What's new in Microsoft 365?

Microsoft Edge is getting a makeover! The modern look and feel will include edits to spacing, corners, fonts, default colours and more. 

Soon, you will be able to see colleagues’ and direct reports’ calendars in the left navigation of Outlook by default, without manual setup 

A new Planner Agent is coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot. It will help you bring personal tasks, shared plans, email follow-ups, meeting notes, and chats together. Delivering intelligent work and task management directly into your Copilot experience. You will be able to ask questions such as 'Show me the tasks due this week,' or 'Help me summarise the urgent tasks in my Marketing launch plan.'

The popular engagement tool, breakout rooms, will soon be available for use in Teams events with up to 1,000 attendees. Microsoft say this is to enable more interactive sessions, smaller group discussions, and improved audience engagement without compromising scale or performance!

 

Rolling out from June 2026, Facilitator will automatically detect questions raised during a Teams meeting that haven't been answered, offer to help answer them using web search.

Soon, Microsoft Teams will roll out improved organisation of chats. Including muted chats appearing together in their own dedicated section, and meeting chats also together in their own section. 

 The meeting toolbar is getting a makeover! Coming soon, you will have the option to customise the meeting toolbar to match how you work best, by pinning, unpinning, and reordering controls. The Raise Hand feature will be grouped under Reactions to reduce mis-clicks, and Leave will be clearly separated on the right.

Before joining a meeting on your pre-join screen, users will be given the option to test your microphone and speaker to make sure others will hear you clearly when the call starts. Select Test mic and speaker to record a short audio clip and play it back.

Copilot Cowork is an agent that plus directly into your Work IQ. It is described by Microsoft as going beyond intent, and taking actions on your behalf. Copilor Cowork can organise your Outlook inbox, create entire meetings and plan for them, and create product launch plans with shareable assets. While still in preview and testing, we can expect more information released about Cowork at a later date.

Microsoft are now rolling out the ability to edit images directly inside PowerPoint for Windows, Mac, or the web. Saving the time and the hassle required to switch to a separate image-editing app. You will be able to make edits that include removing backgrounds, erasing or moving unwanted elements, enhancing image quality, upscaling resolution, or editing text that appears on an image. 

You can now create workflows and perform actions quickly and easily using slash commands, directly from the Teams compose box. This includes setting your status as do not disturb, adding a gif, or showing who is in the chat.

Rolling out soon, intelligent meeting recaps will now include video-based recaps. Video recap will create narrated video highlights from recorded meetings, featuring key takeaways and short clips that showcase important moments. 

Users can now easily copy tables created in Copilot. Leverage Copilot to make your content better and use it anywhere you need to!

Viva Engage communities are being brought directly into Microsoft Teams, now rolling out in public preview. Communities will appear in the default unified Chat app, visible and reachable throughout the workday...

Read more here | via Microsoft.com

When searching for files, Teams now offers a grid view that displays a thumbnail of files, allowing for a quicker way to access the files you need. 

Users will soon have the ability to hide their entire meeting controls toolbar during Teams meetings. This will help to create more space during calls.

Recently used emojis and reactions will soon sync across Teams on desktop and mobile.

Microsoft are introducing a reimagined SharePoint experience. It will integrate AI-assisted creation, include an updated information architecture and cohesive design language, and deliver a cleaner and more consistent experience.

Microsoft announced that you will soon be able to add watermarks for AI-generated video, audio, and image content.

Rolling out from March, you will soon be able to schedule meetings directly from Copilot chat in Outlook, or by clicking the "Schedule with Copilot" button.

Later this year, users will be able to sort by flag status, flag due date and flag start date within Microsoft Outlook.

Soon you will be able to edit your images directly in PowerPoint with Copilot, no need to switch apps or interrupt your flow.

To help bring clarity to AI use in the classroom, AI Guidelines is coming to Assignments in Microsoft Teams for Education. This will allow educators to set clear expectations for when and how students can use AI, directly within the assignment experience.

Microsoft have expanded support for additional formatting in Notepad, including strikethrough formatting and nested lists.

Colouring book is a new AI-powered feature coming to Paint, which will allow you to create coloring book pages from a text prompt. 

Microsoft have announced that Agents for each of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be coming. Helping users get more done faster. 

You will soon be able to edit or enhance the lighting in uploaded or generated images directly in Copilot Chat and the Create experience.

Rolling out in February, the new =COPILOT function will be available directly in Excel formulas to generate, classify, and summarise text and data. 

Autocorrect is coming to Teams, which will automatically correct misspelt words in compose. 

A new way to create branded experiences is coming, with new branded reactions. IT admins simply upload custom reaction icons reflecting brand elements or event themes, and these instantly become available for meeting participants. 

Coming early 2026, Microsoft Teams users will be able to select multiple messages and forward them all at once. 

