At its core, Business Central still does what a good accounting system should do: manage finances, control data and provide reliable reporting. But it no longer stops there. Built as a cloud‑based platform, it supports much more than accounting alone – spanning supply chain management, purchasing, inventory, warehousing and operational processes – and gives businesses better visibility over how work flows through the organisation.

One of the key differentiators of Business Central is its twice yearly release cycle, complemented by regular monthly updates. Rather than disruptive upgrade projects every few years, organisations receive continuous improvements – new functionality, performance enhancements, and security updates – as part of their ongoing service. This means businesses are always working with a modern solution. More recently, AI capabilities such as Microsoft Copilot have been embedded directly within Business Central, offering contextual summaries and assistance that support everyday decision‑making.

50,000+ organisations worldwide now run Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, supporting millions of users across finance and operational teams globally. One of its defining strengths is how closely it integrates with Microsoft tools such as Outlook and Teams for day-to-day communication, Excel for analysis, and Power BI for real-time reporting.

Automation plays a key role, particularly when combined with specialist add‑on applications available through Microsoft AppSource, which offers 5,000+ certified extensions for Business Central (Shopify, Paypal, Continia…). Tools such as Continia, which is built entirely inside Business Central, help automate areas like invoice processing, approvals and expense management. It can reduce your manual processes by 90%, fewer errors and more time spent on work that genuinely adds value – a welcome change for anyone who has ever chased an approval on a Friday afternoon.

No two organisations operate in the same way. Jersey businesses span a wide range of sectors – from financial services, charity sector, legal firms to retailers – each with their own pressures and priorities. A modern ERP system needs to adapt to those differences, rather than force every organisation into the same mould.

At Prosperity 24/7, our focus is on understanding how each business works in practice. Not simply on deploying software but on how decisions are made, and where better visibility and control can add real business value. Configuration, automation and extensions are tailored accordingly, ensuring the system supports day-to-day operations while remaining flexible for future growth.

In a world where businesses are expected to move faster, comply with increasing regulation and gain insight from ever growing volumes of data, having a modern ERP platform at the centre is no longer optional. At Prosperity 24/7, a diverse Business Solutions team with varied backgrounds continues to upskill and collaborate, ensuring technology is applied in a way that genuinely supports evolving Jersey business needs.

This article was first published in the Jersey Evening Post

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This is not just another AI announcement. It is a signal of where Microsoft is taking Copilot: away from the idea of a single assistant powered by a single model, and instead towards a multi-model platform for work. What does that shift mean in practice? Technically, operationally and from a compliance standpoint?

What is actually changing?

Microsoft has confirmed Anthropic model support across multiple parts of its Copilot ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Researcher, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Agent Mode in Excel and dedicated agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The mechanics of how Claude appears vary by experience. In Researcher and Agent Mode for Excel, users can choose Claude directly. In Copilot Studio, builders can select Anthropic models during configuration. In the broader Microsoft 365 Copilot experience, UI indicators will show when Claude is in use, but Microsoft handles the routing in the background.
One experience worth understanding clearly is Cowork. Microsoft worked closely with Anthropic to bring the underlying technology of Claude’s Cowork capability into Microsoft 365 Copilot. Cowork is designed for long-running, multi-step work that goes beyond a single prompt-and-response interaction. Rather than asking a question and receiving an answer, users can delegate sustained tasks such as research, drafting and analysis that unfold over time and across multiple actions.

This matters because it moves the conversation from “which model writes the best answer” to “which model, or combination of models, can help execute meaningful work over time”. Microsoft is increasingly packaging model innovation into business experiences rather than exposing it as a raw model decision. That is more useful for most organisations, but it also means governance teams need to pay close attention to what is running underneath.

Takeaway: Anthropic in Copilot is not just a feature update. It is part of Microsoft’s broader move to make Copilot a multi-model work platform, not a single-model chat tool. The shift from model selection to model abstraction changes how organisations need to think about governance.

What this means for UK and EU customers

For UK and EU organisations, the compliance dimension of this announcement deserves particular attention.

Microsoft has brought Anthropic into its enterprise framework as a Microsoft sub processor. In practical terms, this means Anthropic operates under Microsoft’s oversight, with Microsoft’s contractual protections applying to its use in services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio. The Microsoft Product Terms apply, the Data Protection Addendum applies, Enterprise Data Protection remains in effect, and the Customer Copyright Commitment covers applicable products.

