Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 02-12-2025

Updated December 1, 2025: We have updated the timeline. After further review, we will not be rolling this out to GCC, GCCH, DoD, USSec, USNat during the timeline outlined below. We will communicate via Message center in dedicated posts when we are ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience.

We’re introducing the new Microsoft Teams calendar experience, designed to unify and enhance productivity across Microsoft 365. This calendar integrates familiar features with innovations like Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Places, enabling seamless collaboration from anywhere. It works consistently across Teams, the new Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, and Places. As part of this update, the legacy calendar experience will be deprecated, and the toggle to switch between old and new calendars will be removed.

When this will happen

• General Availability (Worldwide): Mid-January 2026 to end of January 2026

Once this update is deployed, users accessing the Calendar app in Microsoft Teams will see the new calendar experience by default. The toggle to switch between the old and new calendar will be removed, and only the new Microsoft 365 calendar will be available. This change may impact users accustomed to the legacy calendar interface.

No admin action is required. We recommend informing your users about the upcoming change and updating any internal documentation or training materials that reference the legacy calendar experience.

For more information about the new calendar experience, visit the Microsoft Teams documentation.

Compliance considerations

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

Updated December 1, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience. 

[Introduction:]

We’re introducing a simplified external collaboration (EC) admin experience in Microsoft Teams to help administrators manage external collaboration settings more efficiently. This update introduces two predefined collaboration modes—Open and Controlled—as well as a Custom mode for organizations with unique requirements. The new experience provides a streamlined interface in the Teams admin center (TAC) for configuring external collaboration policies across chats, calls, meetings, Teams, and channels (including shared channels).

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: Rolling out mid-November 2025; expected completion by mid-November 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): Rolling out mid-February 2026 (previously late January); expected completion by late February 2026 (previously early February).

[How this affects your organization:]

Who is affected: Admins managing Microsoft Teams external collaboration settings.

What will happen:

• A new admin experience will be available in Teams admin center (TAC).
• Admins can choose from three collaboration modes:
• Open (Mode 1):
  • Enables chats, calls, and meetings with all external domains and Teams personal accounts using federation or external access.
  • Allows Teams and channels collaboration with Microsoft and non-Microsoft partners using B2B collaboration and B2B direct connect.
• Controlled (Mode 2):
  • Aligns with current defaults for enterprise and EDU tenants.
  • Enables chats, calls, and meetings with all external domains using federation or external access.
  • Blocks collaboration in shared channels.
• Custom:
  • Provides full control over each external collaboration setting.
  • Allows manual configuration of org-wide external collaboration policies across chats, calls, meetings, Teams, and channels (including shared channels).
  • Changes in Custom mode apply only to Global org-wide policies and settings; they do not affect custom policies.
• Existing settings will remain unchanged unless modified by the admin.

Screenshot 1 – A new external collab section and overview page that shows external collab settings at a glance:

Screenshot 2: Manage external collab settings using a guided simple UX:

[What you can do to prepare:]

No action is required at this time. Admins may choose to explore the new interface once available to review and adjust external collaboration settings. For more information, refer to the Teams admin center documentation once the update is live.

[Compliance considerations:]

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

Updated December 1, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience. 

[Introduction]

We’re introducing a private chat feature for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters in structured meetings and webinars in Microsoft Teams. This separate chat enhances collaboration by allowing key participants to communicate privately before, during, and after the event, without involving attendees. Additionally, we are unifying backroom chat behavior in town halls to ensure consistent functionality across all structured meetings. Currently, backroom chat behavior varies depending on whether streaming chat is enabled for town halls and whether the organizer has a Teams Premium license. This update removes that inconsistency.

This message is associated with Roadmap ID 392328 and applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, Teams for iOS/Android, MTR-W and MTR-A devices.

[When this will happen:]

• Targeted Release: Rollout begins in early February 2026 (previously early January) and is expected to complete by mid-February 2026 (previously mid-January).
• General Availability (Worldwide and GCC): Rollout begins in mid-February 2026 and is expected to complete by late February 2026.

[How this affects your organization:]

Who is affected: Admins managing Microsoft Teams meetings, webinars, and town halls.