Microsoft announce that Immersive Events are now generally available in Microsoft Teams. This brings tailored 3D environments where attendees join as avatars and can interact naturally with each other. The general availability of immersive events in Teams means Teams Mesh is now retired. 

Coming in February 2026, Teams users will be able to respond to Activity notifications from multiple different tenants without needing to switch between accounts. 

Microsoft unveiled Agent 365 at Microsoft Ignite in San Francisco. Agent 365 will act as a control panel for teams to manage agents. You can learn more about this here:

Agent 365 | Microsoft.com

Being rolled out for general availability in January, you will soon be able to apply a brand kit to content generated inside Copilot. Whether it’s a poster, infographic, or image.

Microsoft announced new capabilities for Copilot Pages. Now, Copilot can write code using the latest LLM models and let you preview it directly in a Copilot Page, enabling rich, immersive experiences. All with zero coding skills required.

Users will be able to schedule meetings directly from Copilot chat. Just ask Copilot to schedule a meeting with colleagues, and it will find available times, book rooms, draft agendas, and send invites, all without needing to leave the chat experience. This feature will roll out in phases.

Users will soon get the ability to schedule recurring prompts in the Web tab

Surveys Agent is an intelligent assistant for managing surveys end-to-end. It is now generally available to all commercial customers who have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Surveys Agent simplifies the entire survey lifecycle through a conversational experience 

At Ignite in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled new Copilot and AI features coming soon to Windows.

Agents will become a seamless part of the OS experience, with agent capabilities embedded into core Windows services. Microsoft 365 Copilot, AI agents and Copilot search will also be added to the taskbar, bringing access to Copilot and agents into the flow of work. 

At Ignite in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled that video generation would be coming to Copilot, and will be powered by Open AI's Sora 2 model.

Microsoft Forms will soon enable sensitivity labels, allowing organisations to control access and manage information protection directly within Forms.

Interpreter, already available in Teams meetings, is expanding to Teams calls. Interpreter enables real-time speech-to-speech interpretation in up to nine languages.

You will soon be able to 'pop out' even more core functions from within Teams. Including chat, calls, calendar, activity, and more.

Microsoft announce you will soon be able to resize the video gallery in Teams meetings, allowing you to see more people when content is being shared.

Microsoft announced some changes coming to how users can generate alt text in Word and PowerPoint.

Where alt text was previously automatically generated by Azure technology, it occasionally cause it to be generic or lack context. Now, Alt text is generated only when you choose to create it, and powered by generative AI models. This means alt text will now be higher-quality, and context-rich. A great step towards making content more accessible.

The Windows Insider Program announced that tables are coming to Notepad. 

Microsoft rolled out new, modern icons for all Microsoft 365 apps. Now available for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and the web.

Previewing from November, Chat in Word and PowerPoint now supports voice. Users can talk and interact with Copilot to brainstorm ideas, create content, and analyse information. 

You will soon be able to customise the AI generated notes from meeting recaps, transforming them into the format that works best for each person. Choose from built-in options like Speaker Summary or Executive Summary to quickly surface the details that matter most. You'll also be able to create and save your own custom templates with a simple prompt, so meeting notes always match the way you like to work. 

Many people use Copilot's capabilities to generate impactful images for their presentations. Now, you can edit your images directly in PowerPoint with Copilot, no need to switch apps or interrupt your flow. You can make edits like improving the resolution, removing the background, and more.

Using Copilot Connector, Copilot now seamlessly integrates with your favourite productivity tools and apps including:

• Trello
• Asana
• Monday.com
• Shortcut
• Miro
• Adobe Experience Manager
• GitLab
• Guru

You can now find your company’s official logos, icons, and photos directly in PowerPoint, removing the need to look elsewhere. This makes it easy to stay on brand and follow company guidelines by using approved images from your organisation’s library.

You can now use colons to quickly insert the emoji you want, in Teams Chats and Channel posts. Type ":" followed by the name of the emoji you want, then type : again. Once done, the emoji is selected and added to your text. The new shortcut aligns with industry standards and helps make emoji insertion intuitive and consistent. 

The Microsoft Teams Search experience has been updated to allow for searching of images. Search by message content, people, or where they were shared.

See results as you type, filter to show only images, or explore them in the dedicated Images tab, all from the search bar.

When a file is shared in a chat, this new feature will use Copilot to summarise it without the need for you to open it. Available in 1:1 and group chats in Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot can quickly summarise content from Microsoft Word documents so you can understand the main points without opening the file. This feature is also available on mobile.

Floating images in Microsoft Word for Windows are now accessible to screen readers. In the past, Word had trouble with floating images because screen readers couldn’t tell where they were in the document. Since these images weren’t tied to any specific spot in the text, screen readers couldn’t “see” them. Now, Word has improved how it handles these images. It links them more clearly to a place in the text, so screen readers can find them and read out their description (alt text) at the right spot.