However, Microsoft has also confirmed that Anthropic model processing is currently outside the EU Data Boundary. As a result, Anthropic models are disabled by default for customers in the EU, EFTA, and UK.

To make the data boundary implications concrete: if a UK legal team uses Researcher with Claude enabled to analyse contract drafts, that document content may be processed outside the EU Data Boundary. Whether that is acceptable depends on your internal policies, sector-specific regulatory requirements, and any data residency commitments made to clients.
Enabling Anthropic is therefore not a single on or off decision. Microsoft has structured rollout and controls to vary by workload. Anthropic availability in Copilot Chat, Researcher, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint does not all arrive in the same way or follow the same control path. Organisations that assume a blanket enabled or disabled state risk either blocking useful capability or inadvertently allowing processing they have not reviewed.

Takeaway: For UK and EU customers, this is not just a model story. It is a data residency, compliance, and policy story. Anthropic may unlock genuinely useful capability, but it comes with decisions that security and compliance teams need to own, not just acknowledge.

What should organisations do now?

Two instinctive responses are worth resisting. The first is dismissing this as a niche AI update. Anthropic is now embedded in mainstream Microsoft productivity and agent experiences, which will become more visible to users over time. The second is rushing to enable everything because Claude has strong market momentum. Capable technology does not remove the need for good governance.

A more considered response involves four practical steps:

1. Review tenant settings. Check whether Anthropic is enabled, disabled, or on by default for the workloads that matter to you. Microsoft has admin controls for Anthropic as a sub processor, and separate controls for specific app experiences. Do not assume the settings are consistent across all surfaces.
2. Assess data boundary impact. Identify which Copilot experiences may process data outside the EU Data Boundary and map these against your internal policy, regulatory obligations, and client commitments. The risk is not theoretical: it depends on which teams use which features and what data they handle.
3. Communicate with users. If model choice becomes visible in the interface, users need context. Without it, you risk confusion about why model behaviour differs across experiences, or why some users see Claude options while others do not. A short internal briefing goes a long way.
4. Integrate into AI governance. This should not sit as a standalone toggle buried in admin settings. Model choice, sub processor use, data residency, and acceptable use all need to connect within your wider Copilot and agent governance framework. If that framework does not yet exist, this is a good prompt to build it.

Takeaway: The right response is neither panic nor unconditional adoption. Treat Anthropic in Copilot as part of your broader AI control framework, and use it as an opportunity to stress-test whether that framework is fit for a multi-model world.

Why does this matter?

The arrival of Anthropic models in Microsoft 365 Copilot matters, but not because organisations suddenly need to become model experts. It matters because it illustrates where Microsoft is headed: Copilot as a governed, multi-model intelligence layer that sits at the centre of everyday work.

For some organisations, that will be exciting. For those in the UK and EU, it will also raise immediate questions about data processing, admin controls, and policy alignment. Both reactions are entirely valid and not mutually exclusive.

The practical question worth asking now is not “is Claude good?” but “where does Anthropic genuinely improve outcomes for our users, and where do we need stronger guardrails before enabling it?” Organisations that can answer that question clearly will be better placed as the multi-model Copilot continues to evolve.

Find out more at our event on 1 May – Register your place here

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If you’re running a business, you’re not starting from scratch. You must contend with legacy systems, existing infrastructure, regulatory obligations, data protection responsibilities, the list goes on. You have staff whose trust and understanding are critical, and leaders who demand clear evidence of return on investment before allocating resources. Any meaningful conversation about AI must begin by recognising these constraints.

Many of us have already grasped the basics of AI, and are seeing benefits from AI assistants such as Microsoft Copilot. However, the true potential, and real challenge, lies in moving beyond these tools to embrace AI agents capable of acting autonomously, automating workflows, and transforming entire business processes. This leap is proving difficult for many organisations, largely because the gap between hype and reality is not a lack of skills, but a lack of practical methods for implementation.

Enter the AI Design Sprint®, a people-led, practical framework designed to help businesses explore where AI agents and automated workflows can make a genuine difference.  The approach, developed by 33A in Copenhagen, is now available to Prosperity 24/7’s clients, and was designed for exactly this situation.  It is grounded in design thinking and the same human-centred approach that is behind the Google Design Sprint.

This framework is not about helping your team get more from Microsoft Copilot but to explore AI agents and automated workflows which could transform your operations, with the rigour, governance and human involvement that this kind of change demands.

