Today: See you at aMP Rennes 2026!

I'll be talking about Microsoft Foundry, different kinds of agents, Copilot Studio and of course M365 Copilot with my good friend Michaël Maillot at aMP Rennes 2026 - today!

We have a demo, another demo, some tales from the trenches and zero fluffy marketing speak to share.

There will be both live coding and a Copilot Studio agent, and a lot of chances for things to go terribly wrong. Again.

Background

I feel almost endlessly lucky for being able to participate in and speak at different events around the world. My employer covers most of the costs and tolerates my weird schedules, so that I can just frolick around talking about cool technology.

I hope they don't one day realize how much fun I'm having at their expense... 🫠

Anyway.

This is my first event in France, and actually my first aMP event ever - and I'm really looking forward to it! 😊

... actually, this is my first time visiting France. And what a time I chose to visit!

Just look at the summer weather they're still enjoying!

Nice getaway from the freezing North 🥶

When and where?

This is where I'd usually have some sort of Call-to-Action like "Sign up for free here: (and the link)!", or something along those lines - but the event's registration was already closed because it is FULL! Great work by the organizers, it's always amazing to see such high interest to a local event!

Our session

Our session is on Wednesday, October 28, from 2:00 to 2:45 p.m. in Room 2 at Orange Atalante, 4 rue du Clos Courtel, 35510 Cesson-Sévigné.

Session details below:

M365 Copilot is the UI, Foundry is the Brain, but what turns intelligence into action?

Everybody is building agents.

Most of them are glorified prompt wrappers.

Meanwhile, the interesting engineering is happening somewhere else.

Organizations across manufacturing and industrial operations are investing heavily in AI-powered automation, operational intelligence, and smarter decision-making. But delivering real business value requires more than simply connecting a chatbot to a language model.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is rapidly becoming the interface layer for AI experiences across Microsoft 365. But the real innovation is increasingly moving into Microsoft Foundry, where developers can choose models, evaluate models, orchestrate agents, combine tools, and build systems that extend far beyond traditional chatbot experiences. Microsoft 365 Agents SDK then connects those systems back into Microsoft 365, Teams, and Copilot.

In this session, we'll build a real agent from the ground up and use it as an excuse to explore the most interesting parts of the modern Microsoft AI stack. Along the way we'll experiment with model selection, evaluations, orchestration patterns, agent memory, Work IQ, custom engine agents, and agent-to-agent collaboration.

We'll also explore what it takes to move beyond simple question-answering and toward systems that can support operational workflows, automate processes, and help users make more informed decisions using the right combination of context, reasoning, and action.

This is not a session about prompt engineering. This is a session about software engineering.

Expect fewer marketing diagrams, more code, more demos, more architectural trade-offs, and at least a few deliberately questionable decisions made in the name of learning.

Because in 2026, Copilot may be the interface. But Foundry is increasingly where the intelligence behind next-generation business operations lives.

Takeaways:

✅ Learn where Foundry creates real value

Understand when model choice, evaluations, orchestration, and memory improve business outcomes, operational efficiency, and decision-making, and when they're just unnecessary complexity.

✅ Know when Copilot Studio is enough

Recognize the point where low-code tooling stops being productive and code-first approaches start paying dividends.

✅ Avoid expensive architectural mistakes

Learn which patterns scale, which patterns are maintainable, and which patterns only look impressive in conference demos.

✅ Build agents that drive outcomes, not just conversations

See how Work IQ, custom engine agents, and Foundry can work together to enable automation, operational intelligence, and action-oriented AI experiences.

See you there!