Announced via the Windows Insider channel, Copy & Search is a feature that will allow you to search the text in your clipboard with a single click. When you copy text anywhere in Windows, a paste gleam will appear in your search box. Click on this gleam and your copied text will appear in the search field, allowing you to search instantly.

Copilot will soon have a Discussion tab in the top of your Word document, where it will summarise open comments. This is to help you more quickly understand what people have said in comments. Rolling out from July 2025.

On OneDrive for Web you can now add text or images as watermarks to your PDF documents. Placing the watermark in front of your content.

People will soon be able to reduce PDF size on OneDrive for Web, with the new compress feature. You will be able to choose from three different compression levels that best fit your needs.

To enhance in-office collaboration, Microsoft have announced a brand new Microsoft Teams feature - the new @nearby mention type. Using this will easily notify teammates who are physically present in the office, streamlining communication and fostering real-time connections. It is set to be most useful for quick discussions or impromptu meetings.

Businesses will now be able to use the power of Microsoft Teams to chat directly with customers, thanks to the new 'Live Chat' feature. Support one-to-one chat with your customers right from your business website—directly from Teams.

Microsoft announce that they are rolling out a text extractor feature to the Snipping Tool. Adding to the capture bar, this is designed to minimise the number of steps it takes to copy text to your clipboard, without having to take a screenshot.

Designer is now part of Copilot. Copilot Suggestions brings you familiar Designer slide layout and presentation template suggestions in a vertical gallery, along with brand new capabilities.

Microsoft are enhancing Teams search personalised suggestions to include apps and agents. When searching in Teams you will now also get apps and agent suggestions which dynamically update as you type.

Rolling out in May 2025, meeting organisers and co-organisers will have the ability to send one-way messages to attendees in the lobby of Teams meetings, via the lobby chat. The Lobby chat is intended to optimise the lobby experience for all participants.

Coming soon, users will have the ability to search through their Copilot history via Copilot chat 

The document summary feature within Copilot is a great way to understand the contents of a document without having to read it in full. Saving valuable time. However, Microsoft have now announced that support for this is rolling out to very long documents, with Copilot in Word soon being able to summarise documents up to about 1,500,000 words or 3,000 pages.

Microsoft have announced a number of enhancements and improvements to the 'Edit in Grid View feature' within OneDrive. Making it quicker and more seamless. You can read these, in full, on Microsoft's OneDrive blog. Updates to the Edit in Grid View Experience | OneDrive Blog

If you're writing an email on your phone, there might be instances where you get halfway through composing and then realise you need something. That could be a link from another email, a date you can’t remember from your calendar, or someone's name from a different thread. Where previously, you would have to save the draft you are working on, go and find the information, and then go back to your drafts folder, this process is now much easier. Microsoft have introduced the ability to minimise your draft to a handy area in Outlook. Once you’re ready to work on your draft again, simply open it and keep writing – no more disappearing it from view.

Making it easier to create channels, you will soon be able to do this directly from the header menu. Eliminating the need to scroll down to the specific team. 

The new Teams calendar is now available for commercial customers. It brings together the latest features from Microsoft Copilot and Places, as well as being unified with Outlook.

You can now manually select the future date and time for a channel message to be published. To schedule a channel post or a message reply, click on the plus icon and select schedule message from the menu. This will open the date picker, where you can choose the desired publishing time. 

Users will soon be able to open calls in a small window to reduce disruptions in Teams.

As of 22nd February 2025, Viva Topics will be retired and will no longer be accessible for Viva customers. 

Microsoft have annonuced a cool new feature to help make sharing files in Windows easier and quicker. The new drag tray feature will appear when you start dragging a local file with mouse (or touch) from File Explorer or your desktop. A handy tray appears at the very top of your screen allowing you to drop the file into one of the displayed apps or choose “More…”  to open the Windows share window.

Project Spark has just been announced for Copilot+ PCs - a new (and free!) AI-enhanced learning app coming later this year. Using the power of AI, Project Spark will empower educators to create interactive, personalised lessons quickly. Whether using their own materials or leveraging resources available in the app. It has been designed to help make teachers’ day-to-day easier by cutting the manual work and tech knowledge needed for content creation. 

A highly requested feature, Excel for Windows now supports Dark Mode, which darkens your entire sheet including cells.

Support for SRT files has now been introduced to PowerPoint for Windows, macOS, and the web. Allowing users to add captions to videos directly in PowerPoint.

There is now a Preview mode for authors to view how their Pages and News will look across different device types while editing.

Microsoft have announced that users of Teams will now be able to personalise the placement of notifications on screen. Choosing between top right, bottom right, bottom left and top left.