So much news from Ignite 2025
I’ve only had time to watch the keynote today, and I’m already overwhelmed by the number of announced changes coming to M365 – almost all of which involve AI of some sort.
If you want to see the firehose, you can check out the Book of News.
A handful of things that immediately got my attention:
- Microsoft Agent 365. – Obviously, this is the biggest change, and is going to take some time to fully understand. If you’ve got users creating and using agents, though, understanding how this works is not negotiable.
- Alongside the challenge of understanding Agent 365, there is the challenge of understanding WorkIQ. This was mentioned often during the keynote and seems key to unlocking all your data.
- The new Learning, People, and Workforce Insights agents seem targeted toward larger organizations than the one I currently work in. I’m not sure we have enough data stored in M365 about our people, their roles, and skills to make the People and Workforce Insights agents provide value. Learning is one I’ll take a deeper look at, but I may need to create a place where documentation and learning tools could be accessible.
- The SharePoint and Teams Admin agents sound very interesting, on the other hand. I am curious, however, how the common security practice of creating a separate account for M365 Admin functions might result in my licensed Copilot account not having access to the Admin agents, since my admin account isn’t the account with the Copilot license. Guess I’m about to find out about that.
- All the new agents and features have been added to M365 Copilot. – From creating documents, sharing Copilot Notebooks, creating Copilot Pages, SharePoint Lists, Voice, and Sora2 video creation, there is a lot coming to test and train users on.
- All the new Security for AI features, including EntraID, Purview, Defender, etc. More things that will take time to understand.
On top of that, I also saw a few things that aren’t listed in the official book of news that I’m going to need to spend time on:
- Security Copilot will be made available to all M365 E5 customers. There’s a lot to unravel here about the available capacity, what it enables, what you might want to do with Security Copilot, etc. I’m starting here – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/security/security-copilot-inclusion#what-capacity-is-included
- Introducing Project Opal: A New Way to Get Task-Based Work Done – Not even sure what this is yet.
- Changes coming to Teams.
- Employee Self-Service Agent
Finally, here’s a look at what hit the Roadmap update for me today:
Microsoft Teams: Shared call history in Queues app
Queues app now supports shared history for all missed, incoming, and outgoing calls in a queue. This new feature provides greater visibility and collaboration by allowing users to view a complete call history across the team. Shared history can be enabled by your Teams admin, who can choose to grant access to either: All members of the queue, or Only authorized users.
GA date: January CY2026
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Semantic Goodbye word for voice in Microsoft 365 Copilot
Now users can close a voice session on Windows by simply saying bye or goodbye when they want to close voice session. This, paired with “Hey Copilot” wake word, provides them with complete hands-free experience for voice in Microsoft 365 Copilot on Windows devices.
GA date: December CY2025
Preview date: November CY2025
SharePoint: Get relevant information from Lists in Knowledge Agent
Users will be able to find relevant information, matching items and get answers from Microsoft Lists using Knowledge Agent.
GA date: February CY2026
Preview date: January CY2026
Microsoft Teams: Enhancements to channel agents
Each channel can have a dedicated agent that draws on the channel’s knowledge to act as a domain expert for the team. New enhancements enable the agent to use files from the channel’s SharePoint when responding to queries, create ad hoc status reports configured through natural language, and generate new workback plans that can be added to Planner. In addition, new controls in Teams Admin Center allow admins to disable automatic agent creation.
GA date: July CY2026
Microsoft Teams: Teams Admin Agent
Administrators can troubleshoot Teams meetings and calls in Teams admin center with ease with a streamlined flow, meeting quality issues, and detailed telemetry.
GA date: January CY2026
Microsoft Teams: Interpreter in Microsoft Teams calls
Interpreter, now available in Teams meetings, is expanding to Teams calls. Interpreter enables real-time speech-to-speech interpretation in up to nine languages, allowing participants to speak and listen in their preferred language. Interpreter helps eliminate language barriers and fosters seamless collaboration across global teams. For a more inclusive experience, users can also opt to have Interpreter simulate their personal voice.
