Table of Contents
Microsoft 365 Copilot Updates
Unified Copilot Chat is being integrated into Office Apps
The free Copilot chat (included with all Microsoft 365 licenses) is now being integrated into the Office apps, meaning it’s the same Copilot Chat experience both standalone and in the apps, which should lead to a more uniform Experience.
Free Copilot Chat users will also now be able to engage with the currently open document, even without an M365 Copilot licence (MC1096218). It can’t access SharePoint, OneDrive, or your broader user data; you still need the full M365 Copilot license for that and for all the advanced agent and reasoning experiences.
We’re getting the same unified Copilot chat experience across chat, channels, calls, and meetings (MC1156360). However, there is a key difference: In Teams, this unified experience will only be available with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Free users will still get the top-left web-grounded Copilot shortcut.
Agent Mode in Word and Excel
Microsoft is introducing “agent mode” in Word and Excel—its term for more proactive AI that will start writing documents for you and engage more deeply with your content. Microsoft is even coining the term “vibe working” (a riff on vibe coding). Not sure how employers will feel about that one.
This is early days—currently in the Frontier program (opt-in only), web clients only, and US English only. Built on the latest OpenAI models for agent capabilities.
Channel Agents in Teams
New channel agents are now in public preview. These agents are grounded at the channel level—one agent per channel—and can help with tasks like building meeting agendas, pulling out tasks, creating summaries, and even providing proactive capabilities like status reports. (Microsoft docs)
Anthropic Claude Models in Microsoft 365 Copilot
This was a huge announcement: Anthropic’s Claude models are coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio. You can opt in to have Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.1 models available in Copilot Studio. These models have been highly respected for creative content and coding.
What makes this particularly interesting is that these models are NOT running on Azure – they’re run by Anthropic on AWS. Despite Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, they’re still prepared to give users other options.
Important consideration for organisations: Microsoft states that these models run in a different cloud outside Microsoft 365, so Microsoft’s default data protection and data processing rules don’t apply. Organisations need to decide whether they trust Anthropic and the joint agreement on data handling.
Office Agent (with Anthropic models)
This new feature is leveraging Anthropic’s models, available in Copilot chat. “Office Agent” will generate PowerPoint or Word documents (Excel coming soon) starting from chat. This appears to use capabilities similar to those of Anthropic’s native Claude product, which can create Office documents natively.
Microsoft Teams Updates
Explicit Consent for Recording in 1:1 Calls – We already have this in meetings, but Microsoft is adding explicit consent prompts for recording and transcription in Teams one-to-one calls. MC1163766
Preventing Screen Capture (Premium) – This is a security feature I’ve definitely been asked about before. Available for Teams desktop and web clients. Users joining from clients that don’t support this functionality will be put in audio-only mode. MC1140178
Saved Items Are Back – New Saved Items Experience on mobile, I’m so glad to see this all coming together. I really missed being able to save/bookmark chats MC1130609
Paraguay has been added by Tata on Operator Connect – now up to 115 Operator Connect providers, and AT&T Business is now covering Teams Phone Mobile in the US.
Following the EU Competition Commission complaint and subsequent back-and-forth, Microsoft is making changes to Teams pricing and packaging for enterprise customers. Microsoft is bringing back bundled suite options for enterprises. You’ll be able to buy Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suites with Teams included again (as it was before). The delta is roughly $8 between buying Microsoft 365 without Teams versus with Teams (proportionally less for business plans). Details here.
Microsoft Teams Devices Updates
Logitech launched its Zone Wireless 2 ES for Business – Bluetooth native certified for Teams. I’m looking forward to testing the 2 ES soon.
Both Neat and Cisco have announced they’re joining the Microsoft Devices Ecosystem Platform (MDEP).
Devices roadmap highlights:
- Voice and Face Enrollment Dashboard coming (December) – Admin Center dashboard showing who’s enrolled for voice and face enrollment. This supports both voice isolation on the Teams client and allows rooms to recognise people
- In-Room Camera Control for Teams Rooms on Windows (November) – Ability to switch views between multiple cameras within the room
- Room Health Signals for Teams Rooms on Windows (November) – Banners in the room alerting end users to issues (camera not working, etc.).
- Recommended Action Page in Teams Pro Portal (October) – Single page view of recommended actions across your rooms. I expect this to tie into the AI-driven proactive management story in the future.