Optimus Consulting
The Week in AI
Edition 02
UK / Service SMEs
AI got a control plane this week.
Microsoft launched Agent 365, a way to discover, govern and secure every AI agent across a business. Outlook went agentic, Codex grew into a workplace assistant, and Big Tech bet $725 billion on AI infrastructure for 2026. The agents are everywhere. The grown-ups arrived to manage them.
Top stories
5 to knowOutlook started answering its own emails.
Microsoft rolled out agentic Copilot in Outlook. It triages email, drafts replies, reschedules meetings, blocks focus time and resolves calendar conflicts in the background. A clear shift from assistant to autonomous workflow manager.
Optimus angle
Don't switch this on team-wide on day one. Pick a single test inbox, watch what Copilot does to your trickiest weekly messages, then decide what stays manual. The default settings are too liberal for most service businesses.
Microsoft built a control plane for agents.
Microsoft's new Agent 365 platform is designed to discover, govern and secure AI agents across an organisation, including shadow AI and agents from other clouds. The clearest signal yet that enterprise AI has entered a management-and-controls phase.
Optimus angle
You probably already have shadow agents. Someone testing tools, a manager running a personal Copilot pilot, ChatGPT plugged into client work. Get a list this week of who's running what. You can't govern what you can't see.
Codex grew up into a workplace agent.
OpenAI updated Codex with onboarding for non-engineers, plus integrations for email, calendars, Google Drive and remote desktop control. It's now positioned as a general workplace agent, not just a coding assistant.
Optimus angle
Stop treating 'developer tools' as off-limits to your operations team. The line between coding assistant and operations agent has blurred. Try Codex on a non-coding workflow this month, like report assembly or data tidy-up.
Gemini turned chat into a Docs-and-Sheets factory.
Google expanded Gemini so it can generate downloadable Docs, Sheets, PDFs and Slides directly in chat. It also tested COSMO, a local on-device agent. AI outputs straight into usable work products, not text you re-type.
Optimus angle
Next time you brief a junior on a first-draft report, brief Gemini first and review the output. You'll save an hour and your version control gets cleaner. Treat the AI draft as the starting line, not the finish.
Big Tech bet $725 billion on AI in 2026.
Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon raised their 2026 capex plans again, with combined spending projected to reach roughly $725 billion. Alphabet stood out thanks to AI-driven cloud growth. The 'AI bubble' headlines keep surfacing, but the revenue and infrastructure demand are very real.
Optimus angle
This is the money behind every agent landing in your apps next quarter. Plan accordingly. The capability you ignored last year will be on by default in your standard tools by Christmas. Don't wait until your competitors are using it to learn what it does.
From the Insurance Desk
Sector signal for brokers, motor claims and credit hire companies.
Item 01
Lloyd's market got an AI rulebook.
The Lloyd's Market Association launched an AI adoption toolkit to help managing agents build governance frameworks for AI. Designed to standardise controls and accelerate safe adoption across the market.
Optimus angle
Brokers, motor claims firms and credit hire companies can borrow the structure. Adopt the LMA framework's core questions (governance, controls, model oversight, audit) for your own AI policy and you'll be ahead of any FCA conversation.
Item 02
Aviva put insurance inside ChatGPT.
Insurance Post reported Aviva is launching the first UK ChatGPT insurance app, with Simply Business doing the same for SME quotes. A real distribution shift. Customers buying cover through a chatbot, not a comparison site.
Optimus angle
The question is no longer 'do we have a website?'. It's 'are we discoverable when a customer asks ChatGPT for an answer?'. Run an AEO check on your top three service pages this month before the volume tilts further.
Editor's column
The Optimus Take
This week the AI story took a turn. Last week's news was that agents started doing things. This week's news is that someone built a way to manage them. Microsoft Agent 365 is a control plane that finds every AI agent in your business, including the shadow ones, and lets you govern them. The grown-ups arrived.
For UK service SMEs this is the moment to write your AI policy. Not a 30-page document, just a one-page list. Which tools are approved, which features are on by default, and who decides when something new gets switched on. The firms that get this right in May will be running with confidence at year-end. The rest will be patching reputations.
- StrategyDecide which agentic features are on, off and who decides. Write it down.
- OperationsList every AI tool in use across the team. Sanctioned, shadow, free trials. You can't govern what you can't see.
- ServiceTell clients when an agent is in the loop. Trust scales with transparency, not silence.
“Last week agents arrived. This week they got a manager.”