Microsoft AI Daily Brief

Tuesday, 22 September 2026

11 sections · 13 items · published 07:11 UTC

🧠 Microsoft 365 Copilot & Apps

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

In-app browsing in the Copilot app

Websites that Copilot shares in chat can now open inside the Windows and Mac desktop app, side by side with the chat conversation (MC1474455). Admins control it with the BrowsingEnabled policy through device management; opt-in early access is available now, with broad rollout late November 2026. Browsing data is stored locally in the user profile directory using Microsoft Edge storage mechanisms.

Why it matters: The browsing surface is policy-gated, so the allow-or-block decision has to be made in device management before the November default rollout.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🟡 Coming soonPlanned Dec 2026

Local inferencing in Microsoft Copilot

Copilot will run AI inferencing for supported interactions inside the applicable local geography, launching in Australia, India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States (roadmap 571886). No EU, EFTA or Swiss geography is named in the launch set.

Why it matters: This is the first Copilot control over where inferencing physically happens, but the launch list leaves out the EU and Switzerland, so European customers cannot plan against it yet.

microsoft.com

🧑‍💼 Copilot Agents (Built by Microsoft)

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

Updates to the Researcher experience

Researcher moves onto shared Copilot platform components and retires several of its own controls: the report length control (length is now determined automatically), the Saved Prompts tab, the History tab, the Reports tab (status tracking moves to Task Hub), and the Explore tab with its recommended prompts (MC1476269). Rollout runs October 21 to December 30 2026 across Worldwide, GCC and GCC High, as an automatic service update with no tenant opt-in.

Why it matters: Users who built habits around Researcher's own tabs lose them with no opt-out, so adoption and training material needs updating before the October start.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🤝 Copilot Cowork

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

Browser use admin control for Copilot Cowork

Admins can now turn Cowork's Microsoft Edge browser use on for no users, all users, or named security groups, from the Microsoft 365 admin center under Copilot > Settings > View all > Cowork settings (MC1474461). The capability is disabled by default and is rolling out worldwide mid to late September 2026.

Why it matters: Cowork browser use stays off until an admin enables it, so it is a deployment step to schedule rather than a feature that turns up on its own.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🚀 Frontier Program

🟢 Just shippedFrontier 2026-09-21

SpaceXAI subprocessor admin setting for Grok in Copilot

The tenant-facing control for Grok models in Word, Excel and PowerPoint arrived as a SpaceXAI setting under "AI providers operating as Microsoft subprocessors" in the Microsoft 365 admin center, effective September 18 2026 and disabled by default (MC1474124). The setting is not offered in the European Union, EFTA, the United Kingdom, GCC, GCC High or DoD, even for otherwise eligible Frontier customers.

Why it matters: The exclusion list is now confirmed at tenant level, so Swiss (EFTA) and EU admins will not see the toggle at all and Grok stays out of scope for them.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🔌 Microsoft 365 Copilot Extensibility

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

Federated Copilot connectors support create, update and delete actions

Federated Copilot connectors move beyond read-only access and can write to third-party services, with each action requiring user confirmation and running under the signed-in user's own permissions (MC1476316). Rollout is worldwide from early October to late October 2026, and Microsoft is updating the Copilot connectors Terms of Use alongside it.

Why it matters: Federated connectors already enabled in a tenant pick up write capability as part of the rollout, so which ones keep it is a review to do before October.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🛠️ SDKs & Dev Tooling

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-20

@microsoft/m365agentstoolkit-cli 1.1.17

The Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit CLI published version 1.1.17 to npm on September 20 2026, promoting the 1.1.17 alpha and beta builds from earlier in the month. The release carries no separate published release notes.

Why it matters: This is the current stable CLI for scaffolding and deploying Microsoft 365 agents, so pinned build pipelines should be moved forward deliberately rather than left on a floating tag.

npmjs.com

⚡ Power Platform & Power Automate

🟢 Just shippedDeprecation 2026-09-21

End of support for the Global Discovery Service (GDS) API

The legacy GDS REST endpoints at globaldisco.crm.dynamics.com are no longer available as of September 21 2026, covering the v1.0 and v2.0 Instances routes (MC1474128). Callers move to the Power Platform List Environments API, which uses a different token audience (https://api.powerplatform.com/.default). Dataverse developer tools such as the CRM SDK and connectors are excluded from the change.

Why it matters: This is a live breaking change rather than a warning, so partner tooling that enumerates customer Dataverse environments through GDS is already failing and needs both the new endpoint and the new token scope.

m365admin.handsontek.net

💬 Microsoft Teams

🟡 Coming soonPlanned Nov 2026

Granular Conditional Access for Teams meetings

Administrators will be able to apply Conditional Access policies to selected meetings rather than to all of them, so participants have to meet the organization's security requirements before joining a sensitive meeting (roadmap 571879).

Why it matters: Lets meeting-level access controls be scoped to the meetings that actually need them, instead of one tenant-wide policy applied to every meeting.

microsoft.com

📝 Office Apps

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

SmartArt is becoming more accessible in PowerPoint

PowerPoint now generates accessibility descriptions for SmartArt automatically from the diagram's layout type and node content, so a screen reader announces "Basic block list with three items: A, B, and C" or "Equation diagram showing A plus B equals C" instead of the bare node text. The descriptions regenerate whenever the diagram's structure or content changes, removing the manual alt-text upkeep the Accessibility Checker used to demand. Available on Windows with a Microsoft 365 subscription running PowerPoint Version 2607 (Build 20326.20158) or later.

Why it matters: Takes a recurring accessibility-compliance task off deck authors, which counts for partners delivering into public-sector tenants with accessibility obligations.

techcommunity.microsoft.com

🧩 Viva, Loop & other M365 apps

🟢 Just shippedGA 2026-09-21

Microsoft Planner: Capacity view

A new Planner view builds a live staffing matrix from existing task data, showing assignments and workload distribution on a timeline so team leads can spot overallocation without a separate report (MC1474110). It requires a Planner Plan 3 licence, is on by default with no admin control to disable it, and is limited to Worldwide (standard multi-tenant) on Teams and Outlook web and desktop, with no mobile support. Accuracy depends on tasks carrying both an assignee and start and finish dates. Targeted release early to mid-October 2026, general availability mid to late October 2026.

Why it matters: Plan 3 customers get capacity planning without Project, but only where task hygiene already includes assignees and dates.

m365admin.handsontek.net

🟡 Coming soonPlanned Oct 2026

Viva Insights report publishing for leaders

Viva Insights will extend report publishing from analysts to leader personas such as chief officers, managers and their delegates, through a lightweight publishing experience alongside the existing report customization features (roadmap 570446).

Why it matters: Moves report distribution out of the analyst bottleneck, which changes who needs Viva Insights training in a customer rollout.

microsoft.com

⚙️ M365 Admin & Compliance

🟢 Just shippedDeprecation 2026-09-21

Retirement of the Microsoft 365 Companion apps

The Calendar, People and Files companion apps retire on December 16 2026 (MC1474111). Automatic installation is being phased out and the apps stop receiving updates and security fixes. Admins should block new deployments across all installation methods and remove existing installs from managed devices; users on unmanaged devices uninstall them themselves. Removing them does not delete or affect any Microsoft 365 data, and the same functions remain available through Outlook, Teams, Windows Search, File Explorer, SharePoint and OneDrive.

Why it matters: A dated removal with a security-fix cutoff, so it belongs on the December change calendar for any managed device estate.

m365admin.handsontek.net

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