Tom Arbuthnot: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome back, it is the start of the new year, or technically just just about to start the new year as we record this, but this will be coming out in January, so we're gonna have a little bit of a, a think about, Microsoft places. It was the last full year, in GA last year, and there's a lot coming this year.
, Brennan, you've been on a few times now, so, I don't dunno, I think most people will know who you are by now if they're in the, the Teams or the AI workplace kind of sphere. But do you wanna just introduce yourself and your role?
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah. Thanks Tom, good to be back as always, I'm Brennan, McReynolds.
I lead product strategy within the places, product and engineering group.
Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. So let's, let's cast our minds back all, all the way back to, last year, your first year really in GA, in market, how, how was that? And, I guess let's talk about how the products evolved over that year.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, well, certainly it was a, it was a long.
Awaited and in many ways long overdue, you know, GA for places, given that it was [00:01:00] announced, you know, number, a number of years, number of years prior, so getting the product out into the market and creating a sense of awareness, creating familiarity around this, just this concept of, of coordination and setting your work plan and where I intend to be and sharing that with others, is just really critical to, I think the, the future ways of working.
, whether you agree with hybrid or exist in a hybrid model or not, we all have flexibility. Flexibility is a, a permanent thing that will stay with us and how we work if I need to leave to take, pick up my kids or do these things, right? So places, supports, enables, some of the advancements we've seen and just flexible ways of, of working reGArdless of in office or versus, or versus remote.
Tom Arbuthnot: Mm-hmm.
Brennan McReynolds, so that getting that out into the market, really begins to create, that new narrative or framework for how to, how to leverage these signals and meet the user where they are, you know, in Microsoft Calendar and Teams. So. That was a big part of that GA moment. And then also just the better ways of booking a space, right?
Booking a [00:02:00] room, having a map within M365 were all kind of these foundational elements, halfway through the year, we also knew that at GA, like that wasn't everything that customers are asking for. And in fact, you know, you could, you could build in perpetuity in this space and, and really never, never be done.
, but the key, the key part of our summer release. Was individual desk booking on a map, being able to, to see where Tom is sitting, sit next to him for the day, plug my device into that monitor at my desk that I've reserved, and just that simple act of, of plugging my laptop into that monitor, checks me in, updates my location in Teams.
So, you know, this continued story of meeting the user where they are and, and the things that we just naturally do when we come in the office to secure and to feel confident that I have a place to work today. Is really what we, you know, we set out to do this year. And, by all accounts we've kind of got the v one of that, of those, of those experiences out there.
Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's, it is been interesting, it's an interesting backdrop to this product as [00:03:00] well. The whole all remote hybrid working and then, and like the last half of last year there was a lot of return to office, like different in different countries, but suddenly we started hearing the. The stories we hold held pre pandemic of like, there isn't enough desks or parking or meeting rooms or like, and I've seen, we've had a lot of customers on the podcast, late last year that are doing massive Teams, rooms rollout.
And it was all in a of more, more back to office, more, more collaboration, more being in not even office, but same spaces is is is a big one.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah. The. When you, you know, when you think about it, people always talk about desk booking desk book, like it's not about desk booking, it's about managing supply and demand space, and it's about having a flexible way to do that as the needs of the organization and the space that they go into every day.
Evolve and change, right? So, I'm not an advocate that desk booking is needed for everybody. I think that's, that's certainly not our position. Our position is mm-hmm. I need to be able to assign a desk to Tom [00:04:00] today. And as a colleague of yours, I need to be able to say like, where is Tom today? If he chooses to share that on a map, I need, I can find him so I can go sit next to him.
Right, that's not a function of desk and that's just a function of in-person connection and collaboration, which is really what, you know, we're most, you know, we're most focused on. But the trends are, the trends are real. And if you know, pre pandemic. Most organizations globally had an employee to seat ratio of one to one and a quarter people per desk.
Like the data shows that most organizations are moving to a two employees, to one desk ratio, if not farther in nex excess of that. We have some customers who have a five to one ratio, five employees to one desk, right? So in those environments, you absolutely need some way of feeling. Your, or, you know, feeling confident, securing your space of like, here's where I'm sitting today, that the commute is worth it.
I'm not gonna have that commute regret where I, you know, I drove for 45 minutes and I can't find a space next to the people that are most meaningful to me. Or alternatively, I have to go down on the second floor into the dark corner and that [00:05:00] nobody sits in and everybody else I know is up on, you know, different part of the floor.
