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Threading the Needle on AI Agents

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​AI agents are gaining more and more capabilities, and implementing them is getting less technical to the degree that some small businesses are experimenting with them. As with much of AI, there’s a lot to like, but using AI agents is far from risk-free. If you’re dabbling in AI agents or ready to jump in with both feet, be careful about creating blindspots around security and accountability. Here’s what you need to know. What Are AI Agents? AI agents, or agentic AI, are AI systems that behave a little more like a member of the team than just a source of information. More basic genAI tools can summarize a report, synthesize an answer to your question, or create a first draft of a document. But AI agents can actually do things on your behalf. AI agents can take actions in sequence, like summarizing a meeting, generating recommended actions, emailing those to decision-makers, and drafting other documents based on the actions it recommended. It runs through a workflow, potentia...
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More Improvements Coming to Windows 11

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Microsoft Fixing Windows 11 Issues ​Now that Windows 10 has reached the end of support, every business should be in the process of updating to Windows 11 if you haven’t yet. But if your business is running on Windows 11, you’ve probably noticed some frustrating elements here and there. (If you haven’t updated yet, you’ll see what we mean once you do.) Certain parts of the OS just aren’t as smooth as you’d expect. AI seems to be showing up everywhere . . . even in places where you’ll never use it. Some design choices feel like a step backward, not a step forward. To be honest, we’ve lived it and felt it too. Which is why we’re excited that Microsoft seems to be shifting its focus back to the fundamentals, to getting the small stuff right. Here’s what you need to know about a raft of small improvements coming soon to Windows 11. What about Windows 10 Extended Security Updates? If you haven’t fully upgraded to Windows 11 yet, you may be wondering: what about Extended Security Updates...
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Using AI? You Need a Plan for AI Gone Wrong

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​AI is powerful but it makes mistakes. Is your business prepared to respond when something goes wrong? Modern AI is powerful, but more than a little bit scary. We’re not talking Skynet-style apocalypse scary — we’ll leave that kind of writing for others to do. We’re talking about business-risk scary. (By the way, by “modern AI” we’re referring to what sometimes gets called generative AI or LLMs, though the category is already much broader. Tools that can take a text prompt and dynamically write, summarize, code, interact with customers, create graphics — that sort of thing.) The more deeply AI is embedded into the ways you work, the more you need a plan for what to do if it goes off the rails. Because, if you think about it, that’s not really the right metaphor. The whole thing with AI is that you’re intentionally letting it go off the rails . You need to be able to trust that it will move properly on its own. And you need to know how to pull the plug if it doesn’t. Understanding AI Ri...
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Scam Alert: New Microsoft Azure Monitor Scam

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Microsoft Scam....Beware ​If your business runs on Microsoft (whether that means Windows, Microsoft 365, or something heftier like Azure), there’s a new scam you need to know about. This one pops up like it’s a real alert from something called Microsoft Azure Monitor, and it looks pretty convincing. Whether you use Azure or not, the alert looks and feels real. And it’s slipping through many email security tools and landing right in your inbox. So it’s catching many people off guard. Here’s everything to know about this latest threat. What Is Azure Monitor? Azure Monitor allows businesses to keep track of various systems and services across Microsoft’s business cloud platform (Azure) and hybrid environments. It gives business and IT leaders an at-a-glance interface where they can see logs and metrics from whatever Microsoft products they’re using. Most of the time, we’re talking things like OpenTelemetry and Prometheus metrics that measure virtual machine performance and Kube...
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Out of Time: Windows 10 Extended Support Ending Soon

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​ If your business is still running Windows 10, time to upgrade safely is running out. By this time you’ve already had to spend extra to sign up for Extended Security Updates (ESU) if you want to stay current and protected. If this isn’t something you watch closely, we understand — you have a business to run after all. It may also seem like all is well for now: Windows 10 machines still boot up and run as stable as you’re accustomed to. They even get security updates…for now. But that changes for good in October. Windows 10 Extended Support Ends October 2026 Microsoft already ended standard support for Windows 10 back in October 2025, advising businesses to upgrade to Windows 11 to get the latest and greatest (and most secure) Windows experience. But for a variety of reasons, that didn’t work for every business. For example, if: You’re still running old machines that can’t officially upgrade to Windows 11. You rely on legacy software that doesn’t operate past Windows 10. You use specif...
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Next in Windows 11: More Efficiency, Less Aggressive AI

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​Over the last couple of years AI has been popping up everywhere, including in Windows 11. What’s interesting is the response from everyday people both at work and at home. First people were skeptical or unsure about AI. Then they were amazed by it. Then they started tinkering with how it could help them at work. And then they ran into its limitations. Somewhere along the way, sentiment started to change a bit. People got annoyed with AI — and with how every single big tech company seemed to be cramming AI-powered everything into just about every software and platform. Don’t get us wrong: AI delivers genuine value in business, and it’s a good idea to look for where exactly it can improve specific areas of your workflows. AI-powered meeting summaries are incredible, for example: they give you capabilities most businesses were never going to pay to do manually. The best ones even surface insights you might have missed. What’s New in Windows 11 Let’s get back to Windows: if you’ve felt l...
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What Does “Data Security” Mean in 2026?

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Ask most business owners and leaders, and you’ll hear that they’re committed to (or at least concerned about) data security. But what does that mean exactly, especially in 2026? Most everyday businesses have data in the cloud, stored locally on network servers, copied onto individual machines, you name it. And that says nothing about AI and how it can affect data security. If you’re worried about data security for your business — or even if you’re pretty sure everything’s OK — It’s time for a quick reality check. Troubling Stats from Large Businesses If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you don’t represent an enterprise business. But since the big guys tend to be more focused on IT security, the state of data security there does have something to say about small and midsized businesses. And even among large businesses, the reports aren’t great. In surveys of IT leaders, data security consistently ranks near or atop the list of concerns or priorities around IT moderniz...
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