Modern Hydrogen — a clean energy startup with technology that at one time seemed to delight Bill Gates and attracted his investment — has now laid off most of its employees and left contractors and vendors anxious about unpaid invoices.

The Seattle-area company has not publicly offered an explanation for the downsizing. In a recent email to business partners, officials referenced recent funding changes and said it was undergoing a “broader restructuring effort.”

Modern Hydrogen raised $125 million since launching a decade ago. It developed a device for cracking natural gas molecules, producing hydrogen as a climate friendly fuel and a material known as solid carbon that has a variety of industrial uses, including as a key ingredient in asphalt.

Gates explored that application during a visit to Modern Hydrogen last year. The Microsoft co-founder grabbed a wheelbarrow and shovel to fill a parking lot pothole with the carbon-trapping asphalt.

The layoffs hit as the company was preparing to finish its first commercial unit for a customer in Texas and had performed two successful pilot projects with utilities in Portland, Ore., and Miami.

In January, Modern Hydrogen announced a memorandum of understanding with Puget Sound Energy, a major Seattle-area utility, to collaborate in identifying industrial customers interested in the clean hydrogen technology. That was expected to include steel and cement makers and pulp-and-paper manufacturers that use processes requiring ultra-high temperatures that could be met by hydrogen.

Given that the company had seemingly solved the new technology’s technical hurdles and was building commercial momentum, employees and business partners were surprised by the layoffs.

“A lot of folks were rooting for us,” Michael Jung, Modern Hydrogen’s former government affairs and public policy lead, told GeekWire. “I think we would have solved some key problems in the energy transition.”

On Oct. 30, Amir Moftakhar, Modern Hydrogen’s chief financial officer, sent an email to some of its subcontractors and vendors disclosing the change of course.

“We wanted to inform you that, due to recent changes in our funding situation and a significant reduction in company operations, we must terminate our engagement with you effective 10/30/2025,” stated the email, which was shared with GeekWire by one of its recipients.

“This decision is part of a broader restructuring effort which is being developed and does not reflect on your work,” Moftakhar continued. “We want to sincerely thank you for the professionalism, dedication, and quality you’ve shown throughout our collaboration and for your understanding.”

It is unclear if the company is closing entirely, what will happen with the machinery and technology, and if some component of the effort will continue in a different form.

GeekWire reached out to Modern Hydrogen CEO Tony Pan for an official comment and will update the story if he responds. We contacted a Gates’ representative for a comment as well.

One subcontractor, who asked not to be named, said that until the email went out, “things were cooking along” in their collaboration with Modern Hydrogen. Now the company is anxious about if and when it will get paid for outstanding invoices that total tens of thousands of dollars.

Modern Hydrogen got its start in 2015 at Intellectual Ventures, an innovation hub created by former Microsoft researcher Nathan Myhrvold with backing from Gates. The startup, which was originally called Modern Electron, initially focused on devices that paired with home furnaces and hot water tanks to capture the appliances’ wasted heat and turn it into electricity.

In 2023 it pivoted to a focus on hydrogen and changed its name. The company raised $25 million a year ago and had approximately 80 employees, according to an analysis of LinkedIn data at the time. Modern Hydrogen co-founder and former CTO Max Mankin left in January.

Gates had in the past been an enthusiastic supporter of hydrogen fuel. In June 2022, he posted a Gates Notes touting the so-called “Swiss Army knife” of clean energy given its versatile applications. He was a prominent investor in the company, whose other backers included NextEra Energy, one of the world’s largest utilities; Miura; National Grid Partners; IRONGREY; Starlight Ventures; Valo Ventures and Metaplanet.

Hydrogen saw a surge of interest during the Biden administration, which created hydrogen hubs around the U.S. to bolster the technology. That funding and support has been largely curtailed under the Trump administration.

And on Oct. 28, Gates posted a memo on his personal blog that dampened his earlier excitement around climate efforts.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” Gates wrote. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

Microsoft has kicked off its new ad campaign for Copilot, taglined “Meet the computer that you can talk to.” In the most recent ad, Microsoft shows a dad spending Christmas talking to his PC more than the people around him. In the one-minute commercial, he keeps saying “Hey Copilot” in what could have been a cozy family scene.

Microsoft says Copilot Vision is all you need to plan your Christmas, as it can see what’s on your screen, and then you can ask follow-up questions. You can start Copilot Vision with the “Hey Copilot” command. Microsoft says the feature has the potential to create a “PC hands-free” experience where Copilot does everything for you.

“Copilot Vision understands what’s on your screen so you can use Voice to ask questions and control interactions with your PC hands-free. Just press the Copilot key or speak, and Copilot on Windows is ready to help when you need it,” Microsoft says.

It also appears that Microsoft really wants Copilot to feel a part of your family, because a one point, Copilot even jokes, “Toy assembly has declined due to hot cocoa consumption.”

“Talking to your computer,” Copilot Vision might sound stupid, but it does have a few use cases

I am going to play devil’s advocate here, but Copilot Vision does have a few use cases, and it has gotten significantly better in recent releases. You can invoke it with “Hey Copilot” and follow up with questions like “compare Samsung’s SSD with Sandisk” when you’re browsing Amazon with two tabs open.

