What’s New in Microsoft 365 Copilot | November & December 2025

Welcome to the special edition of What's new in Microsoft 365 Copilot for both November and December 2025! Every edition, we highlight new features and enhancements to keep Microsoft 365 admins up to date with Copilot features that help your users be more productive and efficient in the apps they use every day.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in the last months of 2025:

 

User capabilities: 

• Work IQ enhancements
• Improvements to quality and agent performance in Copilot Chat
• Updated navigation and search capabilities in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app
• Suggested references, student access, and OneNote availability for Copilot Notebooks
• Unified experience, Entra authentication, agent update, and more for Copilot in Teams
• Formula completion and Agent Mode in Excel
• Explanations and image editing for Copilot in PowerPoint
• Agent Mode in Word
• New agents available

Admin capabilities

• New reports and benchmarking for Copilot Dashboard
• Richer audit logs, baseline security mode, and organizational messages in Microsoft 365 admin center
• Innovations in the SharePoint admin center
• Safeguards and remediations in Microsoft Purview

User capabilities

Work IQ enhancements

The memory capability of Work IQ is improving with the ability to recall memories from Copilot conversations. These updated settings will deliver more relevant, contextual responses and enable users to easily manage and tailor their Copilot responses to their preferences. Because this memory capability is part of Work IQ – the intelligence layer that enables Microsoft 365 Copilot to know each user, their job, and their company inside and out – it deepens Copilot’s ability to personalize and adapt to the way everyone works. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Improvements to quality and agent performance in Copilot Chat

As we innovate to bring you the latest and greatest Copilot capabilities to help increase productivity, we have been focused on the foundational quality of Copilot Chat. We are excited the share that we saw Copilot users’ positive response to chat quality improvements, with three-times more thumbs up, 17% increase in satisfaction rate, and a two-times drop in thumb down rate over the past six months.* To help us continue improving chat response quality, keep sending thumbs up/down. And check out the Copilot Chat Quality Roadmap each month to see what’s new and what’s next.

 

Declarative Agents have been enhanced to interpret and ground responses using images embedded in files such as Word documents (.docx), PowerPoint presentations (.pptx), and PDFs. This capability allows the agent to extract insights from visual elements like charts, diagrams, and screenshots, ensuring that answers are not only text-based but also informed by graphical context. By combining textual and visual understanding, Declarative Agents will deliver more comprehensive and contextually accurate responses for complex queries. This feature is rolling out in December.

Agents created inside Microsoft 365 Copilot with Agent Builder can now generate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint content. Formerly known as Code Interpreter, this capability is part of the skillset to generate documents, charts, and code and is designed to help users complete common tasks more efficiently. These skills were first introduced in October and are now extending to bring the same powerful creation tools into custom agents. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Updated navigation and search capabilities in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app

The Microsoft 365 Copilot app now has a simpler and more intuitive navigation, helping users find what they need faster and unlock more AI value. Updates to the navigation pane include an expanded chat history, chat search, and expanded recent Notebooks list. The new Library experience, accessed from the navigation pane, centralizes Copilot-generated content like images and Pages in one location. The new Frontier tab in the navigation pane provides an easy access point for frontier experiences like Opal and Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Glance cards in Copilot Search are now available for Copilot users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. These deliver quick, contextual insights right where people work. These cards surface relevant details, like recent documents, upcoming meetings, and key actions, without the need for a full search. By providing at-a-glance context in the flow of work, Glance cards simplify decision-making and help reduce time spent navigating across apps, keeping productivity front and center. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Copilot conversations are now integrated into Copilot Search results, making it easier than ever to revisit past interactions. Users can retrieve historical Copilot chats directly within the search experience, including those from notebooks, agents, and the main Copilot interface. A new “Copilot Chats” data source appears in the right rail, enabling scoped searches focused on Copilot-generated content. When selected, the search box dynamically provides tailored query formulation suggestions to help distinguish between recalling previous sessions and executing new prompts, ensuring results align with user intent. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Microsoft 365 Copilot Search now offers dynamic, data source-specific filters to help users refine results with precision. When users type “person:” or “source:” in Copilot search, Copilot provides suggestions that make it easy to finish their prompt and narrow their search. For example, when users select a specific person or source, Copilot will then show suggestions related to only that person or source, helping to find what is needed faster and more easily. These features rolled out in November and December.

