Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 25-10-2025

Updated October 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: When users connect to their organization’s Wi-Fi, Teams can automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in. This makes it easier for users to coordinate work with their coworkers and connect in person.

This feature is opt-in and requires you to take action to configure it. After you turn it on, end-users remain in control and can choose whether to share their work location with their coworkers.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop and Teams for Mac desktop.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 488800.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling in December 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This feature allows you to map Wi-Fi networks and devices to buildings, which allows your users to have their work location automatically updated when they connect. This is a major improvement over the current experience which relies on end-users to manually set their work location. When this feature is configured and enabled, Teams can automatically update the work location of users who connect their laptop to your organization’s Wi-Fi network or peripherals. The feature can leverage the mapping between your building names and your Wi-Fi networks to set the work location of your users to the right building. It can also leverage mappings to specific peripherals, such as monitors. Teams uses the same policy to enable or disable automatic updates of work location for Wi-Fi and peripherals. Learn more: New-CsTeamsWorkLocationDetectionPolicy (MicrosoftTeamsPowerShell) | Microsoft Learn

Teams will not update the location of your users if they connect after their working hours (that they can configure in the Microsoft Outlook Calendar). Also, their work location will be cleared at the end of their working hours.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Automatic update of work location is off by default, but it can greatly improve the experience of your users. We recommend turning it on and configuring it in your tenant.

Before rollout, we will update this post with new documentation.

Updated October 24, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience. 

[Introduction]
Starting in early November, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app for Windows will introduce a new Update available button. This button will not block the app UI; users will be able to continue interacting with the app when the button appears. This update encourages users to use the latest version of the app—ensuring access to new features, performance improvements, and security updates—without disrupting their workflow.

[When this will happen:]
General Availability: Rollout begins in early November 2025 (previously early October) and completes by end of November 2025 (previously end of October).

[How this affects your organization:]

• Who is affected: All users of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows.
• What will happen:
  • A new Update available button will appear in the bottom-left corner of the app’s navigation pane when a newer version is available.



• The button is non-blocking; users can continue using the app without interruption.
• Clicking the button opens a prompt with two options:
  • Update now: The app will close, install the update in the background, and relaunch with the latest version.
  • Update later: The app remains open in its current version, and the update button stays visible for future use.



• Once updated, the button disappears until a new version becomes available.
• No changes to app functionality or user settings are introduced with this update mechanism.

[What you can do to prepare:]

• Communicate this change to your users to avoid confusion.
• No admin action is required.
• For internal documentation, you may wish to note the new update behavior.

[Compliance considerations:]

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

Updated October 24, 2025: We have updated the content below. Thank you for your patience

[Introduction:]

We’re introducing refreshed Microsoft 365 app icons for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the rest of Microsoft 365 productivity tools. The newly designed Microsoft 365 icons reflect a strategic shift in Microsoft 365—unified, intuitive, and designed for flow across every canvas. As Copilot connects Microsoft 365 apps into a single, intelligent experience, the icons embody that transformation with cleaner shapes, vibrant colors, and a connected design system nodding to Copilot’s influence. The icons are rolling out in the coming weeks across web, desktop, and mobile for both individuals and organizations.

Mobile app icons will no longer include letterplates. We understand this update may feel unexpected, but it reflects our move toward a symbol-led design that is inclusive, globally consistent, and visually cohesive. App names will continue to appear below each icon for clear navigation. There is no change to letterplates on web or desktop icons, but users will notice the removal of letterplates from launch screens.

There are no changes to app functionality or user settings.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout begins in early October 2025 and will roll out in phases across web, desktop, and mobile platforms. Completion is expected by late October 2025.

[How this affects your organization:]

Who is affected: All users of Microsoft 365 apps across web, desktop, and mobile platforms.

What will happen:

• Users will begin to see updated Microsoft 365 app icons:

 

• This is a visual-only change; there is no impact to app functionality, user settings, or workflows.
• During the rollout, users may see old and new icons side-by-side across apps and devices.
• No changes to URLs, branding names, or service behavior.

[What you can do to prepare:]

No admin action is required.