Crucially, this approach requires no technical expertise, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes and sectors. The AI Design Sprint® acknowledges the operational realities faced by organisations and offers a structured pathway towards AI adoption that is both strategic and pragmatic.

At its core is a simple principle: the people closest to the work are best placed to identify where AI can help.  They don’t need to become AI specialists. They need a framework that makes possibilities visible, a language that feels accessible, and a process that turns ideas into something actionable. Understanding these distinctions is vital, the journey to effective AI adoption is not about following trends or chasing hype; it’s about making technology work the way that people work.

The gap between AI hype and practical adoption is real but it isn’t a reason to stand still.  Organisations that succeed with AI will be the ones that start by asking the right questions, with the right people in the room, and move forward in a way that reflects their reality.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself to work effectively with AI. You need a method that respects your experience, your responsibilities, and your people. The technology will keep evolving. The pressure to act will continue. But you don’t have to navigate it alone. The bridge is there. You just need to step onto it.

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Agentic AI may be the first step beyond this phase.

Unlike traditional generative AI, which responds to prompts, agentic systems are designed to act. An agent can interpret goals, plan steps, interact with systems, take action, evaluate outcomes and adjust its behaviour. It does not simply generate content; it executes work across tools and platforms. This shift from assistance to autonomous action is significant.

The scale of growth expected in this space is substantial. The International Data Corporate (IDC) predicts that by 2028 there could be 1.3 billion AI agents in operation worldwide. As organisations begin deploying agents at scale, the conversation moves quickly from capability to control. The real question becomes: how do you manage hundreds or thousands of digital workers operating across your environment?

Without structure, agents can proliferate rapidly. Different teams may build their own. Third-party agents may be introduced. Permissions can become overly broad. Visibility can be lost. The risk is not just technical; it is operational and regulatory. Organisations need a way to track, govern and secure agents without slowing innovation.

This is where Agent 365 is positioned.

Agent 365 acts as a control plane for AI agents. It is designed to provide a consistent framework for deploying, managing and securing agents, whether they are built in-house, provided by Microsoft, or sourced from partners. The aim is straightforward: enable scale without sacrificing governance.

The Five Pillars Of Agent 365

Agent 365 is underpinned by five essential pillars that collectively ensure agents can be deployed, managed and scaled with confidence. These pillars serve as the foundation for a future-ready AI environment, supporting innovation while maintaining control, visibility and compliance across the enterprise.

1. Registry – Every agent is assigned a unique Entra Agent ID, treating it as a managed digital identity rather than a background process. This creates a single, organisation-wide view of all agents in use. By maintaining a central registry, businesses can prevent uncontrolled growth and ensure every agent is known, classified and governed.
2. Access control – Agents are granted permissions based on least privilege and Zero Trust principles. They access only the data and systems required to complete their tasks. Administrators can define guardrails around who is allowed to create, deploy and manage agents, ensuring clear ownership and accountability.
3. Visualisation – As adoption grows, leaders need clarity on how agents are being used and what impact they are having. Agent 365 provides dashboards, telemetry and real-time insights into deployment, usage patterns and system interactions. This visibility reduces blind spots and supports informed decision-making.
4. Interoperability – Agents are most powerful when they can operate across Microsoft 365 and connected business platforms. Agent 365 enables secure communication and coordination between agents and enterprise applications, allowing them to automate real workflows rather than isolated tasks. This includes interacting with tools such as SharePoint, Dynamics 365 and core productivity applications while maintaining policy enforcement.
5. Security – Agents are protected using the same enterprise-grade identity, security and compliance model applied to users and applications. Integration with Microsoft Purview enables data protection policies and auditing of agent activity. Integration with Microsoft Defender allows organisations to detect, investigate and respond to threats targeting agents in real time. This unified approach ensures that as agent usage increases, security posture remains consistent.

Agentic AI introduces a new operational layer inside the enterprise. It creates opportunity, but it also expands the attack surface and governance burden. Managing agent sprawl, controlling permissions, protecting sensitive data and defending against AI-specific threats are no longer optional considerations; they are foundational requirements.

Agent 365 is designed to meet that need. It provides the oversight and control required to scale AI agents confidently, ensuring they operate as trusted, governed digital workers rather than unmanaged automation.

As organisations move from experimentation to deployment, the ability to manage agents at scale will define success. Agent 365 forms part of the Frontier Programme and represents Microsoft’s approach to enabling secure, enterprise-ready agentic AI.

