.

Find all my videos at thoughtstuff.co.uk/videos. You can also subscribe to the audio-only version of these videos, either via iTunes, Spotify or your own podcasting tool.

Video Summary (AI generated):

Hello and welcome to another weekly update – I hope you’re doing well and had a chance to properly digest all the content that came out of Build. I haven’t managed it either, but we’ll get there!

Let’s dive into a few things from the past couple of weeks, starting with something I might have missed during the Build buzz: Agent Mode in Visual Studio. This is now in preview and it’s a really interesting step forward, especially if you’re already using GitHub Copilot or chatting with agents to support your dev work. I’m excited to see how it fits into my workflow – this is a more automated, hands-off experience. Think of it as giving your code more access to AI, going beyond suggestions and into true automation. It feels like the next leap after Copilot—a genuine game-changer for coding.

We’re talking about letting agents handle some of your development tasks across different projects, while you orchestrate the process. It’s workflow reinforcement, not just enhancement. If it delivers on its promise, this could really supercharge not just what I’m working on now, but how I work altogether.

On that note, Agentic DevOps is another area I’m keeping a close eye on. I love what DevOps can do, but hate the manual babysitting it so often requires. Agentic DevOps aims to offload those repetitive CI/CD maintenance tasks. If the marketing is accurate, it could dramatically reduce the time we pour into DevOps hygiene, freeing us up to do more impactful work. And honestly, it couldn’t come soon enough.

I also came across a great blog post about auditing Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) applications using PowerShell. It lets you track operations—like permission changes and consent updates—which is crucial for both security and debugging. From an IT admin perspective, it’s good for compliance. From a developer’s point of view, it’s an extra layer of insight when things just aren’t working right. Definitely one to bookmark for your toolkit.

Lastly, let’s talk about monitoring Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption. The Copilot Dashboard, part of Viva Insights, helps visualize Copilot usage across your organization. If you’re rolling it out per business unit or department, this gives you the data to justify ROI and improve adoption. You can view Copilot actions, assisted hours, adoption by group, and even impact analysis with built-in pulse survey data.

One quirk – you need Viva Insights to access the dashboard, which feels a bit awkward. If you’re already paying for Copilot, shouldn’t usage analytics be included? Still, for most medium to large enterprises, this won’t be a blocker.

We’re full swing into conference season—European Collab Summit just wrapped and many more are on the way. Before you know it, it’ll be summer. Whatever you’re working on, have a great week, and I’ll speak to you next time!