Unless you have been living under a rock, you have seen, heard, and interacted with Generative AI in the workplace. To boot, nearly every company is saying something to the effect of “our AI platform can help achieve better results, faster,” making it very confusing to know who is for real and who is simply riding the massive tidal wave that is Generative AI.

Many are speculating that at long last, OpenAI’s GPT store is set to go live this week. GPT builders and developers received an email on January 4th notifying them of the launch, which has been rumored for months, and likely only delayed due to the drama that has taken place at the company. This blog will summarize what this means for citizen development and how security teams should approach this new technological breakthrough from the AI giant.

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are leveraging Microsoft Power BI to find insights within their own data. This standalone tool (not a part of Power Platform, despite its name) has emerged as a powerful tool, empowering all business users, not just trained data scientists, to transform raw data into meaningful insights. From data visualization to interactive dashboards, Power BI has become a cornerstone for decision-making across industries.

At Zenity, 2023 was a year of tremendous growth, exciting performance, and important milestones. I am so proud of our team as we strive to support our customers, partners, as well as each other during what was a challenging, but fruitful year for all of us.

Last week, Michael Bargury and the team at Zenity published a video summarizing 6 vulnerabilities that are found in Microsoft Copilot Studio. The video highlights, in sequence, a myriad of ways that business users can create their own AI Copilots that are risky, why they are risky, and how they can be easily exploited. While I highly recommend checking out the video, this blog sets out to provide a look at why these vulnerabilities matter, and what considerations should be taken to mitigate them.

Microsoft Ignite 2023 was an eventful one, with many announcements across Microsoft’s AI Copilot capabilities. The biggest announcement, in our opinion, is that of Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code tool that allows professional and citizen developers to build standalone AI Copilots, as well as customize Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Citizen developers, often without a formal background in programming, are harnessing the power of generative AI capabilities to create powerful business applications and automations in low-code/no-code platforms like Microsoft Power Platform, Salesforce, and ServiceNow. While this democratization of software development brings about numerous benefits, it also introduces a host of new cybersecurity risks that organizations must address to safeguard their sensitive data and maintain compliance standards.

In an era of rapid technological advancements, healthcare organizations are always looking for ways to become more productive and more efficient. In this quest, they are increasingly turning to citizen development and Generative AI tools to streamline processes and drive innovation. Citizen development empowers non-technical employees to create their own applications and automations, thereby enhancing operational efficiency.

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, data security has become a paramount concern within the AppSec community As organizations embrace digital transformation and the shift towards cloud-based solutions, the onus is on them to protect sensitive data. However, the recent ServiceNow data exposure highlights an alarming concern: what happens when developers build apps and automations with risky default settings?

In an era where humans are becoming closer and closer to technology, it is reshaping the way we work and do business. This was a prevalent theme from the Microsoft Power Platform 2023 conference, and it was great to experience the event as it provided insight into the cutting-edge tools and strategies driving the next wave of business productivity.