Friday, 28 August 2026

Copilot Studio: Agent Sharing amongst makers

New roadmap entry: makers will be able to share an agent built on the GitHub Copilot harness with other makers, granting either Agent Viewer access (analytics and evaluations only) or Editor access (view, edit, configure, share, publish), with security roles auto-assigned. Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant).

Why it matters: closes the current all-or-nothing co-authoring gap, so a customer's makers can get scoped access to an agent without full environment rights.

microsoft.com

Unified Agent and App Installation Management Across Microsoft 365 and Teams Admin Center

Administrators using the Microsoft 365 admin center and Teams admin center will be able to apply app and agent installation changes once and have them consistently enforced across Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Previously, installation changes made in the Microsoft 365 admin center only applied to Outlook and Microsoft 365, while changes made in the Teams admin center only applied to Teams. With this update, app and agent installation is unified across all supported surfaces, enablin...

mc.merill.net

AI-generated meeting archive for knowledge retention

Admins can enable a tenant-wide policy that allows Copilot (and Facilitator) to retain key insights from meetings beyond transcript retention periods. This enables Copilot to continue answering questions about past meetings even after transcripts expire. Admins can also configure how long this AI-generated meeting archive is stored.

mc.merill.net

Copilot Chat leverages embedded images for richer answers

Copilot now interprets and grounds responses on images embedded in Word documents, PowerPoint decks and PDFs, extracting insight from charts, diagrams and screenshots alongside the text. The roadmap entry moved to Launched, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant).

Why it matters: decks and scanned documents stop being grounding blind spots, which changes what a Copilot readiness assessment needs to test.

microsoft.com

Proactive push notifications for the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app cancelled

Microsoft marked this roadmap item Cancelled on August 26, 2026, with the note "We have decided not to move forward with this change at this time." The feature would have pushed "Your Day at a Glance" and "Items waiting for you" notifications drawing on Copilot Memory, with GA planned for September 2026.

Why it matters: adoption plans that counted on proactive mobile nudges to build a daily Copilot habit need a different hook.

microsoft.com

Facilitator notes for in-person meetings in Teams Rooms on Windows

The Facilitator agent extends beyond scheduled and hybrid meetings to in-person meetings in Teams Rooms on Windows, invoked with one tap on the room console. Notes appear on the front-of-room display, are available via meeting recap when shared, and are deleted if nobody selects them, with no data left in the room. Requires Teams Rooms Pro. Worldwide and GCC.

Why it matters: meeting-room hardware becomes a Copilot surface, so Teams Rooms Pro licensing enters the Copilot business case.

microsoft.com

Facilitator notes for in-person meetings in Teams Rooms on Android

Same capability for Teams Rooms on Android: one-tap Facilitator invitation from the room console, notes on the front-of-room display or touch board, available via recap when shared and deleted otherwise. Requires Teams Rooms Pro. Worldwide and GCC.

Why it matters: Android room devices are the volume estate in most customers, so this is the entry that decides in-person meeting coverage.

microsoft.com

the control plane for agents

Agent 365 is the control plane for AI agents. It empowers IT and security administrators to observe, govern, and secure agents across Microsoft 365 and connected platforms at scale.

mc.merill.net

Local browser use moves from Frontier to general availability

Cowork can complete web tasks in Microsoft Edge on the user's own device, using their existing sign-ins and the organization's policies. Previously Frontier-gated, it is now available to all Microsoft 365 Copilot tenants. Requires Edge to be installed.

Why it matters: browser automation on the user's own session leaves Frontier, so it can be scoped into standard Cowork deployments rather than a preview program.

learn.microsoft.com

Event-driven tasks in Cowork

Tasks can now run when something happens rather than on a schedule: a matching email arrives, or a Teams message lands (including an @mention). The user describes what to watch for and Cowork proposes the automation for review and confirmation. Event-driven tasks appear alongside scheduled prompts on the Automations page.

Why it matters: moves Cowork from scheduled batch work to reactive automation, which is the pattern most service-desk and intake scenarios actually need.

learn.microsoft.com

Workspace file input for plugin tools

Plugin connector tools can accept files from the session as input. Plugin authors declare a tool parameter with `contentEncoding: base64` and Cowork resolves the workspace file to content before calling the tool, so a tool can convert a document, analyze an image, or attach a file to another system.