What will happen:

• New private chat for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters: This chat is separate from attendee chat and is available before, during, and after the event.
• Unified backroom chat policy for town halls: The default setting will be ON for all town halls, regardless of streaming chat availability or license type.
• Existing town halls will adopt the new policy once meeting options are updated.
• If admins turn the backroom chat policy OFF, previously enabled town halls will lose access after update.
• Non-TPre town halls (those without a Teams Premium license) will have backroom chat ON by default after rollout and update.

Two potential impacts:

• If an admin explicitly turns the new backroom chat policy OFF, any already-scheduled town hall that previously had backroom chat ON will lose access once the meeting options are updated.
• For non-TPre town halls where backroom chat was previously OFF, it will switch to ON by default after the rollout and a meeting options update.

[What you can do to prepare:]

• Review your Teams meeting policies and decide whether to enable private chat for organizers and presenters.
• Communicate this change to helpdesk staff and event organizers.
• Update internal documentation to reflect the new backroom chat behavior.
• If you want to disable backroom chat, adjust the policy in the Teams admin center.

[Compliance considerations:]

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

Updated December 1: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience. 

[Introduction]

We’re introducing a new flexible layout option in future Teams meetings to give users more control over how shared content and participant videos appear. A resizable divider will let users adjust the space between shared content and the video gallery. Want to focus more on the presentation? Expand the content area. Prefer to see more people? Shrink the content area to make room for more video tiles. Users can also swap the position of content and participants to suit their viewing preference. This works with spotlighted speakers, pinned videos, and Speaker View, providing a more personalized meeting experience—especially helpful on larger or ultra-wide screens.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 528930 and applies to Teams for Windows desktop and Teams for Mac desktop.

When this will happen:

• Targeted Release: Rolling out early January 2026, expected completion by late January 2026.
• General Availability (Worldwide and GCC): Rolling out early February 2026, expected completion by late March 2026.

How this will affect your organization:

Who is affected: All Teams users in Worldwide and GCC environments.

What will happen:

• Users will see a new resizable divider in Teams meetings during content sharing.
• Users can adjust layouts to prioritize content or participant video tiles.
• Users can swap positions of shared content and video gallery.
• Works with spotlighted speakers, pinned videos, and Speaker View.
• Enabled by default; no admin configuration required.

What you can do to prepare:

• No configuration is required; the feature is enabled by default.
• Update training materials and FAQs to explain:
  • How to find and use the resizable divider.
  • How to adjust layouts during content sharing and Speaker View.
• Communicate this change to helpdesk staff to prepare for user questions, especially from those with large or ultra-wide monitors.

Compliance considerations:

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

• Agents from Agent Builder (Copilot Studio lite) in Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Workflows from the Workflows agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Agent flows from Copilot Studio
• Cloud flows from Power Automate

• Manage > Inventory: All resources in one place
• Manage > Copilot Studio: Agents (Agent Builder + Copilot Studio), agent flows, and workflows
• Manage > Power Apps > App Inventory tab: Canvas, model-driven, code, vibe, and App Builder apps
• Manage > Power Automate > Flow Inventory tab: Cloud flows

 [Introduction]

Microsoft is introducing a major evolution of Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) to help organizations strengthen data security and confidently embrace AI. The new DSPM experience unifies visibility and control across traditional data and AI-driven environments, delivering outcome-based guided workflows that turn insights into actionable steps—so teams can prioritize risks and remediate faster. It brings AI observability, enhanced posture reporting, and intelligent Security Copilot agents to automate tasks like triage and policy management.

Purview now also extends coverage beyond Microsoft data with third-party signals from partners like BigID, Cyera, OneTrust, and Varonis, giving security teams a single, streamlined view of sensitive data across clouds and platforms. Additionally, Data Risk Assessments are extended to Fabric and item-level analysis with new remediation actions like bulk disabling of overshared SharePoint links.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 532728.

When this will happen:

• Public Preview (Worldwide): Rollout begins early December 2025 and completes by early April 2026.
• General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout begins early April 2026 and completes by early May 2026.

How this affects your organization:

• Who is affected: Admins managing Microsoft Purview DSPM.
• What will happen:
  • Customers will continue to have access to the current DSPM (classic) and DSPM for AI (classic) experiences.
  • Existing policies and configurations remain unchanged.
  • The new DSPM experience and its features will be available in addition to existing experiences.
  • No default policy changes; onboarding steps from classic experiences carry over.

What you can do to prepare:

• No action is required from admins.
• For customers already onboarded to DSPM (classic) and DSPM for AI (classic), onboarding steps will automatically carry over.

Learn more:

• Learn how Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management for AI provides data security and compliance protections for Copilots and other generative AI apps | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)
• Learn about Data Security Posture Management | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

Compliance considerations:

• ​​​​​The search results menu displays more available results, making it easier to quickly find and modify your settings. A scroll bar lets you view all search results.*
• You can use Windows Studio Effects, which provides AI-powered camera enhancements, on an additional camera such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera.*
• When Windows Spotlight is set as your desktop background, the context menu now includes two options: Learn more about this background and Next desktop background.
• File Explorer now offers a more consistent dark mode experience. 

• Windows 11, versions 25H2 and 24H2: KB5070311

Updated December 1, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience. 

Coming soon: Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 usage in your tenant will be added to the Microsoft Graph API to facilitate the creation of customized reporting and analytics. Metrics included in the Graph API will match those available in the Copilot for Microsoft 365 usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center, including tenant-level count of enabled users and active users, as well as last activity date per user (totals for each Microsoft 365 app and a grand total). A Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to use this feature.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 396562 and with MC724835 Microsoft 365 admin center Usage report: Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat (Preview) (published March 2024).

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out early September 2024 and expect to complete by mid-September 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-November 2025 (previously late October) and expect to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously late November). 

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, the Graph API did not include Copilot for Microsoft 365 usage.

After this rollout, admins can use the Graph API to create customized reporting and analytics for Copilot for Microsoft 365 usage.

Sample request for one of the three APIs: getMicrosoft365CopilotUserCountSummary.

Sample response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: application/json

Content-Length: 537

{

"@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/reports/getMicrosoft365CopilotUserCountSummary(period='D7')?$format=application/json",

"value": [

{

"reportRefreshDate": "2024-06-26",

"adoptionByProduct": [

{

"reportPeriod": 7,

"anyAppEnabledUsers": 354590,

"anyAppActiveUsers": 144022,

"microsoftTeamsEnabledUsers": 354449,

"microsoftTeamsActiveUsers": 88737,

"wordEnabledUsers": 354449,

"wordActiveUsers": 17493,

"powerPointEnabledUsers": 354449,

"powerPointActiveUsers": 7245,

"outlookEnabledUsers": 354449,

"outlookActiveUsers": 38140,

"excelEnabledUsers": 354449,

"excelActiveUsers": 2554,

"oneNoteEnabledUsers": 354449,

"oneNoteActiveUsers": 1382,

"loopEnabledUsers": 354449,

"loopActiveUsers": 955,

"copilotChatEnabledUsers": 354449,

"copilotChatActiveUsers": 64401

}

This feature is on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

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

To learn more about Microsoft’s own review of this product with its works councils, please consider reading: https://aka.ms/Copilot/MSWorksCouncilsArticle 

Updated August 27, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.

We are providing this update because your tenant is utilizing sensitivity labels and Microsoft SharePoint Online.

Coming soon: A new capability that ties together SharePoint Online library permissions and Purview sensitivity labeling and protection. We are happy to bring this capability to Public Preview. This is an opt-in feature in Microsoft PowerShell.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 467254.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-November 2024 and expect to complete by mid-January 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out late mid-September 2025 and expect to complete by mid-October 2025.

General Availability (GCCHigh, DoD): We will begin rolling out mid-September 2025 and expect to complete by mid-October 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, SharePoint Online document library owners will be able to apply a sensitivity label at the library level, automatically applying that label to all unprotected and unlabeled files (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and PDFs) in the target library. This simplifies labeling in bulk across document libraries in an organization. This capability also helps protect files as they egress from the original document library, such as for collaboration purposes or attempted exfiltration. Files downloaded from these libraries are protected at download. Users accessing these files outside of SharePoint Online have their rights evaluated in real time against the document library. Changes to user permissions on the document library are reflected on downloaded files, including full revocation for users removed from the document library. This provides a more streamlined way to revoke access to documents for individual users (instead of revoking access to each document).

Learn more about how to use this feature and its capabilities, limitations, and licensing: Configure SharePoint with a sensitivity label to extend permissions to downloaded documents | Microsoft Learn

[What you need to do to prepare:]

After this feature is available, we recommend you test this feature first on sites with non-production data to understand its capabilities.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review the referenced documentation links to learn more about enabling this feature.