Like, that's not a great experience. So our job is really to create the, the tools and the flexible solutions to let our customers manage their workplaces. That align to the Yeah,
Tom Arbuthnot: bring, bringing, bringing the right people together is such a strong, resonates with me in terms of storylines. I'm talking like lots of legal customers who have been very pro in the office.
, like, but, but like actually making it count. So like with your peers in the right spot, as you say, not just coming to the office and do Teams calls all day, but actually they sit near my colleagues or near the people that, that matter to me. That, that seems like a really big deal.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, I, you know, I, I, not everybody understands or knows that like the places team sits within Microsoft as, as a part of a larger organization named Time and Place, and that's important 'cause time is Microsoft Calendar and our team, you know, really owns these calendar services and places role in enabling the context of location [00:06:00] of your buildings, your rooms, your floors, et cetera.
And the, and then who is with me today is fundamental to, you know, helping our organizations and our customers, you know, and you think about like, even the mission state of Microsoft is like, help every person, every organization achieve more. And then we think about what our, what our team is responsible for doing is more dot, dot, dot at the right time and place.
Mm-hmm. And you know, the, the right is this intelligent AI suggestive nature of what we're building. And then obviously time is calendar and places is the space of which you need and you want to have to achieve your purpose for the day. And if that's, if that's having quiet time by yourself, then. The product can do that.
If it's actually sitting next to the people that are most relevant to you, the product can also support that. So, yeah, that's really kind of what, what gets us up every day and, what we continue to be focused on.
Tom Arbuthnot: That's awesome, I want to talk about the management portal that came in last year and I wanna talk about the API story.
But before we get to that, like work IQ, I really enjoyed your session at Ignite and kind of the work. I think the work IQ [00:07:00] messaging full stop is a really great way to understand the value of data to the user and the AI experience. But like, talk us through your thinking in terms of work IQ in places.
'cause that's really interesting.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, I mean, it, it's really what we're responsible for is making sure that work IQ and therefore Copilot, have that location based context to understand the buildings, the floors, the rooms, the desks, and then also the context of who's planning to be here today, or who's here with me if they choose to share it.
, in order to, to create, the most, you know, or, or support your purpose, you know, for the day. The reality is customers organizations, though that real estate data resides in third party systems of record, and they also do a lot of other things around leases or asset management that, you know, that's not what we're, we're trying to accomplish.
So we're partnering with those industry leaders, to establish APIs and connectors that allow for that spatial data to continue to be maintained by real estate and by facilities and these different organizations while at the [00:08:00] same time meeting the user where they are across M365 delivering, you know, up-to-date spatial data, up-to-date map experiences that, you know, allow for.
More streamlined, seamless space reservation experiences or, or in-person, you know, collaboration.
Tom Arbuthnot: And it feels like that that partnership and API story has got a lot clearer over the year, certainly for me externally as to like where places is strong and where it's the right thing to do to have these API integrations.
I know the APIs have just gone GA as well. Like talk us through that a little bit.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, so, if you think about the places directory as almost inactive directory, but for place and space, we have published, it's to, to graph effectively enabling all crowd operations on the places directory. So letting these third party systems, create, update, and manage and, and delete those objects such that, they can flow more naturally and maintain, the relevancy, you know, across places in, in M365.
And the reality is like, [00:09:00], through my experience in, in real estate and facilities when we were doing this seven or eight years ago. One out of every 10 buildings has some type of spatial layout on a monthly basis that is gonna need to have that floor plan then updated where the user is experiencing that reservation experience.
Like at scale for an organization who has, you know, a hundred floors, let alone a hundred buildings with a thousand floors, that's just, that's unmanageable unless you have, these APIs available and these connections with, these industry leaders. So, and to your point, I think it wasn't clear early on at GA like how this is all going to work.
And it's certainly taken, some more declarative statements on our side. I show up to customers with these partners who manage all this spatial data with their customer, and I'm like, this is not, we're not trying to do what they're doing.
Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah.
Brennan McReynolds: Here's how we work together and everybody kind of like. You know the
Tom Arbuthnot: tone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you said like it, like we've just invested a lot in our global management of, of facilities and, and, and the infrastructure and stuff like that. And it's [00:10:00] like, yeah, I'm not looking to replace that scenario. I'm letting to, it's, it's kind of like a, for me anyway, like augment the end user experience and your end user is living in Teams and Outlook, like that's their knowledge worker life.
How do we unlock the power of that data into those scenarios?
Brennan McReynolds: You bet. You bet.
Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And, and, I might put you on the spot with who the partners are, but you've kind of got a, you've got mapping partners, so helping get that information in, and then you've got kind of the more, I, I guess, app space and others where it's a different use of the API.
What are the kind of two scenarios there?
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, I think there's, we, we actually have three. There's, so there's three patterns that I'll talk about in a second, the first is like categorically the partners today. Yeah. They come from. A, a map first experience. So that's the pointers. Ma ins, archeologic who also does other things, but who are taking a raw map format.
Maybe it's an image file. I mean, we've got, you know, when I talk to partners, they're like, yeah, customer. Somebody took a picture of their fire escape plan on the wall, sent that to me as [00:11:00] a mapping partner, and they converted that into an IMDF. That shows up in places, right, where some organizations are very structured and they have DWG files.
You know, that come from AutoCAD and then those get converted to IMDF. So there's, there's a need for standardization of floor plans and getting those into the, the right format. These mapping conversion partners have been done a great job at doing that. At the same time, there's these systems of record that I've mentioned, you know, EP tourism Market Leader Plan Ons, and Market Leader ServiceNow has a product.
, IBM has a product in that, you know, and that as well. JLL, who's a global real estate, services provider, also has a technology layer. That can abstract that data from those systems, and manage it and organize it so it works in places as well. So, you know, all of these different combinations of permutations of how you think about spatial data are being supported via the, these graph APIs.
And we're also getting ready to add, you know, another wave of partners as well because, you have different sized customers. You have all kinds of market leaders across the globe, so look for [00:12:00] more, announcements and, and sharing of other, other, other solutions in the market who are working with our APIs.
Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. So what, what are the other scenarios then?
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, so that's really, if there's, there's three patterns. The pattern one is, spatial data in and out of places.
Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah.
Brennan McReynolds: Two is about signal and that's understanding. Is there signal, first party, third party to release a room, in case it's not occupied to, to measure the occupancy that's in that room itself.
And obviously we're doing that with. Ilias team and, sensors that, exist naturally, through the OEM devices and our Team certified devices. But there's a lot of great third party sensors in the market, that can trigger, like if this room is not occupied, the room should be released. So in fact, we're getting ready to publish another set of APIs that will allow for, additional opportunities to check in or release rooms based off of.
That third party signal. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. So like, just broaden that inclusive. If you have a badge swipe, like [00:13:00] we think about, you have a building level, you have a badge at a room level, you have room level sensors and even at a desk and you have peripherals or or other, you know, touchscreen displays that you can leverage to create and connect.
That end-to-end experience.
Tom Arbuthnot: And that's where Teams comes in again. So the Teams team who have the concept of understanding, if you're plugged into a particular, you know, you see a lot of these, USB hub video monitors, like, like that kind of thing for desk delegation and just that, I think it was an Ignite announcement.
We saw the first. I'm not sure that the name's been finalized, but like the kind of smart doc concept, like a Teams based doc that has a display that can start to do the desk booking scenario in the Teams experience and tied into places as well.
Brennan McReynolds: Exactly, yeah. The, the, that Yale Link device, will be the first with that kind of Teams interface there on that mini panel.
And what's great there is that, you know, that as I think about updating, managing my desk or who's sitting where, then you do have that visual confirmation of is this mine? And, you know, some of those things, that just [00:14:00] become, you know, you're not having to put stickies on a desk saying, this is Tom's assigned desk.
Right? Yeah. Like, you know, how do you just make things feel more, you know, more, connected. But also going back to the flexibility discussion we had earlier that allows for the Admin portal, if I'm gonna make these updated and changes, then that gets reflected downstream at a display level as well. So, we're excited about that.
So that's pattern two is really about signal, whether it's occupancy related or check-in related. And then, you mentioned app space earlier, so you know, pattern three while app space, app space is unique as we can, you know, pattern one applies there. Pattern three applies there as well in terms of extensible experiences and examples of that are, and really for the future is, visitor management, right?
So I, if I'm inviting Tom to the Microsoft office, I need to, you need to go through the visitor management system. So how do we connect into whether it's visitor management, whether it's a, a kiosk or a signage experience that, that an app space has from a digital signage perspective, our other disservices and amenities that are available in these [00:15:00] different systems that exist globally.
We wanna make sure that, you know, we continue to empower, those different technologies and those partners that exist. 'cause the reality is, like many organizations, especially global organizations, your workplace tech stack or workplace experience, tech stack, to be more specific varies from country to country or, or region to region, right?