Why it matters: custom Cowork plugins can now act on the user's working files, which is the missing piece for document-centric integrations.

learn.microsoft.com

Auto-open Copilot side pane for Outlook links

When users open links from Outlook, Microsoft Edge can automatically open the Copilot side pane to provide contextual insights and actionable suggestion chips based on email and destination content - such as highlighting key points, and recommending next actions - without disrupting the browsing flow. This experience helps users quickly understand content, take action with fewer steps, and get more value from Copilot while extending productive browsing time in Edge. Admins can control availabili...

mc.merill.net

SharePoint Framework roadmap update - August 2026

SharePoint Copilot Apps are renamed Copilot Components and their public preview is now enabled worldwide, with no license requirement and no consumption cost during preview. Components render inline in a Copilot conversation or expand full screen, are built on React and standard JavaScript, and deploy inside the customer tenant on existing SPFx hosting. SPFx 1.24 Beta 3 shipped with React 18 support (GA targeted October 2026), and a limited preview program is open for hands-on engineering engagement on agents built with Copilot Components. SPFx CLI goes GA in 1.25 (December 2026 / January 2027), replacing the Yeoman generator.

Why it matters: Copilot Components give partners a way to ship real interactive UI inside Copilot using SPFx skills a SharePoint practice already has, with no preview licensing blocker.

devblogs.microsoft.com

Viva Glint - Copilot admin configuration assistance

A Copilot-powered conversational assistant embedded in the Viva Glint admin experience that answers configuration and how-to questions and provides step-by-step guidance. Responses will include deep links to configuration pages streamlining navigation and discoverability. Only available for Viva Glint users with Admin permissions.

mc.merill.net

Microsoft Agent Framework - Python 1.16.0

agent-framework-core adds configurable timeouts for waiting on the first background-agent task completion, plus programmatic OpenTelemetry configuration for service metadata and OTLP exporters. Fixes cover workflow checkpoint mutations, content field handling during serialization, preservation of unmapped provider finish reasons for Anthropic and Mistral, and streaming integrity for OpenAI when instrumentation replaces SDK responses.

Why it matters: the OTel configuration API removes the environment-variable-only setup that made agent tracing awkward to wire into existing observability stacks.

github.com

Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit templates-v4@6.15.2026082708

Weekly v4 template package refresh for the Agents Toolkit scaffolding templates.

Why it matters: new agent projects scaffolded from the toolkit pick this up automatically, so pin the version if a customer build needs reproducible scaffolding.

github.com

Microsoft Graph CLI reaches full retirement

The Microsoft Graph CLI is fully retired as of today, ending the deprecation period that began September 1, 2025, during which only critical security fixes shipped. Microsoft points users to the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, citing broader API coverage and active maintenance.

Why it matters: any provisioning or reporting script still calling `mgc` breaks now and needs porting to Graph PowerShell.

devblogs.microsoft.com

Six Foundry model versions retire between August 28 and 31

The retirement schedule was refreshed on August 27. Retiring now: `gpt-chat-latest` (2026-05-28) on August 28; both preview versions of `model-router` (2025-05-19 and 2025-08-07) on August 30; `gpt-realtime-2` (2026-05-06) on August 31; Nixtla `TimeGEN-1` on August 31, replaced by TimeGPT-1 or TimeGPT-2.1; and NTT Data `tsuzumi-7b` v2 on August 31, replaced by tsuzumi2.

Why it matters: deployments still pinned to these versions stop serving this week, and the two preview model-router versions have no listed replacement, so traffic must move to the GA 2025-11-18 version.

learn.microsoft.com

Three more Foundry model versions retire in September

`MAI-Transcribe-1` (2026-01-23) retires September 15 with MAI-Transcribe-1.5 as the replacement; `gpt-realtime-mini` (2025-10-06) retires September 21; `gpt-chat-latest` (2026-06-24) retires September 24 with no listed replacement.

Why it matters: the gpt-chat-latest line rolls roughly every 90 days, so anything grounded on it needs a standing upgrade cadence rather than a one-off migration.

learn.microsoft.com

October is the heaviest Foundry retirement month of the year

October 1: `gpt-4o` (2024-05-13) to gpt-5.1, and `o3-mini` to o4-mini. October 3: `Kimi-K2.7-Code`. October 13: `Cohere-command-a-plus-05-2026`. October 15: `gpt-4o-transcribe`, `gpt-4o-mini-transcribe` and `gpt-4o-mini-tts` (all 2025-03-20), plus `sora-2` (2025-12-08). October 16: `o4-mini`. October 19: `claude-haiku-4-5`, `claude-opus-4-5` and `claude-sonnet-4-5`. October 21: `o1`, `o1-pro` and `o3`, all to gpt-5.6-sol. October 23: `gpt-image-1` (2025-04-15).