While there are rough edges, Copilot Vision does have potential. However, the problem is that Copilot Vision on Windows 11 is not as good as Microsoft wants you to believe. It’s slow, often fails, and is limited in reality.

I have reasons to look forward to Copilot, but at the same time, I am not a fan of an AI agent getting in my way. I also don’t want pop-ups that encourage me to use Copilot.

“Hey Copilot, how can I uninstall you?”

 

The reaction to the Copilot commercial is very mixed, and a lot of it is jokes at Microsoft’s expense.

Some users ask Copilot how to get rid of it, with some saying, “Hey Copilot, how can I uninstall you?” and “Hey Copilot, how do I delete Windows 11?” Others ask it how to install Linux or downgrade to Windows 10, thanking Microsoft for “encouraging me to stay on Linux.”

One viewer simply calls the whole thing “dystopia.”

There are a few positive voices, too. Some commenters say they like Copilot and use it every day, calling it “a really good feature” and “the biggest gift of help.” But even those messages sit under comments pointing out the low view count and wondering how many dislikes the ad has.

Overall, the reaction to the ad reads like a small holiday war between people who want AI in Windows and people who wish they could tell Copilot to disappear.

The post This holiday, Microsoft wants you to talk to Copilot on Windows 11 and get ready for Christmas appeared first on Windows Latest

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If you’ve been working on “doing Zero Trust” for a while, you’ve probably hit the same wall I see everywhere: lots of guidance and checklists, but very little that tells you how your tenant is actually configured today.

That’s precisely where Microsoft’s Zero Trust Assessment comes in.

Below, I’ll break it down in two parts, in a practical, admin-friendly way:

• What the Zero Trust Assessment is.
• Why would you run it?

What is the Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment?

At a simple level, the Zero Trust Assessment is a PowerShell-based, automated posture scan for your Microsoft cloud environment. It checks hundreds of configuration items across Microsoft Entra and Intune and compares them to Microsoft’s recommended security baselines, aligned with:

• The Zero Trust pillars (identities, devices, data, apps, infrastructure, networks, visibility/automation)
• Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI), which is their internal push to raise the security bar across products and operations

The key points:

• It runs as a PowerShell 7 module called ZeroTrustAssessment.
• It connects to your tenant using Microsoft Graph and (optionally) Azure.
• It is read-only: no changes are made to your tenant configuration.
• It generates a local HTML report that summarizes your Zero Trust posture, including detailed tests, risk levels, and remediation guidance.

Think of it as a repeatable health check that sits between the “marketing deck” version of Zero Trust and the “click every blade in the portal” reality.

Instead of manually walking through every Intune setting, Conditional Access policy, or identity protection control, the assessment automates that review and presents the findings in a structured report, mapped back to Zero Trust concepts.

Why would you run a Zero Trust Assessment?

You don’t run this just to tick a box. You run it to get clarity. Here’s how I’d frame the “why” when talking to stakeholders.

1. Establish a real baseline for your Zero Trust journey

Most organizations say they’re “on the Zero Trust journey,” but when you ask, “What’s our current maturity?” the answers are vague.

Microsoft provides several assessment and progress tracking resources for Zero Trust, including posture assessments, workshops, and progress trackers that help you understand where you are and how you’re improving over time.

The Zero Trust Assessment gives you that missing piece:

A defensible, evidence-based baseline of your current configuration.

That baseline is what you’ll use to:

• Prioritize which gaps to close first
• Show progress to leadership over time
• Align technical work with Zero Trust adoption frameworks and business scenarios

2. Reduce manual, error-prone config reviews

Microsoft publishes extensive guidance on configuring Entra ID and Intune securely, but manually validating every recommendation against your tenant isn’t realistic at scale. The overview explicitly states that manual checks are time-consuming and error-prone, and that the assessment automates that process.

Instead of:

• Clicking through the Conditional Access policy after the policy
• Exporting device compliance reports
• Manually checking MFA, passwordless, sign-in risk, etc.

The assessment does that heavy lifting and maps findings back to Zero Trust and SFI pillars.

3. Turn Zero Trust from vague strategy into concrete work

Zero Trust guidance is great for strategy decks, but engineers need something far more concrete:

• Which settings are wrong or missing
• Why they matter in a Zero Trust model
• Exactly what to change

The Zero Trust Assessment report includes:

• A high-level Overview
• Detailed Identity and Devices tabs listing each test, risk level, and status
• Per-test details with descriptions and recommended remediation actions

That is the bridge between architecture and operations: you can hand specific findings to specific teams and say, “Fix these 15 items in this sprint.”

4. Support audits, compliance, and executive reporting

Many organizations are using Zero Trust not just as a technical model, but also to meet regulatory and compliance expectations (e.g., data protection regulations, government guidance, or internal policies).

Running this assessment helps you:

• Show evidence of due diligence and continuous improvement.
• Provide before/after posture snapshots for audits.
• Give leadership a clear, visual story instead of a pile of portal screenshots.

