Jim Gaynor, Editorial Vice President at Directions on Microsoft, reflects on the evolution of Microsoft Teams and its shifting role in Microsoft’s strategy.

• How Teams evolved from a Slack competitor to a central productivity platform
• The impact of the pandemic on Teams adoption and scale
• Why Teams Premium is becoming the home for advanced features
• Microsoft’s pivot to Copilot and what it means for Teams
• How customers are approaching Copilot adoption, ROI, and data governance
• Jim’s perspective on Microsoft’s long-game approach to AI and platform strategy

Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.

Neil Milliken, Global Head of Accessibility at Atos, looks at how accessibility is evolving in the enterprise—driven by AI, inclusive design, and upcoming regulation.

Neil shares insights from over two decades in assistive technology and accessibility, including how mainstream tools like Microsoft 365 are increasingly embedding features that benefit everyone—not just those with disabilities.

• The growing role of AI in assistive tech and how it’s improving productivity and inclusion
• How features like captions, voice input, and personalisation are becoming everyday tools
• The impact of the European Accessibility Act and what it means for private sector organisations
• The convergence of enterprise audio tech and hearing support, including innovations from Jabra and others
• Why accessibility is a business imperative, not just a compliance checkbox

Neil also discusses how organisations can prepare for the European Accessibility Act (EAA), the importance of inclusive design in product development, and how accessibility features are increasingly used by a wider audience—including those with temporary or situational needs.

For more on this, check out Neil’s podcast

Thanks to Jabra, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support.

Mark Herbert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/herbertmark/), co-founder of Call2Teams (at Qunifi, acquired by Dstny) and now launching Haptap Call Manager, explores how partners are enabling Microsoft Teams Phone for SMB and mid-market.

Mark shares industry insights from his Teams journey and working with UCaaS vendors and partners to bridge SIP trunks into Teams. He gives a demo of Haptap Call Manager (https://www.haptap.com/), a cloud-hosted management tool for simplified management of Microsoft Teams phone services.

• The evolving Teams Phone opportunity in SMB and mid-market • How AI and Copilot are driving interest in Teams Phone
• The challenges partners face managing voice at scale
• Haptap’s approach to multi-tenant Teams Phone management
• Why Dstny backed Haptap as an innovation-led startup within the group