Russell Smith

I recently sat down with Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP. We chatted about how WordPress has evolved from a blogging platform into a critical piece of enterprise infrastructure, powering some of the world’s most demanding, high-traffic websites. “We host the biggest and most important WordPress websites on earth… and we have to make sure…

AI agents are moving beyond simple productivity helpers and becoming autonomous workers across Windows, Microsoft 365, and enterprise systems. In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith talks with Craig Birch, Principal Technologist at Cayosoft, about Microsoft’s AI agent announcements from Build, including Agent 365, Microsoft 365 E7, agent identity, permissions, governance, and the risk…

Microsoft 365 Copilot User Subscription License (USL) is a paid add-on license for users who want Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. To buy it, you need a qualifying Microsoft 365 or Office 365 base plan. It isn’t included by default in Microsoft 365 E3 or E5, and smaller organizations on Microsoft 365…

The new Low Latency profile is a noticeable improvement to Windows 11 responsiveness, particularly in parts of the interface that previously felt inconsistent. Why this update feels different I’m usually skeptical when Microsoft talks about performance improvements in Windows 11 because too many of them are hard to feel in day-to-day use. The new Low…

Microsoft is bringing Execution Containers to Windows, giving AI agents a more secure way to run locally with tighter controls over files, apps, network access, and user interaction. In this video, I explain why that matters for IT pros, how it could give Windows an edge over macOS for AI agent workloads, and what it…

Microsoft went all-in on One Copilot earlier this year. In March 2026, CEO Satya Nadella reorganized the company’s AI efforts, consolidating the consumer and enterprise Copilot teams under one unified leadership. That means Microsoft’s once-separate personal and business Copilot projects, like Copilot for individuals and Microsoft 365 Copilot for enterprises, are now being built as one platform…

This week, Microsoft launched an always-on personal agent called Scout that acts under its own Entra identity at Build. They announced sandboxed execution containers that turn Windows into a proper agent runtime. And ASUS unveiled a mini PC purpose-built to run AI agents locally on your desk. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode. Episode…

Today on Petri Dish, we’re joined by Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, the enterprise-grade CMS platform trusted by organisations like NASA, Salesforce, and major global publishers. Brian has been building on the web since the earliest days, bringing a rare mix of builder and operator experience to modern content platforms. In this conversation, we’ll…

This Week in IT, the Mac Mini quietly became the default home for always-on AI agents — and your users are probably already running them outside your security boundary. Meanwhile, VMware just dropped an ARM hypervisor. And if you needed a reason to treat AI agents like real identities, a coding agent just wiped an…

Hybrid IT has become the default operating model for most organizations. Not by design, but through years of incremental decisions driven by business needs. In a recent Petri Dish interview, Brad Cline, Vice President of IT Operations at SolarWinds, shared a frontline perspective on how infrastructure complexity emerged, why it continues to grow, and how…

This Week in IT, Google Chrome is silently downloading a 4 gigabyte AI model onto devices right now and unless you’ve deployed one specific policy, there’s nothing stopping it. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s fix for a sluggish Windows 11 is to spike your CPU to the max when clicking, and they just started the deprecation clock on…

Virtualized infrastructure across on-premises data centers and the cloud was supposed to make life easier for IT teams. Instead, it’s often become a tangle of complexity. Why is something as established as virtualisation turning into a headache and what are we missing? To find out, I’m joined by Brad Cline, Vice President of IT Operations…