From charting how frontier firms are scaling generative AI to exploring the next frontier of intelligent security and workplace accessibility, it’s been a landmark year for Microsoft and the technology ecosystem. Across our four 2025 issues, Microsoft executives including Kathleen Mitford, Shelley Bransten, Satish Thomas, Vasu Jakkal, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Pamela Maynard and Ilya Bukshteyn shared insights on everything from AI adoption and secure agentic systems to accessible design and the evolution of Microsoft Teams.
The Technology Record team has worked hard to bring these stories to life across our magazine, website and social channels, and will now be taking a short break for the holidays. Our regular coverage will return in the first week of January 2026.
Until then, why not check out some of our highlights from the past 12 months? Here’s a handpicked selection of some of the most popular stories that have been featured online and in our magazines this year.
Real change, right now
In our Summer 2025 issue, three Microsoft executives – Kathleen Mitford, Shelley Bransten and Satish Thomas – shared their insights on how generative AI is transforming industries and what’s next as organisations move from experimentation to scaled implementation.
“The frontier firms are setting the pace,” said Mitford. “These companies acted early and are now applying AI across every area of the business. According to the 2025 Work Trend Index, they’re seeing faster innovation cycles, stronger employee engagement and greater resilience. Many are developing their own AI solutions, upskilling teams and expanding adoption across numerous departments.”
Delivering a secure future
With the growing popularity of AI agents, Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president of Microsoft Security, says that securing them will be a top priority for organisations in 2026.
“Every agent should have similar security protections as humans,” she says, “to ensure agents don’t turn into ‘double agents’ carrying unchecked risk.”
That means giving each agent a clear identity, limiting what information and systems it can access, managing the data it creates and protecting it from attackers and threats, says Jakkal.
For a review of Microsoft’s work on security in 2025, read our Spring 2025 cover story, with insights from Jakkal as well as Microsoft’s Brad Smith, Joy Chik, Satya Nadella and Vanessa Ho. We’ll explore how firms are maintaining and growing security in an AI-enabled world in our Spring 2026 issue, ahead of RSAC in March.
Creating a more accessible workplace
Disability is part of being human, according to the World Health Organization. An estimated 1.3 billion people – about 16 per cent of the global population – currently lives with significant disability, including hearing or visual impairments, mobility issues, limb differences, neurodivergence, or chronic health conditions.
Microsoft’s Jenny Lay-Flurrie explains in our Summer 2025 in-focus feature how organisations can use technologies such as AI, as well as insights from people with disabilities, to create more accessible and supportive workplaces for every individual
Out of the shadows
“Whether it’s accelerating time to value, improving seller productivity, or enabling more personalised customer experiences, the feedback is clear: AI is helping customers move faster and with greater confidence,” says Pamela Maynard, chief AI transformation officer for Microsoft customer and partner solutions, in our Autumn 2025 cover story.
Maynard covers how enterprise organisations are moving beyond proof-of-concept phases to full rollout of AI solutions that will deliver a positive impact across customer experience, productivity and business growth.
Making meetings more meaningful
Have you ever wished you could replay a meeting like a podcast on your commute to access an AI summary of the key takeaways? Or ever joined a meeting late and wondered what decisions were made and what actions were agreed upon? Microsoft’s Ilya Bukshteyn tells us about the next frontier for Microsoft Teams with agentic AI.
“AI tools will ensure every meeting has a note taker, an action-point maker, and follow-upper, even in the physical meeting space,” he says in our Winter 2025 issue.
We have barely scratched the surface of some of the topics we have covered this year, with insights from Microsoft executives and industry leaders across all sectors. You can find the four issues of Technology Record that were published this year here:
Spring 2025, Summer 2025, Autumn 2025, Winter 2025
Many thanks to all our readers and partners who have contributed to and supported Technology Record in 2025, and here’s to another year of innovation and transformation starting with our Spring 2026 issue. Subscribe to receive your copy.
Happy holidays to all, see you next year!