ESPC26 – AI Skills to pay the Bills - Chris O'Brien and Joanne Mangan

Episode 65 · Guest: Joanne Mangan & Chris O'Brien · 2026-11-04

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur helps organizations reimagine business through AI, aligning strategy, technology, and leadership to create lasting impact Host Chris McNulty speaks with Chris O'Brien, CTO of Advania UK and an 18-year Microsoft MVP, and Joanne Mangan of the ESPC program team about what European practitioners need from Microsoft AI after Ignite. They examine AI token costs, sovereignty and worker rights, while Joanne previews ESPC26's hands-on learning and community experience in Amsterdam. Key takeaways ·       ESPC26 runs November 30 to December 3 at RAI Amsterdam, less than two weeks after Microsoft Ignite. Speakers use that window to test new announcements against real-world practice and update their demos. ·       The ESPC program team reviewed more than a thousand session submissions this year. Chris O'Brien's own analysis found 14 session titles that openly question how AI is being presented. ·       The Innovation Hub returns with labs, an innovation stage, a demo area and a Surface and Skilling Bar. New this year are 12 facilitated peer roundtables. The expo has about 50 sponsors. ·       For many European organizations, sovereignty means services that are fully owned, managed and operated under European jurisdiction, not only data that stays in country. ·       Workers' councils in countries such as France and Germany shape AI rollouts. Some organizations now base their Copilot business case on employee satisfaction and retention. ·       Consumption billing has made AI cost a board-level topic. Steering people to the right agents and models can deliver the same outcomes for as little as a tenth of the cost. ·       AI is spreading to owned GPU capacity, laptops and desk-side devices such as NVIDIA DGX Spark. O'Brien calls it diversification of where AI runs. ·       Skills now package real business processes, such as credit risk checks and month-end preparation at Advania. Start with small tasks you repeat, then combine them. ·       Synozur's AI maturity model, hosted on orion.synozur.com, has run over 350 assessments. Average maturity is up about 20 to 30 points over the past year. North America is slightly stronger overall, while Europe leads on governance. Sound Bites Chris O'Brien, CTO, Advania UK "If it does feel like markitecture and a load of general positioning, very light on the detail and no real insights into what it would look like in the real world, people will not be too happy at ESPC with a session like that." "It's got to be something that is fully owned and managed and operated and operates in a European jurisdiction rather than being subject to perhaps a US jurisdiction." "Use AI in a different way or guide people to the right kind of agents or steer from one technology to another, and you can get exactly the same outcomes, but for maybe a tenth of the cost." "You do see a big shift, not a decloudification, but definitely more diversification of where AI runs." Joanne Mangan, Product and Partner Manager, ESPC "You can't get any more relevant and timely than literally two weeks after Ignite." "The feedback we always get is more hands-on, more real world. People come to learn." "There's something really special about sitting with people who are in the same situation as you, maybe doing the same job and having the same problems." "Keeping the human element in topics like AI is really important." References Guests Chris O'Brien, CTO at Advania UK and 18-year Microsoft MVP.. He is keynoting Cloud Tech Talent in early 2027. LinkedIn · Advania UK · SharePoint Nuts and Bolts blog Joanne Mangan, product and partner manager, ESPC. Find her on LinkedIn, or go to espc.tech for the program and tickets. ESPC News Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot, Official Microsoft Blog, September 25, 2026 The new Copilot is here: The opportunity for Microsoft partners, Microsoft Partner Blog (usage-based billing details, including the December 1, 2026 default-on date for Microsoft 365 Copilot Business) Microsoft Copilot Credits Guide, Microsoft Licensing. Pay-as-you-go credits at $0.01 each; one-year pre-purchase discounts from 5% to 20%. The episode cites the October 2026 edition; the current edition is dated November 2026. Microsoft Sovereign Cloud adds governance, productivity and support for large AI models securely running even when completely disconnected, Official Microsoft Blog, February 24, 2026 (Azure Local disconnected operations, Microsoft 365 Local disconnected, Foundry Local) Microsoft and Mistral expand strategic partnership, Microsoft Source, July 21, 2026 (multibillion-dollar commitment to Europe-based GPU capacity) ESPC ESPC26, November 30 to December 3, 2026, RAI Amsterdam. Polaris listeners save €300 with code POLARIS. ESPC26 programme Tokenomics: Controlling the Bill for M365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Foundry Agents, ESPC26 session by Chris O'Brien Teaching Copilot Cowork about your Company: Skills, MCP Servers, and your Clever Ideas, ESPC26 session by Chris O'Brien ESPC 2026 is coming to Amsterdam, Jeff Teper, Microsoft Copilot Blog, September 10, 2026 ESPC, organizer of ESPC, the European Power Platform Conference (EPPC) and FabCon Europe AI and Technology NVIDIA DGX Spark Claude Enterprise, Anthropic [verify link] General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 Cloud Tech Tallinn 2027, February 4 to 5, 2027, Tallinn, Estonia. Chris O'Brien opens Day 1 with "Rewired: how AI reshapes software, skills and the Microsoft stack by 2028." (The transcript renders the event name as "cloud tech talent.") Pop Culture You Can See Everything, A24, 2026, the Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, HBO, 2019 Trust, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1981 The Stone Roses Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, venue of the ESPC25 delegate party Orion AI maturity model, Synozur Events Mentioned TechCon 365 Dallas: November 2, Irving Convention Center, Irving, Texas TribalNet 2026 AI Roundtable, with Minburn and the Navajo Nation Project Copley Community Call: November 9 Minnesota Microsoft 365 User Group Fall Workshop Day: November 13, Edina, Minnesota Microsoft Ignite: November 17–20, Moscone Center, San Francisco (free digital pass available) ESPC26: November 30 – December 3, RAI Amsterdam. Polaris listeners save €300 with the code Polaris Credits Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe.  Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley. Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.   Chapters 0:00 Cold open: Ignite, ESPC and the new line item called tokens 0:47 Welcome and guest introductions 1:56 Data points: Copilot's billing split, credits and sovereignty infrastructure 3:29 Meet Chris O'Brien and Joanne Mangan 4:00 Career paths: from Manchester to Advania, and the ESPC team 6:30 What is ESPC? 8:08 Building the program around Ignite's embargoed news 11:53 Microsoft's view vs. the practitioner's view 15:06 The ESPC community and advice for first-timers 18:27 What's new this year: the Innovation Hub and roundtables 21:03 The expo floor 22:18 Data sovereignty in Europe and worker councils 25:35 Tokenomics and AI budgets for 2027 28:11 Local AI and the pendulum away from public cloud 30:26 AI skills that automate real business processes 33:48 After hours: the delegate party and ugly sweater contest 35:36 Pop culture picks 38:19 Where to find the guests, and the Polaris discount code 40:09 Polaris Events 42:15 AI maturity data from 350+ assessments 43:20 Next time with Dan Rogers, and sign-off