In other words, it’s not just for the SOC or identity team—it’s a tool you can use across security, IT, and governance.

Wrapping up

The main goal of this first part is simple: take Zero Trust out of the abstract and connect it to something concrete you can actually run in your tenant. The Zero Trust Assessment isn’t a slide, a maturity model, or another “future state” diagram; it’s a practical way to see how your current identity and device configuration stacks up against Microsoft’s baseline modern security.

Once you understand what the assessment is and why it matters, every technical step you take afterward carries more weight. You’re not just installing a PowerShell module for the sake of it; you’re putting in place a repeatable way to baseline your posture, have better conversations with leadership, and prioritize the work that actually reduces risk.

Think of this as laying the foundation. You’ve got the context, you know why this matters, and you know what you’re aiming to measure. In part two, we’ll walk through installing and running the Zero Trust Assessment so you can put all of this into practice in your own environment.

As AI systems become more embedded across the enterprise, the security surface expands with them. Microsoft’s November 2025 updates reflect a significant shift toward treating AI agents as entirely governed, identity-aware, and risk-assessed components of the modern environment. This month’s releases focus heavily on centralizing control, strengthening identity, improving data governance, and enhancing threat protection for AI-driven workloads.

Below is an overview of what’s new and why it matters.

Unified Agent Governance: Microsoft Agent 365

One of the most significant announcements this month is the preview release of Microsoft Agent 365, a unified control plane for managing and securing AI agents across your organization.
Agent 365 allows you to:

• Track and manage all AI agents (internal or third-party) from a single place.
• Control how agents authenticate, what they access, and how they interact with data.
• Apply consistent governance, auditing, and policy enforcement across the entire agent ecosystem.

This clearly signals Microsoft’s long-term vision:

AI agents are no longer applications. They are identities and must be governed as such.

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Strengthened Identity and Access Controls for AI Agents

Microsoft Entra received several key updates to support this new agent-centric model:

• Entra Agent ID — a new identity type designed explicitly for AI agents, giving them a managed identity similar to users or apps.
• Conditional Access for Agent ID (Preview) — bringing Zero Trust enforcement to AI agents, ensuring agents only operate under compliant conditions.
• Agent Registry and Role Enhancements — providing centralized visibility into all registered agents, along with new roles for proper segregation of duties.

This brings much-needed maturity to the security of AI-driven workflows, especially for organizations handling regulated or sensitive data.

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Governance, Compliance, and Data Protection Updates in Microsoft Purview

Purview introduced several enhancements to manage the data lifecycle and the compliance posture for AI-generated and AI-accessed content. The updates include:

• Expanded Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) tailored for AI workloads, helping identify where sensitive data may be exposed to agents.
• Improved policy enforcement for classification, retention, deletion, and DLP actions on
  AI-generated content.
• Advanced compliance reporting and monitoring for agent activity, risky prompt behavior, and output handling.
• Better storage hygiene for AI-related artifacts within Microsoft 365.

These features make it easier to bring AI into compliance-sensitive environments without increasing operational risk.

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AI Threat Protection and Security Posture Enhancements

This month also includes new capabilities across Defender and Microsoft’s cloud-security stack to monitor, secure, and control agent behavior:

• Security Posture Management for AI Applications and Agents provides insights into vulnerabilities, exposure pathways, and misconfigurations in agent-driven solutions.
• AI Agent Protection in Copilot Studio (Preview) adds runtime safeguards to help prevent misuse, harmful actions, or unintentional behavior from custom agents.
• Additional monitoring and risk assessment integrations for organizations building AI solutions through Microsoft Foundry.

These capabilities help unify observability and protection across the entire AI application lifecycle.

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New Documentation, Guidance, and Learning Resources

Microsoft also released new architectural guidance, scenario-based documentation, and implementation best practices focusing on:

• How to adopt Agent 365 as the governance backbone for enterprise AI.
• Security principles for the “agentic era,” including identity-first design and containment models.
• Best practices for securing AI agents built in Foundry, Copilot Studio, and other AI development environments.
• Updated learning paths that walk organizations through adopting secure-by-default AI patterns.

These resources make it easier for security teams to adapt governance strategies as AI becomes more autonomous and integrated.

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Why These Updates Matter

The November 2025 updates formalize a significant shift: AI agents are now treated as distinct security subjects with identities, roles, rules, and monitoring. For organizations integrating generative AI into operational systems:

• You gain clearer visibility into agent actions and data access.
• You can enforce Zero Trust principles directly on AI entities.
• You can govern AI-generated content with the same rigor as traditional data workflows.
• You can detect and mitigate threats or misuse arising from agent behavior.

This is a foundational change, not an incremental one. The security model for AI is becoming more mature, structured, and measurable, exactly what organizations have needed.

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Final Thoughts

Microsoft’s November 2025 updates reinforce a simple reality: the “agentic era” is here. AI agents can make decisions, access sensitive data, and interact autonomously with internal systems. Treating them like traditional applications is no longer sufficient.

With new capabilities across Agent 365, Entra, Purview, and Defender, organizations now have the tools to secure AI at scale with identity-first controls, consistent governance, and robust risk mitigation built directly into the platform.