Find out more and register your place at our next Great Minds event on Thursday 12th March

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What is Patch Management and why it matters

Patch management is the process of applying updates, known as “patches”, to software systems. These patches are released by vendors to fix security vulnerabilities, bugs and improve compatibility across devices and applications. Think of them like a plumber fixing a leaky pipe before your kitchen floods.  These small but essential interventions keep everything running smoothly.

When organisations delay or ignore updates, tiny cracks begin to appear in their digital infrastructure. Individually, these may seem insignificant, but collectively they can become glaring weaknesses that hackers are all too eager to exploit. Affecting not just IT systems, but cyber incidents can ripple outwards, disrupting operations, eroding customer trust, and damaging reputations.

The real cost of ignoring updates

Security is the primary reason for timely and regular patching. Cybercriminals often target vulnerabilities that are already known and documented. If you leave your systems unpatched, it’s like leaving your front door wide open and hoping no one notices. Many breaches go undetected for months, giving attackers plenty of time to cause damage.

But patching isn’t only about security. Updates frequently introduce new features, enhance stability, and improve performance. For businesses, prompt patching means fewer outages, smoother workflows, and uninterrupted productivity. Neglecting these updates can trigger disruptions just as severe as a cyber attack such as a critical application crashing or an entire network grinding to a halt.

Building resilience, one patch at a time

Each patch applied is a step towards cumulative resilience. Imagine your company’s IT environment as a fortress: every update strengthens its walls, closes a gap, and adds another layer of protection. Missed updates weaken the entire defence, exposing endpoints, servers, and cloud platforms alike. Consistent patch management reduces attack surfaces, supports regulatory compliance, and builds confidence across the organisation.

The modern challenge:  Doing more with less

Yet, for many organisations, keeping up with patches is easier said than done. IT teams are stretched thin, and the volume of updates can be overwhelming. This is where managed approaches come into play, offering expertise, automation, and assurance without distracting from strategic priorities. It’s no longer just about fixing problems; it’s about proactively securing the future.

Time to hit ‘Update’, not ‘Snooze’

Patch management is the unsung hero of cyber resilience.  At Prosperity 24/7, we view patch management as a foundation of cyber and business resilience – not a background task.

Next time that update notification pops up, remember that embracing patches is investing in the ongoing health and reputation of your business. A few minutes for updates is a small price to pay for lasting peace of mind.

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New models and tools appear constantly, each impressive in its own way, each claiming to be faster, smarter, or more capable than the last. For most organisations, however, the challenge is no longer whether AI is useful but how to apply it in a way that delivers real, repeatable value.

This is where Microsoft Copilot continues to differentiate and where its evolution really matters.

Copilot is no longer just an AI assistant responding to prompts. It is evolving into something far more powerful. Its capability embedded directly into the flow of everyday work. Rather than sitting alongside your tools, Copilot is built into them.  You will find it in all your faithful Microsoft tools such as Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, helping users work through tasks, not just generate answers.

At the heart of this is Microsoft’s Work IQ. Copilot understands the context of your organisation’s work by securely accessing data through Microsoft Graph. All your emails, meetings, chats, documents, calendars, tasks and files are governed by existing permissions and security controls. This grounding allows Copilot to move beyond generic outputs and deliver assistance that is relevant, contextual, and actionable.

This shift is critical

Instead of prompting an AI, copying the response, and manually shaping it into something useful, Copilot works alongside you as you create, all within the same tools you already use everyday. It helps you iterate on documents rather than starting from scratch. It can build and refine presentations based on existing content and meeting discussions. It supports users as they work through complex Excel models, analyse data, and uncover insights.

This is AI in the workflow, not AI added to it

Copilot is designed to reduce friction across the small but time-consuming tasks that define modern work: drafting, reviewing, summarising, analysing, planning, and following up. It doesn’t replace human judgement or creativity; it enhances them by removing busywork and accelerating momentum. The result is not just faster output, but better focus on higher-value work.

Many AI tools look impressive in isolation but struggle to move beyond experimentation. They rely on disconnected data, manual prompts, and new ways of working that users must consciously adopt. Copilot benefits from being deeply integrated into Microsoft 365, where identity, compliance, security, and data governance are already in place. This makes it not only powerful, but practical and enterprise-ready.

There is a lot of noise in the AI market — benchmarks, statistics, and headline claims that can distract from what really matters. AI is ultimately a tool, and its value is measured by how effectively it supports people in their day-to-day work.