GA date: January CY2026
Microsoft Teams: Simplified controls to manage external collaboration
Admins have access to a new overview page in the Teams Admin Center under the external collaboration section. This page allows admins to review and modify their organization’s external collaboration settings. To make changes, admins can use a guided flow and select either the open or controlled preset modes, or choose to customize the settings.
GA date: January CY2026
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Voice chats can reference Memory
While users are in M365 Copilot voice chat, Copilot can respond using existing memories already stored in user personalization settings. Users cannot modify/edit their memories from voice chats yet due to privacy considerations. All memories that can be used for Copilot responses in voice chat are visible and manageable by users in their Personalization settings.
GA date: December CY2025
Preview date: November CY2025
Microsoft Purview: DSPM data risk assessments: item-level investigation & remediation
Microsoft Purview Data risk assessments now support item-level investigation and remediation of SharePoint data. Item-level insights like sensitivity label and sharing links created help users identify potentially overshared items. Users are empowered to remediate overshared items by resolving, notifying, applying a sensitivity label, or removing sharing links for selected item(s). This helps organizations proactively reduce data exposure, strengthen compliance posture, and ensure sensitive data are only accessible to the right people.
GA date: February CY2026
Preview date: November CY2025
The SharePoint Page Agent is a declarative agent that enables users to create and refine SharePoint pages directly within BizChat or other Copilot apps. It seamlessly integrates SharePoint authoring into everyday conversations, eliminating the need to switch apps or manually open SharePoint. With this feature, users can generate structured content such as meeting recaps, announcements, and project updates, create SharePoint pages instantly from chat.
GA date: April CY2026
Preview date: November CY2025
Data Security Investigations (DSI) insights are now being incorporated into Data Security Posture Management to support the prevention of sensitive content exfiltration. Additionally, DSI integrations with Defender XDR and Insider Risk Management are being enhanced, reflecting customer feedback received during the Public Preview phase.
GA date: February CY2026
Preview date: November CY2025
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Planner capabilities in Copilot chat (M365 Copilot)
You’ll soon be able to create Planner tasks and view task details directly in Microsoft 365 Copilot chat. This integration makes it easy to manage and update your tasks seamlessly across Copilot and Planner without switching apps.
GA date: January CY2026
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Project Manager Agent in M365 Copilot
The new Project Manager agent in Microsoft 365 will help you plan, organize, and manage work more efficiently. We’re starting with core task and plan management features to simplify project tracking and will introduce additional advanced project management capabilities over time.
GA date: March CY2026
Preview date: January CY2026
Outlook: Triage your inbox on-the-go with Copilot voice for Outlook mobile
Stay on top of your inbox with the new Copilot voice experience in the Outlook mobile app. Copilot starts by summarizing your most recent unread emails and then suggests actions like flagging, pinning, archiving, deleting or drafting a reply – all without the hassle of navigating your inbox by hand. You can interrupt or redirect Copilot at any point in the conversation.
GA date: January CY2026
Preview date: November CY2025
Planner in Outlook brings all your tasks, plans, and the new Project Manager agent directly into your inbox, so you can manage work where you already work.
GA date: January CY2026
Custom templates let you create reusable, pre-designed layouts tailored to your organization’s needs, ensuring consistency and saving time. They provide flexibility to standardize content while allowing easy customization for specific scenarios.
GA date: January CY2026
Planner: Project Manager agent in basic plans
Project Manager agent will now be available for M365 Copilot licensed users in all Planner plans, including basic plans.
GA date: April CY2026
Preview date: January CY2025
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Simplified Agent Creation experience
Drastically simplified first run experience and guide users quickly from idea to success.Faster responses and improved performance for a smoother experience. Familiar, intuitive flow that mirrors Copilot’s simplicity.
GA date: December CY2025
I don’t know about you, but planning for all of this is going to be a lot of work! I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say here and in the newsletter for the next few months.
What are the top priority items for your organization?
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