Why it matters: eighteen model versions across five providers go in one month, including the audio and image models many agent demos still use, so migration testing needs to start now rather than in October.

learn.microsoft.com

Secure Now guidance for agentic containment

Microsoft Security Exposure Management adds Secure Now recommendations for agentic containment, aimed at putting controls in place before autonomous agent action expands across an environment. The guidance covers constraining agent-initiated actions that happen without explicit user approval, hardening attack surfaces, limiting blast radius, governing identities and permissions, and increasing visibility.

Why it matters: gives a named Microsoft baseline to anchor an agent governance workshop on, instead of assembling controls from Entra, Purview and Defender docs separately.

microsoft.com

New sharing panel in Teams meetings

The in-meeting sharing panel gets a redesigned UI aimed at simplifying window sharing and making sharing options and file sharing easier to discover. Targeted Release and Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), plus GCC, GCC High and DoD; desktop and Mac.

Why it matters: a change to the most-used control in every meeting, so it belongs in end-user comms and any Teams training material due for refresh.

microsoft.com

Outlook: "Days of email to save" offline admin policy

New roadmap entry: tenant admins will be able to set the default value for "Days of email to save" under Settings > General > Offline in the new Outlook for Windows, and decide whether end users may change it. Targeted Release and Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), plus GCC.

Why it matters: the first admin-side control over new Outlook's local cache size, which matters for VDI and shared-device estates where local storage is constrained.

microsoft.com

Planner: Conditional Coloring

New roadmap entry: Planner tasks can be highlighted based on selected criteria, making priority, status and other important task details easier to spot at a glance. Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant); Teams and web.

Why it matters: a small but frequently requested visual-management gap in Planner that has pushed customers to third-party boards.

microsoft.com

Microsoft Viva: Campaigns Hub in Engage and Engage in Teams mobile

New roadmap entry: a centralized mobile destination in Viva Engage where employees discover and join organizational campaigns. The hub highlights top and sponsored campaigns, lets users browse active and completed campaigns, and makes it easy to view details and follow campaigns. Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant); Android and iOS.

Why it matters: gives internal-comms teams a mobile-first surface for adoption campaigns, which is directly useful for driving Copilot rollout engagement.

microsoft.com

Nudge status in the Enhanced Engagements portal

Service requests raised through Enhanced Engagements can now be tracked end to end across three nudge stages - Nudge Initiated, Nudge Acknowledged and Nudge Actioned - directly in the MCS portal.

Why it matters: escalations on customer tickets become auditable, so a partner can show where an escalation actually sits.

learn.microsoft.com

Nudge timeline in the Enhanced Engagements portal

Selecting an open service request now shows its nudge history in the request details pane, including follow-up nudges, who nudged, and when.

Why it matters: removes the guesswork about whether a follow-up was already raised before nudging again.

learn.microsoft.com

Microsoft 365 admin center: Data Quality Report for Profile Data

Microsoft 365 Organizational Data Services adds a report letting Organizational Data, People and AI administrators see the coverage and health of people attributes across the tenant, identify gaps, and improve attribute coverage. Microsoft names People Card, Org Explorer, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Cowork as the experiences that depend on this data. Preview and GA both October CY2026, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant).

Why it matters: makes people-data quality measurable, which is usually the unexamined reason Copilot answers about colleagues and org structure come back thin.

microsoft.com

Microsoft Purview DLP: Adaptive Scopes for SharePoint

The roadmap entry was updated on August 27. Adaptive Scope for SharePoint lets admins target DLP policies to sites dynamically by attributes such as site URL, site name or custom site metadata, continuously re-evaluating site properties and auto-including or excluding locations as they change. It removes the 100-site static policy limit. Preview was February CY2026; GA is January CY2027. Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant).

Why it matters: static site lists are the usual reason SharePoint DLP coverage drifts, and this is the fix - but GA is far enough out that current deployments still need manual scope maintenance.

microsoft.com

Introducing the Eligibility Dashboard

Partner Center adds a single dashboard for CSP direct bill authorization requirements; MAICPP enrollment and the security requirement move to tenant-level validation, rolling out to direct bill partners through mid-September with enforcement starting 90 days after release.

learn.microsoft.com

Agent Harness: making your claw production-ready

Part 4 of the Agent Framework series, covering OpenTelemetry traces and token metrics, Purview policy screening, deployment as a Foundry Hosted Agent, and evaluation checks, using one shared agent factory across console, hosted service and evals hosts.

devblogs.microsoft.com