However, we recommend the following:

• Review and update internal help content, training materials, and screenshots that reference existing app icons.
• Communicate this change to helpdesk staff to reduce potential confusion.

[Compliance considerations:]

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

Updated October 23, 2025: We have updated the timelines. Thank you for your patience. 

We’re improving the email preview experience in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to provide a clearer, more consistent, and secure workflow. These updates are designed to reduce ambiguity, simplify interactions, and reinforce security protections—helping organizations confidently use this feature as part of their protection strategy.

When this will happen:

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout will begin in early November 2025 (previously mid-October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously early November).

General Availability (GCC, GCCH, and DoD): Rollout will begin in mid-November 2025 (previously late October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously mid-November).

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected: Quarantine administrators Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as well as users with access to review and preview messages within quarantine.

The update is specifically for the preview capability within the quarantine experience. What will happen:

• The update consists of three main parts:
  • Streamlined view options: The plain text view option will be retired to unify preview behaviors across Defender experiences.
  • Clearer handling of URLs: The hover-over preview for URLs will be limited to reinforce that links in quarantine preview are not clickable.
  • Simplified content loading: The “Load external content” button will be removed for some scenarios. Content will render in a secure, isolated environment.

Quarantine administrators and users will experience a simplified preview interface with clearer rendering and reduced visual cues for URL interactivity:

What you can do to prepare:

• Update any internal documentation that references the quarantine preview experience.
• Communicate these changes to helpdesk and support teams to reduce confusion.
• No configuration changes are required; the update will apply automatically.

Compliance considerations:

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

[Introduction]

We’re enabling 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) for Microsoft Teams town halls, delivering a significant upgrade in video quality for your online events. This enhancement allows for sharper, more professional-looking broadcasts—making speaker video and shared content more visually engaging and easier to follow. The feature is available to Teams Premium customers and can be enabled by IT admins via policy.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android and is associated with Roadmap ID 513270.

[When this will happen:]

• Targeted Release: Begins early November 2025; expected completion by mid-November 2025.
• General Availability (Worldwide): Begins mid-December 2025; expected completion by late December 2025.

[How this affects your organization:]

• Who is affected:
  • Only organizations with Teams Premium licenses.
  • IT admins managing Teams town hall policies.
• What will happen:
  • 1080p resolution will be available for town hall broadcasts.
  • Admins must enable the feature via policy: TownhallMaxResolution attribute in CsTeamsEventsPolicy set to Max1080p.
  • This feature is set to MicrosoftManaged by default and requires admin configuration to enable.
  • Network infrastructure must support 1080p streaming to ensure optimal performance.
  • 1080p operates at a maximum 4Mbps bitrate.

[What you can do to prepare:]

• No immediate action is required unless you plan to enable the feature.
• Ultra-Low Latency is required for 1080p.
• It is recommended to use the Microsoft eCDN to ensure network resiliency.
• To enable 1080P resolution:
  • Set TownhallMaxResolution to Max1080p in CsTeamsEventsPolicy.
• Review your network capacity to ensure it can support 1080p video.
• Communicate this change to event producers and helpdesk staff.
• Update internal documentation if you reference town hall video settings.

[Compliance considerations:]

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

Copilot in PowerPoint is getting smarter. Soon, users will be able to generate a compelling title, concise summary, or captions for visuals simply by describing what they want in natural language. Copilot will use the context of the slide to generate relevant text, helping users turn ideas into content quickly and efficiently.

Note: A Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required to access this feature.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs: 513427.

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout will begin in mid-December and is expected to complete by late December.

• Who is affected: Users of PowerPoint for Windows desktop, PowerPoint for Mac desktop, and PowerPoint Online Web.
• What will happen:
  • A new Copilot dropdown (pen icon) will appear for blank textboxes.
  • Editors will see a prompt box to enter instructions for generating text.
  • The feature will be on by default.

• No admin action is required before rollout.
• You may want to:
  • Notify users about this new capability.
  • Update internal documentation to reflect the change.