 

AI Views in Copilot Search results now deliver richer, context-aware summaries by incorporating relevant metadata, related resources, and suggested actions, helping users quickly gauge a result’s relevance without opening the underlying file or message. This capability extends across a broader range of Microsoft 365 apps and major third-party platforms, making AI View a powerful tool for diverse enterprise scenarios. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Suggested references, student access, and OneNote availability for Copilot Notebooks

Suggested references automatically surfaces relevant files, emails, and meeting notes to enrich a user’s Notebook content. This feature helps them quickly pull in the most useful context without hunting through multiple sources. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Now students ages 13-17 with Entra ID accounts can access Copilot Notebooks in both Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote apps. This enables students to gather and share all their project-related content in one place, so Copilot can use that material to deliver focused AI help offering relevant insights, updates, and support as the work evolves. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Copilot Notebooks is coming to OneNote, combining OneNote’s strength as a central hub for capturing and organizing all types of information with the ability to use that content for targeted AI assistance. Users can gather project materials—notes, files, images, recordings, and more—and Copilot can then ground its insights, updates, and suggestions in that unified content. This creates a more powerful, context‑rich workspace where organization and AI work together, helping users move projects forward with clearer insights, less app‑switching, and more connected collaboration. This feature rolled out in November on the web.

 

Unified experience, Entra authentication, agent update, and more for Copilot in Teams

The Copilot experience in Teams is unified across chats, channels, and meetings, matching the experience in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Beyond the updated interface, Copilot in Teams can analyze chat history, meeting transcripts, and calendar content to generate smart recaps, rewrite messages, and surface relevant insights. Whether reviewing a thread or following up after a call, Copilot delivers context-aware summaries and suggestions based on a user’s activity and goals. This feature rolled out to chat and channels in November, and is rolling out to public preview for meetings in December.

Agents and bots in group chats can now use Entra for secure authentication. If an agent/bot needs an Entra token in a group chat and the user hasn’t installed the agent/bot or granted permission yet, they’ll receive a private message that only they can see. This message will guide the user through installing the Teams app and granting Entra permission, making the process simple and secure. Once the user has completed both steps, the agent/bot can access the permissions it needs—such as Microsoft Graph—so the user gets the full experience without any hassle. This update gives users more control over their permissions and makes it easier for agents/bots to work smoothly in group chats. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Users now have a simple, secure way to bring co-workers into Copilot conversations with Teams Mode for Microsoft 365 Copilot, turning individual AI chats into group AI chats in Microsoft Teams. With Teams Mode, the same Copilot used for individual work supports group work as well. A user can extend a 1:1 Copilot conversation into a group conversation by selecting “start a group chat” in the top-right corner of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This creates a group chat in Teams with colleagues and Copilot, making it easy for others to build on the work. Users can also add Copilot to any existing Teams group chat, just like adding a teammate, to help a team to research, draft, coordinate, and complete tasks with AI. Then, within the chat, each member of the group can request help from Copilot by typing @copilot​ in the group chat and making their request. This feature rolled out to public preview in November.

 

New enhancements to Channel Agent draw on conversations, files, and meetings to act as a domain expert for the team. The Channel Agent adopts the channel’s name and helps with common tasks. New enhancements rolled out to public preview in November.

• Status report update: Users can stay on top of projects by at-mentioning the agent with queries like “create a status report.” Status reports will now post directly in the channel for all users. 
• Workback Plan: Users can share an objective and deadline with the agent, and it will automatically create a sequenced list of tasks with due dates. Users can review and adjust the plan before tasks are added to Planner, making project planning simple and collaborative.

 

• Connect with Asana, Atlassian, and GitHub via MCP server: This enables Channel Agent to execute workflows on behalf of users. By unlocking the power of agent-to-MCP-server communication, agents can now handle more complex tasks that involve subjects outside of their domain, so they can seamlessly coordinate tasks, bridge gaps between tools, and accelerate complex projects. This feature rolled out to Public Preview in November.