For organisations whose data already lives in the Microsoft ecosystem, Copilot represents the most natural path forward. Not because it is the most hyped solution, but because it is evolving into something far more important: the future of productivity, embedded directly where work happens.

Find out more about our Copilot Advancement Programme

This article first appeared in the Jersey Evening Post on 14 January 2026.

Why Copilot is different: A look at AI in the flow of work

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For technology to work the way that people work and for it to be embraced by the business, it has to be as a collaboration between people, processes and technology; by putting people at the heart of the change. Many organisations can treat end-user adoption as an afterthought, as it is a common belief that new technology will simply be used if it is available. We know this to be untrue and have seen how user adoption is the foundation for the success and measured return on investment.

Technology must not be viewed as a standalone solution but needs to complement robust processes and the ingenuity of people. It is an enabler rather than a replacement and as new technologies emerge, such as Copilot and Agentic AI, we can ensure they augment human effort, acting as catalysts for creativity and efficiency. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved from simple chatbots to fully autonomous AI agents—intelligent systems that can perform tasks, make decisions, and learn without constant human intervention.
Since Microsoft released its Generative AI assistant, Copilot, at the end of 2023, it has been integrated across many of its applications, including Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365. The addition of Copilot Studio in Microsoft Power Platform has expanded capability even further through Agentic AI.

Prosperity 24/7 has been at the forefront of understanding Copilot’s capabilities and how that applies to businesses in the most practical sense.

Understanding Copilot and Agentic AI

Copilot, as its name suggests, is designed to work alongside individuals, enhancing productivity by providing suggestions and automating repetitive tasks, such as preparing meeting notes, managing schedules, summarising emails or creating content for documents and reports.

Agents differ in complexity and capability based on their intended use. These include retrieval agents that retrieve documents on specific topics, task-based agents that complete tasks in a workflow, and autonomous agents that can reason over a situation and then take action.

The term “Agentic AI” is frequently mentioned in news articles and on social media platforms. Agentic AI takes a more autonomous role to tasks, acting as an intelligent agent, capable of making decisions and executing tasks independently while remaining aligned with the broader goals of the humans in control. It learns and adapts as it works, optimising processes and has the ability to anticipate challenges, suggest process improvements, and even innovate solutions, making it an invaluable asset in modern workplaces.

First things first, is your business ready for AI?

Although Copilot is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, it is important to make sure that your business is prepared and empowered to use it effectively to unleash creativity and unlock productivity for everyone.

A readiness assessment is an essential step in preparing your business for the change. It evaluates your current position, taking into account your data governance, security and checks the technical pre-requisites are in place but it also incorporates the essential elements of people and processes.

Leadership need to ensure they are using AI for the best possible outcome for their business as well as bringing teams along for the journey, helping them to understand it can improve the tasks they undertake every day. The successful implementation of tools like Copilot and Agentic AI requires a shift in mindset.

People naturally resist change, so they need to know what’s in it for them. Including scenario-based training sessions is essential for teams to understand the technology and derive immediate value from it. Driving adoption comes from the understanding of business challenges and addressing these with technology.

Employees must be trained to see technology not as a competitor but as a collaborator. Regular workshops, clear communication, and accessible resources can help cultivate a culture of acceptance and enthusiasm, where individuals feel empowered to use these tools to amplify their own abilities. Prioritising training and education as part of the implementation of technology ensure technology amplifies human potential and remains aligned to strategic goals.

Helping your business to embrace the advancements of artificial intelligence is just one of the ways that Prosperity 24/7 can enable business growth and enhance productivity for your business.

As an independent supplier for the Better Business Grant and an accredited Microsoft Solutions Partner, we can support your business across the range of services that we offer. Whether you are looking to centralise your operations through enterprise resource planning, ensuring your business is cyber secure, migrating to the cloud or disposing of old legacy systems, then we can help with our people first approach.

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As you would expect, security culture is a collection of shared norms, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours within an organisation that reflect a common commitment to security. Security culture is derived from several influences including existing culture, the commitment from leadership, effective security training, consistent and clear communication, adopted policies, as well as an environment that encourages reporting, responsibility and accountability towards continuous improvement.

What does a positive security culture look like?