Yeah, and that means that every building that's set up an M365 needs to be able to. Connect into those specific experiences and services, that are being enabled through technology. So, data pattern one, data in and out places. Directory pattern two, signal in and out. And then pattern three is extensible experiences.
So thinking about locker book, booking down the road, or other things that we're not necessarily gonna prioritize at the moment, it allows for others to, to build on top of it with us.
Tom Arbuthnot: That's really good to understand these patterns. It's a, there's an interesting, comparison in my head to where we went with, you know, Link and Skype business and Teams, where for, for places to be successful, you have to have these [00:16:00] APIs and partnerships.
'cause you're not, you are not displacing your augmenting. So like, actually those partnerships and that API and, and, and also you're bringing together different teams. You're probably bringing together the. Microsoft end user experience, worker experience, whatever it is, part of the business and the facilities.
Hopefully they're all in one org, but often they're not like, like everybody has to be happy about, well we use this tool and we use this tool and they work together. So that, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Brennan McReynolds: Right.
Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, I know there's more we're gonna talk about later in this year, so, we can't, can't break it all out now, but there's a lot coming that this year.
It's really exciting. Any kind of last thoughts as, as, as we go into the year around, I, I guess how, how people should be thinking about this or what should they be thinking about getting started if they haven't yet gone down? So, and I know, you've got some numbers that we can't share yet as well, but like there's been a good level of adoption.
Last year, but there's obviously a, a lot of, a lot of opportunity out there.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, I I I think that, you know, the, the [00:17:00] initial reaction is that, there's a, a lot of customers who have begun the journey and that the journey begins with putting, adding your buildings to the places directory, and so like what is the takeaway for somebody who's, who's not familiar with places is like, add your buildings to the places directory.
'cause those buildings now show up of, I can set that intent of where I'm going to be, those buildings also begin to attribute to asking Copilot where, what's the best day to go in this week? Or who's in the office today? Right. So I think what we haven't talked about is a little bit of a preview of there's some natural things that you would expect Copilot to support, from a scheduling and planning perspective, in natural language.
And that's where, you know, we continue to be focused and, and those things will, will start to come to fruition around just adding a room and saying, Hey, what's the, I need to find, find a time to meet with Tom this week. So step one is calendar scheduling. Yeah. Find right time with time, step two is once I find that time, then what's the right room?
Those things should be just naturally embedded in the way we think about interacting.
Tom Arbuthnot: We're starting to [00:18:00] see the Copilot team put that in the chat experience as well, which is gonna obviously rely on the foundations of what you guys are doing. With the data in places my mind immediately jumps to, like, I'm so excited about Copilot voice and the ability to do these same types of things.
So whenever I see these things in UIs. My head jumps forward to like, inevitably the voice interface is going to get better and better, but the, but it need to lay these foundations now. So even if you don't see people necessarily using a Copilot chat to book a meeting, which is, is coming, I can definitely see a case where, wouldn't it be amazing if I could be like, I'm, I'm meeting with Brennan on Thursday in, in the, you know, in this Seattle office.
Can you find us a space? Like that's where it's heading for me.
Brennan McReynolds: Right. Yeah. And, and that's where like, it goes back to that the key action for everybody is like taking whatever rooms you have today and putting them into places, directory conver, making that conversion happen. Put putting your buildings into places, directory, beginning to put your floors into places, directory, and then, you know, rooms and desks.
And then ultimately you [00:19:00] get into maps as well. But if, you know, I think about year one, you know, we're approaching or in excess of, you know, a representative of a billion square feet of office that's been added into the places trajectory, and that's, you know, that's exciting. There's a lot of office space out there, but it just shows that, that organizing this data in, in M365 will pay dividends to enabling location intelligent experiences, you know, for our customers across the, across Copilot and across the M365 suite.
So, that's our laser focus. I think you'll certainly, you know, hear more of how we want to simplify that for our customers, you know, in the new year and. And then, yeah, there's a bunch of, I'm excited to, to get on the other half of some of these disclosures so you can kind of see is coming. But, this is a good way to end the year with a lot of, a lot of momentum, a lot of tailwinds, on how we're gonna build out this ecosystem with our partners and our customers.
So.
Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, Brennan, thanks so much for sharing the, the thoughts on last year and then this year coming. And, yeah, we'll, for everybody listening in, when [00:20:00] there's more share we'll we'll do another update. But yeah, stay tuned on the, the podcast and newsletter and our stuff breaks. We'll let you know.
Thanks so much, Brennan.
Brennan McReynolds: Yeah, thanks so much, Tom. Happy happy holidays everyone.
Tom Arbuthnot: Cheers.