 

Facilitator helps meetings stay focused, productive, and on track. Now a new set of features combines richer context awareness with proactive support, so teams can move faster without juggling extra tools or tasks. Here’s what’s new:

• Facilitator can now recognize an agenda shared directly in the meeting chat, in addition to the meeting invite and meeting notes. Once detected, it automatically builds a live progress tracker at the top of the meeting, giving everyone a shared sense of where they are and what’s next. This feature rolled out in November. 
• When a person is invited to a meeting but has not yet joined and their name comes up twice in conversation, the agent politely pings them in chat to hop in, helping to bring the right people into the discussion at the right time. This feature is rolling out in the new year. 
• Facilitator can draft documents in Word or Loop based on what was said in the meeting. It can shape the document into whatever output is needed, whether that’s a blog, a whitepaper, or a project brief, helping to turn ideas into action faster. This feature rolled out in November.
• As tasks are mentioned, Facilitator captures tasks and assigns them. Users can also direct it through chat to add, update, or reassign tasks. This feature rolled out in November.

 

With new customizable meeting recap templates, users can shape their AI-generated notes to match exactly how their team works. Users can choose from two ready-made templates including a Speaker Summary that organizes insights by participant, or an Executive Summary that highlights key takeaways at a glance. And for teams who prefer their own style, users can design custom templates using a simple free-text prompt of describing the desired structure—even pasting in a format used before—and AI notes will instantly adapt. Custom templates can be saved for future reuse, giving every meeting the same level of clarity, consistency, and efficiency. This feature is rolling out to Public Preview in December.  

 

Formula completion and Agent Mode in Excel

Formula completion in Excel streamlines the process of writing formulas by proactively suggesting and autocompleting formulas as soon as users type “=”. Copilot now analyzes a worksheet’s context—headers, nearby cells, and tables—to deliver accurate suggestions in real time, helping users create formulas faster and with greater confidence. Formula completion is designed to reduce errors and save time, letting users focus on insights instead of syntax. This feature rolled out in November on Windows.

 

Agent Mode in Excel plans, executes, and validates multi-step tasks—like building models, reshaping tables, and creating charts—directly in the grid. Users stay in control with transparent steps and editable outputs, making complex workflows faster and more intuitive. Agent Mode in Excel rolled out in November on Windows through the Frontier program, and is rolling out in December on the Web.

 

Explanations and image editing for Copilot in PowerPoint

Using the "Explain this" feature in Copilot in PowerPoint, users can select an acronym, text box, table, or even an entire slide and instantly receive a detailed, contextual explanation of the chosen object. By providing clear and relevant explanations tailored to the selected content, this feature helps users quickly understand complex information, reduces confusion, and enhances productivity. This feature rolled out in November on the web and is rolling out in December on Windows desktop and Mac.

Image editor integration in PowerPoint is a new feature that lets users edit images directly within their slides using a modern and intuitive interface, eliminating the need to switch between different apps or interrupt their workflow. By providing powerful editing tools right inside PowerPoint, this feature helps users easily refine visuals for presentations, enhance marketing materials, or make slides more visually appealing. Users can quickly and seamlessly improve their images without leaving PowerPoint, saving time and streamlining the process of creating polished, professional slides. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Using Organization images, an integrated asset library connected to an organization’s image sources, users can find and insert company-approved images—such as logos, icons, and photos—directly within PowerPoint. When users go to the Insert tab then select Picture, the drop-down menu will include a new option called “Organization Images,” where users will see all available pre-approved and instantly accessible visuals for their organization for use in content. This streamlines the process of creating professional presentations and helps maintain consistency across all slides. This feature rolled out November on the web, and is rolling out in December on Windows desktop and Mac.