• Windows Server 2025 (KB5070881)
• Windows Server, version 23H2 (KB5070879)
• Windows Server 2022 (KB5070884)
• Windows Server 2019 (KB5070883)
• Windows Server 2016 (KB5070882)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (KB5070886)
• Windows Server 2012 (KB5070887)

• Evaluation criteria: Structured forms with questions, scoring logic, and instructions that define what quality means for a business. Supervisors can use out of the box criteria as guidelines or create customized criteria.
• Evaluation plans: Rules that determine when and how evaluations are triggered, based on specific conditions like SLA breaches or sentiment drops. Supervisors can use on-demand evaluation to select cases and request them to be evaluated.
• Evaluations: The actual scoring and analysis of interactions evaluated, producing summaries, insights, and coaching recommendations for supervisors.

1. In Microsoft Intune admin center, go to Devices > Manage devices > Configuration > Create > New policy to create a settings catalog policy. 
2. Use the following settings: 
3. Category: Administrative Templates\Windows Components\App Package Deployment 
4. Setting name: Remove default Microsoft Store packages from the system 
5. Value: Enabled 
6. Set the toggle to True for each app to remove it. 
7. Assign the policy to the desired group, or groups, of devices. Note: Intune won’t apply this policy to unsupported devices and will instead show a status of “Not applicable” for those devices. 

• Read the announcement in Policy-based removal of pre-installed Microsoft Store apps. 
• Visit official documentation at Policy-based in-box app removal.

Updated October 24, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Purview: We are announcing the public preview of the integration of Adaptive protection with Data Lifecycle Management (DLM) to help you find the right balance to protect against data sabotage while enabling productivity. This new integration leverages DLM features to provide an additional control for Adaptive protection that automatically preserves items deleted by a user with an elevated risk level, so items can be restored if needed.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 392839.

[When this will happen:]

Public preview: We will begin rolling out in late June 2024 (previously early May) and expect to complete by late July 2024 (previously mid-July).

General Availability:  We will begin rolling out late June 2026 (previously early February 2026) and expect to complete by late June 2026 (previously early February 2026).

[How this will affect your organization:]

After the rollout, and after you enable Adaptive protection for your tenant, the retention label and auto-apply policy for data lifecycle management will be automatically created for you. This policy will automatically include elevated risk users identified by Microsoft Purview | Insider Risk Management solution. If these users delete content from Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft OneDrive, or Microsoft Exchange, a retention label is automatically applied to that content to retain it for 120 days. Retention labels are automatically applied to unlabeled content deleted by these users. When these users are no longer at the elevated risk level, they are automatically removed from the DLM policy, and the system will no longer keep a copy of content they delete. Any content copies previously retained when the user had an elevated risk level will be kept for the 120 days as specified by the retention label.

Unlike other retention labeling scenarios, users do not see the retention label, and you do not need to create or manage the retention label or policy. At this time, you can’t change the retention period or assign different policies based on the different risk levels, or for different locations. The single retention label and auto-labeling policy for your tenant is not visible in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Learn more: Learn about retention policies & labels to retain or delete | Microsoft Learn

If you’re using Adaptive protection and want to automatically retain content deleted by elevated risk users, follow these steps to turn on this new integration.

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.
2. Navigate to Data lifecycle management > Microsoft 365 > Adaptive protection settings in the top right corner.
3. Turn the setting ON and select Save.

If you’re not using Adaptive protection already, turn on Adaptive protection and the new feature will be enabled along with Adaptive protection.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Updated October 23, 2025: We have updated the content and timelines below. Thank you for your patience. 

Coming soon for Microsoft Teams: App centric management for admin app installation introduces new admin settings to control who in the tenant has specific Teams apps preinstalled. Similar to app centric management for app availability, as communicated in MC688930 (Updated) Teams admin center: App centric management and changes to app permission policies (November 2023), admins will be able to install apps for users, groups, or everyone in the organization.

After rollout, app-centric management will let admins install apps individually. Existing Installed apps in app setup policies will remain intact; however, no new additions will be permitted, and only deletions will be allowed. Instead, you can install Teams apps for selected users, groups, or all users directly from the respective app. Other settings in app setup policies, including Pinned apps, will remain unchanged.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 394274 and 500637.

