Troy Couch Complete visibility into the digital workplace isn’t just helpful with a hybrid workforce, it’s critical. With solutions like Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Windows 365 (W365), Intune, and Microsoft Teams forming the backbone of many modern enterprises, the challenge goes beyond simply running these technologies to really ensuring they deliver a seamless, high-performing user experience.
Having worked in organizations of all sizes, I’ve seen firsthand how well-architected infrastructure can degrade into a firefight of tickets, performance issues, and frustrated users. That’s where ControlUp enters and why it matters more than ever in the AI era.
From Monitoring to Mastery
ControlUp plugs directly into Microsoft’s stack to deliver real-time visibility and proactive remediation:
- Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD): Live insights into host pools, sessions, and logon performance with built-in fixes that cut troubleshooting time dramatically.
- Windows 365 Cloud PC (W365): Correlate metrics across the W365, local device, and network to pinpoint whether issues stem from the endpoint, the connection, or the cloud.
- Microsoft Teams: Deep integration via the Graph API provides per-call quality metrics and device telemetry, so IT can detect and resolve call issues before users notice.
- Intune: Pair Intune’s policy control with ControlUp’s user-experience analytics to manage both compliance and performance from one pane.
In short, you get visibility without silos and action without guesswork.
New Momentum from Microsoft Ignite 2025
At Ignite 2025, Microsoft emphasized that the next wave of enterprise productivity will be powered by agentic AI, extensive AI embedding into workflows, and re-architecting operations around this model.
Key announcements that matter for the digital workplace ecosystem:
- The introduction of Agent 365, a control plane for AI agents, provides a unified registry, visualization, access control, and governance of agents across apps and workflows.
- The evolution of Microsoft 365 Copilot with Work IQ adds an intelligence layer that understands the user’s job, workflows, and context, opening the door to custom agents tuned for your business.
- New capabilities in Windows 365 for Agents enable enterprise-grade AI agents to run on secure, policy-controlled Cloud PCs delivered via Windows 365 that are purpose-built for agentic workloads.
- Endpoint management innovations in Intune include embedded security agents (e.g., Change Review Agent, Policy Configuration Agent) and deeper integration of AI into policy, compliance, and the device lifecycle.
The focus is shifting from managing devices and infrastructure to orchestrating experiences and workflows powered by AI-agents. In practice, for a company already using ControlUp alongside Microsoft technologies, this means you’re well-positioned to absorb these changes rather than react to them, since you’re already monitoring the experience layer.
Why This Matters: Experience is the New Uptime
In years past, IT success was measured by infrastructure up-time or other system-related metrics. Today, the metric that matters is experience uptime, which measures the speed, responsiveness, and reliability of the user’s workspace.
With ControlUp integrated into a Microsoft-centric stack, you get:
- Real-time remediation of logon delays, session issues, and Teams quality problems.
- Proactive IT insights that help you right-size host pools, monitor Cloud PC latency, and prevent degraded endpoint experience.
- Unified visibility across AVD, Windows 365, Teams, and Intune on a single pane of glass.
- Actionable insights that align with Microsoft’s move to agentic AI, making sure you’re not just prepared for the next wave, but able to orchestrate it.
Preparing for 2026: Getting Ahead of the Curve
Here’s where my hands-on experience at e360 leads me to recommend five strategic initiatives for IT leadership:
- Make DEX a formal strategy. Digital Employee Experience (DEX) should be a board-level metric. Start measuring logon times, session responsiveness, and collaboration quality, and baseline them now so you can improve them.
- Embed automation and low-code remediation. ControlUp’s automation capabilities let you build self-healing workflows before users complain.
- Use data to right-size cloud resources. With Windows 365 and AVD scaling up, use data to avoid over-provisioning or, worse, under-provisioning, and optimize cost and performance.
- Connect security & experience via Intune. The new Intune agents announced at Ignite mean that performance and experience data is no longer separate from compliance and security data. Use this convergence to reduce risk while improving experience.
- Position for the agentic future. With Agent 365, Windows 365 for Agents, and Copilot’s Work IQ now in play, view your digital workplace not just as desktops and apps, but as a platform for agents that delivers efficiency, security, and visibility. DEX software gives you the monitoring foundation to bring governance to scale.
Final Thoughts
In the trenches of IT, you want to see what’s happening, but you also want to do something about it. With ControlUp in the Microsoft ecosystem, you’re monitoring infrastructures and orchestrating end user experiences.
With the new AI-agent trend emerging from Ignite 2025, organizations that already have unified visibility across desktops, sessions, endpoints, and apps will be better positioned to adopt the next generation of work. Human-agent collaboration, intelligent desktops, and proactive remediation are quickly being built into the fabric of how work gets done.
If you’re already running AVD, Windows 365, Teams, or Intune, integrating ControlUp isn’t just an upgrade; it’s an evolution.
