What an amazing week. I had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Experts Live Germany conference. More than 350 experts and community members came together at the congress center at Zoo Leipzig – a fantastic location. The conference itself featured a variety of knowledge across four key tracks. These tracks were Cloud & AI, Hybrid, Workplace & Collaboration, and Identity & Security. It was a great event for professionals eager to explore the latest trends and innovations in these fields.

Quick start with Workplace & Collaboration Track

After opening keynote, I delved into Workplace & Collaboration track with Microsoft Teams. Here, Thorsten Pickhan discussed how to master meetings with AI. In his talk titled “Mastering Meetings with AI,” he illustrated how Microsoft has integrated AI into Teams. Thorsten explained very well the differences in licensing models and the resulting features. Later he showcased a demo featuring the new AI assistants for real-time translation and meeting summarization. This was an awesome moment to see these new capabilities in action.

Short switch to Cloud & AI Track

Another contribution came from Haiko Hertes. His presentation was titled “More Cloud for Less Money – Keeping Azure Costs in Check.” It provided attendees with practical strategies for monitoring their Azure spendings. Furthermore, he shared exceptional tips for optimizing Azure consumption with the audience.

Now, I started into my own talk. I presented a session titled “Automating Document Processing with Dataverse and Azure AI Services”. Here I aimed at digital transformers looking to automate their businesses. I demonstrated how to utilize Azure Document Intelligence to extract information from digital documents. Participants learned the capabilities of Document Intelligence Studio and its prebuilt AI models. I showed how simple it is to extract structured information from invoices and receipts. In addition, I illustrated how to automate this process swiftly and easily using the service’s REST API in Power Automate. Finally, I demonstrated my end-2-end scenario to the attendees. In detail, I showed the automated document processing from OneDrive into Dataverse. Here, I utilized a Model Driven App as simple user interface for document upload and management.

More Workplace & Collaboration with Knowledge Copilot

A compelling highlight was for me the presentation by Ferdi Lethen-Oellers. His talk was “The Knowledge Copilot: Revolutionizing Knowledge Management with a Copilot Agent.” Here he explained the various variants of Microsoft Copilot to us. Moreover, he pointed out the difference, common pitfalls and implementation details. My highlight was, that Ferdi showed all these Copilots live in his demo.

Back on Azure Cloud Track

Next, I returned to the Azure Cloud Track. Here I had the opportunity to refresh my knowledge of Azure cloud architecture. Florian Lenz`s gave an impressive session focused on high availability and low latency. He clarified what high availability entails. Furthermore, Florian conducted a live demo showcasing the orchestration of Azure Functions, Azure Front Door, and Azure Cosmos DB. In detail, this demo demonstrated how to minimize latency for global users while optimizing operational costs.

Thoughts on AI in Production

Finally, Ralf Richter provoked thought among participants with his presentation, “Are You Still Playing or Are You Already Productive? Going Productive with AI in Your Product.” He emphasized that the safe deployment of AI in a production environment presents challenges for all of us. It is not enough to establish a secure infrastructure. We must also make sure that the data provided to AI is handled responsibly and is not disclosed accidentally.

I really liked the fact that Ralf gave us good advice on how to improve safety. He highlighted per example tools like PyRIT to identify risks in generative AI solutions. Furthermore, he presented how the framework Presidio helps to ensure sensitive data is properly managed and governed.

Summary

Overall, the Experts Live Germany 2025 conference was an enriching experience for me and others. We gained a lot of valuable insights on actual technologies. Furthermore, we had the chance to see innovative ideas and learn from experts. This conference was definitely a great place to connect and network for IT professionals.

Can’t wait until next year… Hopefully again in Leipzig.