The idea of your organisation or personal data being the subject of a cyber-attack is likely to instil fear into your people, but adopting a positive security culture created through the belief of common values, practices and behaviours helps to encourage security in our everyday lives and make defence part of the norm.
Creating a security culture isn’t a one-time implementation, but a continuous investment. It requires:

1. Education – continuous employee awareness and education must be in place. It must be relevant to the employee and to real world situations, supporting employees to identify and report risks.
2. Leadership – buy-in and commitment from the top is crucial. Placing security as a strategic priority and modelling good security behaviours – encourages the active engagement and support of all other employees.
3. Communication – adoption of good practices that allow employees to report incidents or issues without the fear of being penalised.
4. Collective responsibility – security is no longer just an IT responsibility but an everyone responsibility. Implementing strong processes to support responsibility models and using techniques to engage employees to feedback and develop the security approach.
5. Integration – security should be embedded into all organisational practices, and not simply an afterthought to be bolted on at the end or a later date.
6. Recognition and Reward – security practices that are rewarded and recognised generate engagement and encourage good security behaviour and habits to be adopted by employees.

Why does it matter?

Having a positive security culture is not just a nice to have, it is essential.

• It reduces the risk of costly errors often caused by human mistakes.
• It provides a more robust means of recovery in the case of crisis, as we are more prepared and understand what to do.
• Provides a competitive edge, showcasing to suppliers and clients that security is taken seriously and integrated into company values.
• Promotes a safe and supportive environment improving staff engagement.

Creating a positive security culture creates the direct link that ensure policies, process and technology all work together in unison.

What does the Cyber Security Culture look like in the Channel Islands today?

Working closely with businesses across the Channel Islands, we have seen more companies placing concerted efforts in improving their security, and recognition that it’s a combination of technology, process and people that will help them improve.

Across the Channel Islands there is a very active Cyber Security community, who have one common objective to keep our islands safe. Prosperity 24/7 are proud to be part of this community, to champion and support the building blocks that are being put in place to shape our security culture and behaviours.

Some of the building blocks that we have in place include:

1. Community Led Initiatives are critical to educating and reinforcing a shared sense of responsibility. For example, The Channel Island Information Security Forum (CIISF) brings together cyber and information security professionals. With over 500 members, this forum organises the annual Cyber Security Conference held in Jersey, along with other training sessions and activities that boost awareness and professional development.
2. Public Engagement and Co-operation – security initiatives rarely succeed if they do not have the backing of the public. The introduction of the Jersey Cyber Security Centre (JCSC) has this aim at its core which is responsible for promoting and improving cyber resilience across Jersey’s critical national infrastructure and everyday life. To achieve this, they have actively enlisted the support of local businesses through their suppliers and CISO advisory groups, who contribute valuable insights into how security is perceived and where we need to place conscious efforts for future success.
3. Governance and Policy Development – regulatory frameworks, such as the Cyber Security (Jersey) Law 2025, aim to mandate security responsibilities across the industries, specifically operators of essential services.
4. Industry Collaborations and Strategic Partnerships – Local businesses are bolstering their Cyber Defence capabilities. Identifying those products and services, that will provide the maximum defences that are relative to business types and can be successfully adopted into existing business cultures.
5. Education and Learning – The next generation of Cyber Security professionals are entering the workplace with industry and government backing to nurture their growth and development. Examples include the annual youth hackathons, petitions to improve the digital curriculum and engagement from local cyber security businesses at careers fairs to showcase cyber security as an attractive career path.

Commitment for change

Prosperity 24/7 have been actively involved in all Cyber Security initiatives across our islands, through regular engagement, sponsorship and support. We continue to champion the improvement of our security culture, through our own internal practices, individual services, and in line with our Cyber Security Strategic partnerships.

We recognise that a positive security culture across our islands is not fully developed, but the commitment to make a change certainly is. Companies, both with our help and the help of others, are moving toward building cultures that operate under a model of shared responsibility and trust.

Security culture can be seen in the choices people make daily, and not just in the policies and technology we put in place. All three compliment and need each other to make positive change. Leadership teams who show commitment and employees who view security as an enabler rather than a blocker, mean that when mistakes do happen, they can viewed as opportunities for lessons to be learned, to tighten measures or try something new – then we can say that a positive security culture exists.

Are we there just yet…. Not quite – but we are definitely on the right path…

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Prosperity 24/7 has been leading the way, supporting businesses to adapt and embrace the new technology through its people first approach and readiness service. They are also supporting employees to learn about and experiment with AI as well as developing solutions using AI for clients.

Two members of the team, Alex Ferreira and Kyra Crous, share their insights on what they have learned and how they have applied AI into their professional routines. They find it useful both as part of their daily administration as well as for the more technical parts of their roles.

Alex joined Prosperity 24/7 in July 2023 after graduating from University College Jersey with a BSc in Digital Technologies, he works as a Junior Consultant on the Technical Solutions team.

“I mainly use AI to help draft emails or coach me to make sure my writing is clear, concise, and has the right tone, which helps boost my confidence in communication. In my IT role, I also use it to gain a better understanding of certain concepts or technologies from different angles, which can be really useful when tackling something new. I troubleshoot issues and it helps me to learn faster. On top of that, I use AI to act as a copilot or pair programmer for my coding experience especially when trying to come up with suggestions to a problem or assisting with writing more efficient code.

Kyra is a Junior Data Consultant in the Business Solutions team. She joined Prosperity 24/7 this year, after working as a Data Analyst for a UK base procurement company following graduation from the University of Exeter with a BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience.

“I use AI to help with debugging and helping me understand unfamiliar blocks of code or languages. Working in a team where we all specialise in different programming languages, it is essential for allowing us to understand each other’s work without spending hours cross-referencing the code to websites. Additionally, as someone who is not great at putting actions into words, AI helps me with my documentation and ensures that the highly technical components are understandable to clients, regardless of their technical background. I also use it for idea validation, to check if my approach to a problem is feasible before I commit time to it.”

The teams at Prosperity 24/7 predominantly use Microsoft’s generative AI tool, Copilot in their daily work and help implement Copilot solutions for their clients. From administrative tasks in Microsoft Office to more complicated coding and data analysis or testing in Power BI and Fabric, Copilot is embedded across all Microsoft platforms to enhance the service they offer to clients.

Kyra’s initial interest in AI stemmed from curiosity about its capabilities and she now feels that it is a much more necessary part of her role. “Working as a Data Consultant, my goal is to help businesses access their data more efficiently and effectively. This means processing, cleansing, and preparing data so clients can extract useful information from the data they have. I have used AI since it became publicly available, and like many others, was sceptical of both its capabilities and effectiveness within the workplace. However, AI has progressed so much over the last few years. I have moved away from only experimenting with it, such as asking simpler questions, and towards using it as a guide through unfamiliar territory, such as learning SQL which is a tool essential in my job role.”

Alex explains how learning how to use prompts effectively, ensures that you can achieve the results you want from AI. “At first, I experimented with generic prompts just to see what AI tools were capable of outputting, then kept developing my prompts until I eventually got the result I wanted. Although time-consuming at first, over time, I found that being more specific with the way prompts are phrased (prompt engineering) and including more detail gave me much more useful and consistent outcomes.”

Artificial intelligence is here to stay but it won’t be able to replace the need for human judgement. Both Alex and Kyra see the benefits and the risks, with more time freed up to be creative and innovative yet potential for over-reliance on the technology and lack of accountability for the output. Kyra says, “AI will make the technical side of data engineering more efficient, but it will never be able to fully replicate a human’s ability to connect industry nuance to the data and the insights interpretated from it.”

For Alex, “AI will continue to benefit my role by automating more of the repetitive tasks and speeding up things like documentation, coding checks etc. That frees me up to focus on the parts of IT that require problem-solving and creativity. However, AI isn’t always 100% accurate with its responses and there is the potential to lose critical thinking skills if you allow AI to completely autopilot your work processes.”

So, what advice would they give to others thinking about using AI tools but not knowing where to start? Kyra says, “It’s important that people apply their own judgement instead of the accepting the first answer AI provides. Use it as a tool, not a replacement for your judgement or skills. Keep your questions and tasks small to begin with and use the answers to learn. Don’t believe everything that AI tells you because, at the end of the day, it is used to mimic human thought processes, which are never perfect.”

Alex advises people to experiment with its capabilities, “You could try thinking about the work processes you do on a daily basis and see if there are ways AI could assist and be more efficient. Remember that it is a copilot rather than an autopilot. It isn’t there to completely control your work experience. It is meant to be collaborative. Also be aware of the information you share in case it is sensitive or confidential.”

If you’re AI curious, then start small and think big but remember it is your copilot, designed to assist you not take the controls. Prosperity 24/7 provides training and support to ensure your business and people are ready to effectively implement AI. Talk to Marcus Bailey, Head of Cloud Solutions at Prosperity 24/7 if you would like to find out more marcus.bailey@prosperity247.com

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