[When this will happen:]

App centric management will roll out in following General Availability phases.

• Phase 1 | We will begin rolling this feature mid-October and complete rollout by end of November (previously end of October). Phase 1 applies to tenants who meet both conditions: 1) tenants with no Installed apps in the Global app setup policy and 2) tenants with no custom app setup policies created in the Teams admin center.
• Phase 2 | We will begin rolling this feature end of October and complete rollout by mid-December (previously end of October) for all remaining tenants.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before the rollout: If you install an app to a user, the user cannot actually use an admin preinstalled app if you did not take the additional step to allow the user to use it. After the rollout, if you install an app through app centric management, the user will immediately be able to use the app.

After the rollout, you can install any number of Teams apps for selected sets of users, groups, or all users in the organization from the respective apps.

Learn more: Preinstall Teams apps for your org users – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action needed for Phase 1 tenants. We will update this message with more information before the rollouts for Phases 2 tenants.

You may want to update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Before rollout, we will update this post with revised documentation.

Updated October 23, 2025: We have updated the timeline and content below. Thank you for your patience. 

  What it is

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature to streamline how app and agent availability is managed across Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Until now, IT admins configured availability settings separately in both the Microsoft 365 Admin Center (MAC) and the Teams Admin Center (TAC), which led to mismatches. With this update, you’ll be able to unify availability policies for apps and agents across both portals, making app management more consistent and efficient.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 393931 and 503105.

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out this feature late September 2025 and expect to complete by end of June 2026 (previously mid-November 2025).

1. Phase 1 – Default Tenant Unification

We will begin rolling out this feature at the end of September 2025. This initial phase targets tenants that have never modified their organization-wide defaults, app availability, or block/unblock in either the Microsoft 365 admin center or the Teams admin center. At the end of this phase, agent and app manageability will be unified across both Microsoft 365 admin center and Teams admin center ensuring agent and Microsoft 365 apps availability policies are in alignment for all future administrative changes. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 393931.

2. Phase 2 – Modified Tenants Unification

We will begin rolling out this feature early November 2025. This phase targets tenants that have previously modified their organization-wide defaults, app availability, or block/unblock settings in either admin center. These tenants will be transitioned to a unified management experience across both Microsoft 365 and Teams admin centers.

• For tenants with agent or app availability differences across both admin centers, a wizard in the Teams admin center will help identify affected agents and apps and guide through resolving discrepancies.
• For tenants with no agent or app availability differences across both admin centers, guidance will be provided to transition to unified availability policy.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 503105.

3. Phase 3 – Automatic Unification

Tenants that haven’t transitioned as part of Phase 1 & Phase 2, will be automatically moved to unified app agent management. We will update this post with a timeline and more details later.

How this will affect your organization

Before this rollout, managing Teams apps that work in Outlook and the Microsoft 365 app was fragmented between the Integrated apps page in the Microsoft 365 admin center for Outlook and the Microsoft 365 app, and the Teams admin center for Teams. This sometimes resulted in different settings for the same app in the two admin centers. With Unified agent app management, you will be able to manage apps on the Integrated apps page in the Microsoft 365 admin center or in the Teams admin center, and any changes made in either admin center will synchronize.

• You’ll gain a consolidated view of agent and Microsoft 365 app availability across both Microsoft 365 and Teams admin centers.
• Changes made in either admin center to the agent and app availability will automatically apply across all supported hosts.
• Organization-wide defaults for both admin centers will be in sync and govern app availability across Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 copilot app.

 What you need to do to prepare

To ensure a smooth transition, review your tenant-level and individual agent/app settings (app allow/block & user availability) in both the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and the Teams Admin Center. If different departments within your organization manage these settings, we suggest coordinating efforts to complete the review collaboratively.

This update will be rolled out automatically by the stated date, and no immediate action is required. However, it’s a good time to update any internal documentation related to agent and app management policies. 

Learn more: Unified agent and app availability management across Microsoft 365 and Teams Admin Centers – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn