Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 27-03-2025

Updated March 26, 2025: We have updated the documentation and content. Thank you for your patience.

We are pleased to announce that Microsoft Viva Insights are now included in Microsoft 365 Copilot. With Viva Insights included, IT admins and analysts can tailor advanced prebuilt Copilot reports with their business data or create custom reports with organizational attributes, expanded Microsoft 365 Copilot usage metrics, and more granular controls.

This message applies to Viva Insights on the web, Viva Insights in Microsoft Teams for Windows desktop, and Viva Insights in Microsoft Teams for iOS/Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 471002.

What’s new

• Viva Insights service plans are now included in the Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
• The minimum assigned Viva Insights license thresholds for new tenants is increased from 10 to 50 to access the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard, advanced insights, and organizational insights.
• We have retired the cohort analysis feature between Copilot and non-Copilot users in the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard. However, this feature will still be available in advanced insights.

This message applies to Viva Insights for Windows desktop and Viva Insights for the web.

[When will this happen]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-March 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

[How this will affect your organization]

1.1. We have now included the Viva Insights service plan in Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions

To help your organization realize the full value of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the entirety of Viva Insights including all premium features and capabilities (Viva Insights setup overview | Microsoft Learn) will be available to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed customers. These Viva Insights service plans are included in the Microsoft 365 Copilot license:

• Microsoft Viva Insights: This service plan is automatically assigned at the user level to be included in Viva Insights analysis. Microsoft 365 global administrators can unassign this service plan from individuals to exclude them from Viva Insights.
• Microsoft Viva Insights backend: This service plan is automatically assigned at the tenant level without requiring any admin action and is needed for proper functioning of Viva Insights features. Microsoft 365 global administrators cannot edit this service plan.

If your organization has already set up Viva Insights, we will continue to honor your existing admin and user settings for Viva Insights personal, organizational, advanced insights, and the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard.

2. We have increased the minimum Viva Insights service plan thresholds to access the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard, advanced insights, and organizational insights.

Starting mid-March 2025, customers who are not already using Viva Insights, a minimum of 50 assigned Viva Insights licenses will be required to access advanced insights, organizational Insights, and the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard. This minimum threshold can be achieved through a combination of licenses. For example: 30 assigned Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses (that now includes the Viva Insights service plan) + 20 assigned Viva Insights licenses = 50 assigned Viva Insights service plans.

For existing customers who already have access to advanced insights, organizational Insights, and the Copilot Dashboard, there is no minimum license requirement change.

3. We have retired Cohort analysis from the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard

We have retired the cohort analysis features from the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard and Microsoft 365 admin center. The retirement includes behavior metrics tab in Compare between groups and the metric comparison between Copilot and non-Copilot users on the Impact page (go to Highlight > select Explore more on the cards for Meetings, Emails, or Teams chat) and Manage non-Copilot users setting in Microsoft 365 admin center.

You can continue to use cohort analysis features in Viva Insights advanced insights.

[What you need to do to prepare]

Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

This important update is to confirm that as of 03/25:

New* Microsoft 365 Copilot tenants [new as of mid- March and thereafter] can see Viva Insights service plans included in Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription in default ON status.

• All employees with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses will be assigned a Viva Insights service plan automatically. These users will be included in measured population in advanced insights immediately.
• To exclude specific users from Viva Insights analysis, tenants can unassign their Viva Insights service plans as required or use the new advanced insights control to turn off advanced insights if necessary for compliance or privacy reasons. More details on available tenant actions can be found in the Message Centre Posts [MC1024392]

Existing Microsoft 365 tenants who already enabled advanced insights or premium copilot dashboard before mid-March can see Viva Insights service plans included in Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription in default ON status.

• Users who get a Viva Insights service plan assigned only via the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription will be included in measured population in advanced insights not before 04/30/2025.
• Tenants have until 04/30/2025 to exclude such users from the Viva Insights measured population or to use the new advanced insights control to turn off advanced insights if necessary for compliance or privacy reasons. More details on available tenant actions can be found in the Message Centre Posts [MC1024392].
  • Tenants who don’t want to wait until 04/30/2025 and want users included earlier in measured population in advanced insights will have the option to do so via an incident management mechanism available in advanced insights.

Note: The Exclusion list applies only to the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard. To exclude users from advanced and organizational insights, remove their Viva Insights service plans.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license or a Viva Insights subscription with a Microsoft 365 license is required to use this feature. Learn more: Environment requirements for Viva Insights | Microsoft Learn

Updated March 26, 2025: We have updated the content and rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Now Available with Teams for iOS version 7.2.1 and later & Teams for Android 1.0.0.2025042204 or later.

After this rollout, users will have a new Microsoft Viva Engage experience in Microsoft Teams for iOS/Android. Creating, commenting, and reacting to conversations will be easier than before the rollout.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 475969.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out late March 2025 and expect to complete by mid-April 2025.

General Availability: We will begin rolling out mid-April 2025 (previously mid-March) and expect to complete by early May 2025 (previously early April).

[How this will affect your organization:]

All key existing Engage functionality will be refreshed in the new Engage app:

• Feed: Read and react to top conversations across the organization in different communities and storylines.
• Communities: Join and participate in organization and social communities in the organization.
• Activity notifications: Community announcements, @mentions, and more notifications continue to keep you notified of anything needing your attention
• Leadership corner: Catch up on the latest content posted by organization leaders (if licensed for Microsoft Viva Suite or Microsoft Viva Communications and Communities (C&C))

In the Engage app in Microsoft Teams: Left: The Feed tab. Middle: The Communities tab and Activity notifications. Right: An example of content posted by an organization leader:

For admins:

• There are no changes to the deployment of Engage or the Viva Engage app in Teams with this change.
• This change will work seamlessly and independently with these releases that also affect the Viva Engage app in Teams.
  • Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 474126 / MC978923 Microsoft Viva Engage: New reply and reaction notifications in Microsoft Teams (published January 2025)
  • Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 472914 / MC969448 Microsoft Teams: Viva Engage storyline will be integrated in Teams (published December 2024)
  • Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 481280: Automatic rename of Engage for Teams Frontline Worker SKU users, releasing in April 2025
• Continue to manage the Viva Engage app in Teams from the Teams app center.

For users:

• If users have the Viva Engage app installed in Teams, they will receive this update by default, with no action needed by you.
• With this change, there is no change to the standalone Viva Engage app available in the Android or iOS app stores.
• Existing notification settings in Teams will be respected and will continue to work in a new Conversation view.
• While not all features in the existing Viva Engage app in Teams will be available after this rollout, the functionality continues to be available in other Teams clients, in the Viva Engage apps in the Android and iOS app stores, and in Viva Engage on the web. Missing functionality includes:
  • Searching for content in Viva Engage
  • Delegation (post on behalf of someone, etc.)
  • Community live events
  • iOS only:
    • Answers tab
    • Community details, membership management, and analytics
    • Topics feed
• Storyline will be rolled out with Feature 472914. Before that rollout, users can access another user’s storyline by tapping the header in a storyline post from that user.

[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 users and corporate communicators in your organization about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Updated March 26, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft SharePoint: Cards can be animated for some web parts (Editorial cards, Images, and People) in SharePoint Pages, News, and Microsoft Viva Amplify.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 481510.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out late-April 2025 and expect to complete by early May 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out early May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This feature will be enabled by default for new cards created after the feature is released. Users can disable card animation in the web part property pane. To add animation to existing web parts, users can enable the setting in the web part property pane. To preview the card animation, view the published page or use Preview mode.

Pages and web parts created before this rollout are not impacted by this change.

[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 users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

• Default environments without premium licenses will be impacted by this process.
• Environments with M365 Agents or Planner activity will be out of scope.
• Admins will receive two notifications prior to the default environment being deleted for inactivity.
• Default environments that have been inactive for 90 days will be deleted after 30 days.
• Any activity in the default environment within 30 days of the notifications will reset the inactivity period.
• When an inactive default environment is deleted, a new replacement default environment will be created without Dataverse, with an option to add Dataverse later.
• Deleted default environments may be recovered within 7 days.

• Automatic deletion of Power Platform environments
• Definition of user activity
• Licensing agreement

• This update includes “Top cards”, an easy way to view your PC’s key specifications, including processor, RAM, storage, and GPU. “Top cards” appear under Settings > System > About.
• The Gamepad keyboard layout is now available for the touch keyboard.
• This update includes a new system tray icon on the taskbar that improves emoji and panel discoverability.

• Windows 11, versions 23H2 and 22H2: KB5053657
• Windows 10, version 22H2: KB5053643

Updated March 26, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Viva Engage: We are excited to announce the launch of the new Communications Dashboard designed to inform and accelerate execution across the communications lifecycle. The dashboard is accessible to corporate communicators, network admins and higher-level roles from the left panel in Engage.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 478656.

This message applies to:

• Engage app on the desktop (as a progressive web app)
• Engage app in Microsoft Outlook (new Outlook for Windows desktop, Outlook for the web, and new Outlook for Mac desktop)
• Engage app in Microsoft Teams (Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for the web)

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-April 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Corporate communicators access campaign and leader/audience management features through the classic Microsoft Yammer admin center.

After this rollout, corporate communicators will be able to access all features available to them, such as campaign management, analytics, leader and audience management, and quick links to delegate management and official communities from the Dashboard in the left panel of Engage. Also, we have introduced new features:

• A single view on the Comms activity tab of all Featured conversations in Engage with featured by dates.
• Enhancements to the Keyword monitoring feature and a new Moderation agent, available to corporate communicators with access to the Advanced moderation tab. For more information, please refer to MC1041179 Microsoft Viva Engage: Monitoring keywords in the new Communications Dashboard (March 2025) and MC1041753 Microsoft Viva Engage: New Moderation agent (March 2025).
• The ability for corporate communicators to view the list of delegates assigned to a leader through the Leader and audiences tab.

The features available in the Viva Engage admin center before this rollout will continue to be available after the rollout for now. The assignment of corporate communicators will continue to be managed through the admin center.

This dashboard will be available by default. The dashboard will continue to evolve as we iterate and enhance its capabilities. Stay tuned for more updates.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Network admins, verified admins, and Engage admins can assign new or existing corporate communicators with Advanced moderation access from the Role management page in the Engage admin center. This granular permission to the corporate communicator role is disabled by default and must be specifically enabled to facilitate moderation.

Learn more

We will update these documents before rollout:

• Manage admin roles in Viva Engage | Microsoft Learn
• Manage Viva Engage data compliance | Microsoft Learn

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

Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed users will soon be able to access two new deep reasoning agents. These agents will be English-only when they first become available.

• Researcher: Combines OpenAI’s deep research model with Copilot’s advanced orchestration and deep search capabilities to help users tackle complex, multi-step research at work. It can simultaneously reason over work and web data, including third-party data via connectors or data pulled in from other agents, for its response.
• Analyst: Leverages OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model and is optimized to do advanced data analysis at work. Analyst uses chain-of-thought reasoning to progress through problems iteratively, taking as many steps as necessary to refine its reasoning and provide a high-quality answer that mirrors human analytical thinking. It can run Python to tackle complex data queries and users can view the code it’s running in real time and check its work.

Researcher and Analyst will start rolling out to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license in April as part of a new “Frontier” program that gives customers early access to new Copilot innovations while they are still in development. If timing changes, we will notify you.

Users must have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to access Researcher and Analyst as part of the “Frontier” program. These agents will be available at no additional cost and will work with existing Copilot agent settings in the Copilot Control System.

Learn more about this announcement here.

[When this will happen:]

The Researcher and Analyst agents will begin rolling out in April 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Once available, Researcher and Analyst will be visible to Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed users in the “Built by Microsoft” section of the app store. Both agents will be labeled ending in “(Frontier)”.

Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed users will be able to install and use these agents based on your existing Copilot agent settings through Integrated apps in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Review how you manage Copilot agents in your environment using the existing controls through Integrated apps in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Learn more about these controls here.

If you’ve previously set Allow the following users access to Copilot agents to “No Users”, you will need to enable agents for “All Users” or “Specific Users” to allow access to Researcher and Analyst. You will also need to enable Let users access Microsoft apps in your tenant from the default settings or, alternatively, you will need to assign Researcher and Analyst to specific users or user groups so they have access to these specific agents if you are not enabling Microsoft apps by default.

You can manage Researcher and Analyst in your environment for specific users or groups using the same controls that work for any other app in the Microsoft 365 admin center. By default, agents are available for users to install.

Updated March 26, 2025: We have identified that this message did not go to the intended audience. We apologize for any confusion. You can safely disregard this message.

[When will this happen:]

The planned maintenance will take place beginning on April 7th and complete

[How will this affect your organization:]

We are updating the dynamic membership rule of two Entra groups and two Intune filters to include Windows 11 24H2 devices and limit Windows 10 devices to versions newer than 1809. This update is required since Windows 11 24H2 start with a new build number (10.0.26).

Summary of changes:

• The Entra group “Modern Workplace Devices Dynamic – Windows 11” will now also include Windows 11 24H2 devices.
• The Entra group “Modern Workplace Devices Dynamic – Windows 10” will now only include Windows 10 devices back to (not including) version 1809.
• The two Intune filters “Modern Workplace – Windows 11 Filter” and “Modern Workplace Security Baseline – Windows 11 Filter” will now also include Windows 11 24H2 devices.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is required. If you have any questions or concerns, or need assistance, file a service request by visiting the Microsoft Intune admin center.

[Additional Information]

Windows 10 release information – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/release-information

Windows 11 release information – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/windows11-release-information

Effective with Release 83 (April 10, 2025), we will update some language localizations and codes in Microsoft Viva Glint to better reflect current standards and improve the user experience.

A subscription plan for Microsoft Viva Suite or Viva Glint are required for using Viva Glint.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): This change will be implemented April 10, 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This table lists the language codes that we will retire. Where applicable, potential replacements have been noted. These language codes will be available in the platform through August 31, 2025, but will no longer receive translation updates after Release 83 (April 10, 2025). After August 31, 2025, we will remove the retired codes from Viva Glint. If a retired language code is used after August 31, 2025, users will be defaulted to their organization’s default language.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Notify your Viva Glint admins of this upcoming change. If they wish to keep any custom translation content imported for the retiring language codes, they will need to do so before August 31, 2025. The admins may also want to update retiring language codes to a different code before August 31, 2025.

Learn more: Manage language translations in Viva Glint programs | Microsoft Learn

This message applies to Microsoft Teams for iOS/Android.

Microsoft is updating its policies regarding the sharing of user location data to enhance privacy, improve data security, and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory standards. To enhance transparency and user control, Teams will introduce a new location consent experience that gives users the choice of when and how Teams can use their location data [specifically, the SSID (service set identifier) and the BSSID (basic service set identifier)].

[When this will happen:]

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

General Availability (GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out late April 2025 and expect to complete by early May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

All new and existing Teams for Work users in your organization will be prompted to specify if they want to keep location detection on for emergency calls only or if they consent to allowing location access used for IT Admin Insights, for troubleshooting (with a tool such as the Call Quality Dashboard) or for Network and Location matching through BSSID for emergency calling location.

NOTE: The new Teams location consent flow does not apply to fully managed devices where users are restricted from user-granted location access. You can expect current policies for managed devices to continue working as expected, and users will not receive the new location consent prompts.

The new Teams location consent changes will impact these Teams features:

• Emergency calling
• Location-based routing
• Network and Location matching through BSSID
• Call Quality Dashboard

This change will be available by default.

All new Teams for Work users on iOS and Android will first be prompted to allow location permission at the operating system level:

Existing Teams for Work users who previously accepted or denied location permission at the operating system level will not see this prompt a second time.

If a user allows location access, dynamic emergency calling policies will work as configured, and users enabled for Location Based Routing will be able to make and receive PSTN calls.

If a user disallows location access, several Teams Call Quality Dashboard metrics will be impacted, and Network and Location matching through BSSID from dynamic emergency calling policies will not work. Users can still manually add their physical address for emergency calls in the Teams Calls app if an admin has enabled ExternalLocationLookupMode for their users.

Immediately after users consent to allow location access at the operating system level (and for users who previously consented to location access), both new and existing Teams for Work users will be prompted to allow location access at the Teams app level:

At the Teams level, users must choose between Allow all, which grants Teams full location access (that can be used for emergency calls, IT Admin Insights, or troubleshooting), or Allow emergency only, which restricts location usage to emergency calling. NOTE: Only users who are configured for a dynamic emergency calling policy through ExternalLocationLookUpMode will see this version of the dialog. Users without ExternalLocationLookUpMode enabled will see a slightly different version of this consent prompt that excludes emergency calling. Users can modify their location detection preferences at the operating system level or app level at any time in Teams Settings > Privacy > Location. On fully managed devices, these settings will be on by default and can only be disabled at the operating system level.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

We recommend that you educate your users on these selections and what works best for your tenant.

1. If you regularly use the Call Quality Dashboard or leverage Network and Location matching through BSSID, you may want to recommend that users allow location access for those options, or user location data will no longer flow to these services.
2. For emergency calling, you can communicate these changes by setting the emergency service disclaimer with a custom message that will display in the Calls app in Teams. Ensuring that users have location turned on is crucial for proper functioning of emergency calls and their safety. Learn more about sending a custom message: Manage emergency calling policies in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

Learn more about the changes to location services and privacy policies:

• Windows location service and privacy – Microsoft Support
• Enable location sharing – Microsoft Support (will be updated before rollout)
• Changes to API behavior for Wi-Fi access and location – Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn
• User location consent experience in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

For more detailed information and how this will affect each user in your organization, please refer to the public documentation that will be updated here shortly. Before rollout, we will update this post with links to new documentation.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Previously, an admin logged into the M365 Admin center must have the Global Admin privileges if they want to manage and perform admin tasks related to managing agents in the Integrated Apps Page. With this change the AI Admin Role can manage Agents ensuring they comply with organizational policies and security standards.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out on late March 2025 and expect to complete by late March 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

AI Admins can now view agents submitted to the admin for approval under Requested Apps tab in the integrated apps page. From here they can choose to either publish it or reject it. When an agent is updated and sent to admin for approval, it also shows up under the requested apps tab with status as “Update Pending”. From here the admin can choose to either accept the update or reject it.

Following are the actions AI Admin Role can do –

• View 1st party, 3rd party, Line of Business agents.
• Publish/Reject
• Make agents available to all/specific/none users.
• Block/Unblock agents.
• Update tenant level settings for 1st party, 3rd party, Line of Business agents.
• Remove agents

Following are the actions AI Admin Role cannot do –

• Consent for permissions. This ensures that only authorized roles (Global Admin) can provide the necessary consent. This restriction is in place to maintain security protocols and compliance standards, minimizing the risk of accidental misconfigurations and cybersecurity threats.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

AI Admin Role can familiarize themselves with the integrated app page and work alongside the Global admins to manage agents which are published to the tenant by makers in the organization.

New Outlook for Windows desktop and Outlook for the web will soon support a two-click view for encrypted emails, which requires user confirmation before allowing access to encrypted emails. As an admin, you can enable the two-click feature for your users.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 483883.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

General Availability (GCC): We will begin rolling out early May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

With this two-click feature enabled, users will be required to select View message for every encrypted email, and then the email will render. This feature ensures that users deliberately access encrypted email content, reducing the risk of accidental exposure, especially in unsecured environments like public spaces or during screen sharing:

Admins can find the TwoClickMailPreviewEnabled setting in the Microsoft Azure directory. This setting is a Boolean type with default = 0, which means the experience is disabled by default. To enable the feature for all users in your tenant, set value = 1.

Alternatively, you can access and set the value for this setting using the Microsoft PowerShell cmdlet -Set-OrganizationConfiguration in the Microsoft Exchange Online PowerShell. Learn more: Exchange Online PowerShell | Microsoft Learn

By default, the two-click setting is off.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is required from admins unless you want to enable this feature.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation if you plan to enable this feature.

To provide a comprehensive overview of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat’s adoption among users without Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, we are broadening the scope to include active users from Teams, Outlook, and Copilot.cloud.microsoft, in addition to its use in Edge sidebar and the Microsoft 365 Copilot (app). Moreover, the last activity date will now encompass usage data from Teams, Outlook, and Copilot.cloud.microsoft.

A breakdown of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat active users for Teams, Outlook, and Copilot.cloud.microsoft is planned and will be available soon. We will communicate with another post once the rollout date is confirmed.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 482199

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late-March 2025 and expect to complete by late-March 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

In Reports -> Usage -> Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat in the Microsoft 365 admin center, the following metrics may be impacted:

• All up active users, average daily active users may increase
• Last activity date (UTC) per user may change

[What you need to do to prepare:]

If you use Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center as the basis for your own custom report (i.e. by exporting information and incorporating it into a Power BI report), consider revising historical information in that report to account for potential increases to usage of active users, average daily active users, and last activity date update in user level table.  

We are excited to announce the release of 14 new Graph Connectors that you can try out here.

This change is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 413111

[When this will happen:]

Available now.

[How this affects your organization:]

They expand Copilot’s ability to access, analyze, and generate insights from business content across various platforms: 

• Salesforce Knowledge – Retrieve FAQs, return policies, and onboarding guides for customer service teams.
• Zendesk Help Center – Index support articles, enabling faster troubleshooting and self-service solutions.
• Adobe Experience Manager Sites – Empower marketing teams to quickly access product specifications and brand guidelines.
• WordPress.org – Allow internal teams to summarize, suggest, and generate responses based on blog posts and announcements.
• Google Drive & Dropbox – Enable Copilot to synthesize and generate insights from stored business documents.
• Jira Data Center – Summarize key tasks, track issue progress, and help teams stay aligned with real-time updates.
• Azure File Share – Search and empower the Copilot experience with structured file storage to compare project timelines, budget reports, and agreements.
• Stack Overflow – Surface expert solutions and best practices for IT teams.
• PostgreSQL – Retrieve and analyze structured business data for AI-powered decision-making.
• SharePoint On-Prem – Ensure legacy SharePoint content remains discoverable and actionable. 

[What you can do to prepare:]

Try the new connector here. 

For more details on configuring these Graph Connectors for Copilot, visit our official documentation at Microsoft Graph connectors for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Organizations can also contact Microsoft representatives to explore use cases and integration options.

Viva Learning surfaces will be personalized based on user-selected skills and inferred skills derived from the user’s role and activity within Microsoft Graph. This ensures that the learning content is tailored to each user’s unique needs and professional context.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 479751.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We began rolling out in mid-March 2025 and expect to complete by late March 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in early April 2025 and expect to complete by mid-April 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

• The Viva Learning home page carousels Browsing by Provider, Duration, and Learning Path will now use the user selected skills/interests to show relevant content.
  If there is no user selected skill, then Viva Learning uses the inferred skill of the user to show relevant content.  
• The More from Providers carousel in the Details page is enhanced to show information relevant to the content skills. 
• If Skills experience is not enabled for a user, then relevance will work as per the interests chosen by the user.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Coming soon for Microsoft Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot users: We’re introducing new controls for organizers and users set their own spoken language during multilingual meetings, allowing each participant to communicate in their preferred language. Before this rollout, Teams meetings require a common spoken language to generate a transcript. After this rollout, Teams can generate a meeting transcript in each participant’s language of choice. For admins, these features help to ensure a more inclusive collaboration experience for multilingual teams, without requiring extra setup.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license or a Teams Premium license are required to use this feature.

The user feature in this message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

The meeting organizer feature in this message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for the web.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 473434.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by mid-April 2025.

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

General Availability (GCC): We will begin rolling out early June 2025 and expect to complete by mid-June 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

We will support nine languages for both spoken and translation options.

How it works

• A meeting organizer with a Teams Premium or Copilot license can enable multilingual mode by turning on Enable speech recognition in Meeting options before the meeting.
• When the organizer turns on Enable speech recognition, meeting attendees can select their spoken language from the three-dot More menu in the meeting toolbar > Language settings
• During the meeting, if the meeting organizer has not preconfigured multilingual mode, a Copilot user can enable the Interpreter agent, allowing all participants to dynamically select their spoken language.

In Meeting options, meeting organizers can turn on Enable speech recognition:

When Enable speech recognition is turned on, users can select Language settings from the three-dot More menu to set their spoken language and translation options:

This feature is available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

Microsoft Teams will soon add features that make it easier for Teams Premium and Copilot users to communicate in meetings where attendees speak different languages. After this rollout, each participant can choose their spoken language and a translation language, for more inclusive and productive conversations. Users will also receive an automatically translated intelligent meeting recap in the translation language they selected for live transcription and captions. For admins, these features help to ensure a more inclusive collaboration experience for multilingual teams, without requiring extra setup.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license or a Teams Premium license are required to use this feature.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 481144.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by mid-April 2025.

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

General Availability (GCC): We will begin rolling out early June 2025 and expect to complete by mid-June 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, users will be able to:

• Speak in their language: Choose from nine supported languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.
• Read in their preferred language: The meeting transcript will reflect conversations in each user’s chosen translation language.
• Get an automatic recap: After the meeting, Teams will generate an intelligent meeting recap in each user’s selected translation language so they can review key discussions with ease.
• Switch languages anytime: Even after the recap is generated, users can still change the translation language from the drop-down menu on the recap page.

This feature will be on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

Users will no longer be able to access the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on mobile browser by visiting m365.cloud.microsoft. When visiting m365.cloud.microsoft, users will be redirected to download the mobile app on iOS and Android.

[When this will happen:]

We will gradually roll out this change to all customers starting April 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]
As part of this change, users will no longer be able to access the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on mobile browser by visiting m365.cloud.microsoft. Instead, they will be redirected to download the mobile app on iOS and Android. No admin action is required for the redirection update.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• Inform users about the upcoming change and encourage them to download the Microsoft 365 Copilot app from the respective app stores.
• Update any documentation that references accessing the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile web app to reflect the new access method.
• Share the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app download links with users.

The new Microsoft Teams calendar combines rich productivity features and the latest innovations, like Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Places, to help users collaborate seamlessly from anywhere. The new calendar is designed to be familiar and reliable, as it’s one unified calendar that works across new Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, Places, and Teams. With this update, users will see the “New calendar” toggle at the top right of the calendar app in Teams. New calendar is on by default, and users can toggle it off to return to the classic calendar.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

When a user visits the Calendar app in Teams, by default, New calendar will be shown. A toggle will still be available to switch back to the old calendar. 

For more information, visit Get started with the new calendar in Microsoft Teams.

[What you need to do to prepare:]: 

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

#newoutlookforwindows

In new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web, the hover actions in the message list will be moved to the Sender/From column to be more space-efficient and minimize unnecessary mouse travel for users with their Reading Pane set to Hide or Bottom. The large width occupied by the DateTime Received column will thus be reduced. For all users, a one-time shortcut to change/set your hover actions will be provided. After the changes to the hover actions, the first action will be replaced by a quick button (gear button) to change/set your hover actions. After that button has been triggered once, it will disappear, and your hover action settings will kick in fully.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 429868.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out late April 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

For new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web, hover actions in the message list will be moved to the Sender/From column to reduce the large width occupied by the DateTime Received column.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

#newoutlookforwindows

We are introducing a new Startup Boost task from the Microsoft Office installer to optimize performance and load-time of experiences within Office applications.  After the system performs the task, the app remains in a paused state until the app launches and the sequence resumes, or the system removes the app from memory to reclaim resources. The system can perform this task for an app after a device reboot and periodically as system conditions allow.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

New tasks will be publicly visible in the Windows Task Scheduler. 

• Task Names: Office Startup Boost and Office Startup Boost Logon.
• Task Description: This task ensures that Office applications can take advantage of preloading performance enhancements. 

Initial roll-out will be on Microsoft Word and support for additional applications will come in future updates.

Startup Boost is only available when your PC has enough resources to run without impacting system performance. This includes having at least 8 GB of available RAM, and at least 5 GB of available disk space. Additionally, Startup Boost will be disabled when Energy Saver mode is active.

Startup Boost is an optional performance feature. It is safe to disable. When disabled, Microsoft Office applications will be fully functional but may take longer to load. Customers can disable Startup Boost entirely by preventing the process from starting. To disable the feature, use the in-app setting, e.g., Word > Options > General > Startup Boost (under Start up Options).

Scheduled task entry in Task Scheduler:

End-user UI to enable/disable Startup Boost in Word:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. 

You can disable this Startup Boost task like any other scheduled task. Please note that Office Installer will automatically recreate all scheduled tasks when it applies an update, so users who disable this task will need to disable it again after an Office update.

Coming soon: Viva Engage network admins and corporate communicators will be able to add custom themes of interest to a new Moderation agent to keep an eye on related new conversations. Themes can be reviewed along with any keywords in the new Advanced moderation page on the new Engage Communications Dashboard (announced in MC1041122 Microsoft Viva Engage: New Communications Dashboard, published March 2025).

The Moderation agent requires a license for Microsoft Viva Communications and Communities or Microsoft Viva Suite.

This message applies to:

• Engage app on the desktop (as a progressive web app)
• Engage app in Microsoft Outlook (new Outlook for Windows desktop, Outlook for the web, and new Outlook for Mac desktop)
• Engage app in Microsoft Teams (Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for the web)

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 478657.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-April 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Theme monitoring is an agentic AI feature that uses large-language model (LLM) technology to help network admins and corporate communicators moderate conversations at scale.

Theme monitoring relies on the AI Summarization service to process the data in threads across your network. By default, the AI Summarization setting is enabled for licensed customers and processes data for all users in your network unless otherwise specified. Visit the Engage admin center to ensure that the AI Summarization setting reflects your network preferences. 

When network admins and corporate communicators add new custom themes to the Moderation agent in the Advanced moderation page in the Communication Dashboard, new activity or new threads (conversations) mentioning the theme will begin to populate in the Detected conversations table in real-time. Theme monitoring does not retroactively detect conversations that may have been related to newly added themes.

The new Moderation agent builds on recently announced advanced moderation capabilities, including enhancements to keyword monitoring (as communicated in MC1041179 Microsoft Viva Engage: Monitoring keywords in the new Communications Dashboard, published March 2025).

When adding a theme to the Moderation agent, you can choose to automatically mute conversations associated with the theme. When a conversation is muted, it will not be visible in any digest emails or home feed. The ability to mute a conversation with the Moderation agent builds upon the Mute conversations feature released in November 2024.

Monitoring themes and keywords in the new Engage Communications Dashboard:

[What you can do to prepare]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. Review the Engage admin center to ensure that the AI Summarization setting reflects your network preferences. AI Summarization is required to use the Moderation agent. All networks will receive this feature for designated roles. You may wish to update internal training materials and guides to support this release.

Learn more: AI Summarization in Viva Engage | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management (IRM) will be adding a new role–Data Security Investigation Contributor–to the Insider Risk Management Investigators role group. This will allow members of the Insider Risk Management Investigators role group to launch a Data Security Investigation (DSI) from an IRM case.

DSI is a new AI-powered solution that enables data security teams to identify incident-related data, conduct deep content analysis, and mitigate risk within one unified solution. DSI enables data security admins to efficiently identify incident-relevant content by searching their Microsoft 365 data estate to locate emails, Teams messages, Copilot prompts and responses, and documents. Once the investigation is scoped, DSI’s generative AI capabilities allow admins to gain deeper insights into the impacted data, revealing critical security risks and sensitive information. Investigative capabilities include the ability to categorize evidence, perform vector searches, and examine impacted data for security and sensitive data risks. DSI visualizes correlations between investigation data, users, and their activities. To mitigate identified risks, DSI facilitates secure collaboration between partner teams. Post-investigation learnings can be used to refine existing policies to strengthen an organization’s security practices.

The integration between IRM and DSI allows an IRM investigator to identify when a risky user needs deeper investigation to launch a pre-scoped investigation directly from the user activity pane, allowing them to view content analysis related to that user and better assess post-incident data impact.

This message is associated with roadmap ID 485707. 

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in mid-June 2025 and expect to complete by mid-July 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

With this update, members of the Insider Risk Management Investigators role group will be able to create Data Security Investigations from an Insider Risk Management case. Members of the Insider Risk Management Investigators role group will not be able to view the Data Security Investigation unless they are assigned the Data Security Investigation Investigator role.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates various signals to identify potential malicious or inadvertent insider risks, such as IP theft, data leakage and security violations. Insider Risk Management enables customers to create policies based on their own internal policies, governance and organizational requirements. Built with privacy by design, users are pseudonymized by default, and role-based access controls and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.

You can access the Insider Risk Management solution in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.