Veeam CEO: Microsoft Copilot for Veeam to launch US 'end of summer' 2024

Veeam is set to launch Microsoft Copilot into its portfolio at the US “end of summer” 2024 according to its CEO Anand Eswaran. 

The vendor previewed Copilot in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 at VeeamOn 2024 earlier this month, which followed the signing of a five-year partnership with Microsoft in March 2024.

Among other initiatives, the agreement aims to integrate Microsoft Copilot into Veeam’s portfolio to provide users with “automated data analysis, cost-effective insights powered by AI and easier data visualisation,” Veeam said.

“…between now and end of summer we’re going to be working through some beta customers, but GA (general availability) for everyone will be end of summer,” Eswaran told CRN Australia, providing an example of how Copilot will help Veeam users.

“Instead of the work you need to do to figure out who are the users who are unprotected and all of that, if you just say ‘find the unprotected users and go make sure that they are being protected and backed up in the right way’…Copilot does it for you.”

“You’re not just asking for a recommendation then how to go action it, it actually actions it for you.”

Partners and customers weigh in

Australian Veeam user Darren Warner, head of technology at McGrath Estate Agents, told CRN Australia that he doesn’t see a use for Copilot in Veeam. 

“I’m not managing things day to day; I’ve never actually had a backup fail in Veeam data cloud, so I don’t need to ask AI what failed today,” he said.

“I was thinking as I was sitting there [watching the Copilot demo at VeeamOn]…what would I use it for?”

Eswaran, however, said that “probably 80 percent of customers came to me asking if they could get it now” following his keynote address at VeeamOn, adding there’s a need for Copilot in Veeam as he’s seen “the technical depth of the users actually slightly decrease” over the last few years.

David Small, CTO of Auckland-based Veeam partner Softsource vBridge, told CRN Australia the firm hasn’t received requests to use Copilot for backups, but he sees the benefit of integrating AI into Veeam’s solutions.

“We’ve had a lot of exposure with the Microsoft Copilot suite and we’ve found the same thing, which I think we’ll find with Veeam; straight off the cuff, people don’t actually feel there’s much value in it, but once they get trained and they know how to talk and ask the right questions of the AI environment, the data and the information back is quite extensive,” he said.

“Being able to narrow down the backups that have failed last night without having to log into a backup server…if you can bring that to a Copilot type AI assistant and say ‘find me this information and from the last 24 hours,’ it can surface that up within seconds which would normally take you half an hour or maybe an hour to do.”

Velvet-Belle Templeman, who contributed to this article, travelled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida as a guest of Veeam to report on the VeeamON conference.