Agent Mode in Word

Agent Mode in Word turns document creation into vibe writing, an interactive, conversational experience. Users simply tell Copilot what they need, like “summarize recent customer feedback and highlight key trends,” and Copilot handles the heavy lifting: finding relevant work sources, drafting content, suggesting refinements, and asking clarifying questions along the way. Copilot makes suggestions to keep the process flowing, so writing feels more like a dialogue than a task. Users focus on intent; Copilot brings it to life with Word’s native styles and polished formatting. This deeper interaction means faster iteration, better ideas, and a more engaging writing experience.  This feature started rolling out in November.

New agents available

 With new agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, users can stay more connected, develop new skills, and continuously adapt to successfully accelerate workforce transformation. To learn more, review the Agents in Microsoft 365 adoption page.

 

The following agents are now available in the Frontier program:

• The People agent brings together all people-related information in one place, helping users quickly find people by role or skill, view their top collaborators, and prep for upcoming interactions. This agent rolled out to the Frontier program in November.

 

• The Learning agent helps guide employees along their skill development journey with skill-based learning recommendations, live AI-powered role play capabilities from LinkedIn Learning, and actionable tips to help them work smarter with Copilot. This agent rolled out to the Frontier program in November

• The Workforce Insights agent provides actionable organizational insights, offering preloaded prompts that help leaders get a clear view of their team structure, level mix, and skills distribution to help inform workforce management initiatives. This agent is rolling out to the Frontier program in December.

 

Surveys Agent takes the work out of creating, sending, and analyzing surveys by bringing the entire process into one conversational experience. This pre‑built agent helps draft questions, distribute surveys, track responses, and interpret results—all without switching between tools. Whether gathering training feedback, measuring employee sentiment, or running customer research, Surveys Agent acts as a personal survey expert. This agent rolled out in October.

 

Admin capabilities

New reports and benchmarking for Copilot Dashboard

Soon admins can easily export Copilot Dashboard data through a CSV file for tailored reporting and custom analysis. Admins with global access to the Dashboard can quickly download Copilot usage metrics from the Copilot Dashboard to develop custom, advanced insights to support Copilot adoption and transformation initiatives. This export includes weekly Copilot metrics over the past six (6) months, enabling trend analysis and deeper visibility into usage patterns. This feature will roll out to Public Preview in December.

Admins can also unlock deeper insights with Copilot Analytics endpoints now available in Microsoft Graph API, allowing users to build custom reports and integrate Copilot data seamlessly with internal tools and datasets. Analysts can access the same robust metrics found in the Microsoft 365 Copilot usage report, including tenant-level counts of enabled and active users, as well as each user’s last activity date across Microsoft 365 apps. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Admins can now understand how Copilot usage relates to employee engagement. The Copilot employee experience report analyzes the relationship between Copilot usage and employee sentiment in Viva Glint to uncover what’s working and where to improve. Admins can tailor their analysis with key metrics from Viva Glint surveys to identify opportunities for deeper impact and more meaningful engagement. Customers must have Microsoft 365 Copilot and Viva Glint to use this report. This feature rolled out in November.

Admins can now compare Copilot usage both externally and internally with new benchmarks in Copilot Dashboard. External benchmarks will provide references for how active usage compares to others by company size, industry, top 10% users, and top 25% users. Using internal benchmarks, admins can compare similar groups within their company. Metrics will include active users, adoption by app, and percentage of retention. This feature rolled out in November.

Admins can now track Copilot Chat adoption in the Copilot Dashboard by viewing total users, usage trends, adoption by group, intensity, retention, and app-level breakdowns. This enables admins to optimize Copilot licensing and enablement by viewing metrics by organizational attributes to uncover adoption patterns by groups. This update is available for customers with access to the Copilot Dashboard with 50+ Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, and rolled out in November.

Richer audit logs, baseline security mode, and organizational messages in Microsoft 365 admin center

Soon Microsoft Purview unified audit logs will include all agent-related admin activities in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This includes actions such as publishing, updating, or removing agents. This enhancement delivers enterprise-grade visibility and compliance by enabling organizations to track configuration changes, validate security posture, and meet regulatory requirements. With centralized auditing, IT teams can quickly investigate issues, demonstrate adherence to policies, and strengthen governance across agent lifecycle management. This feature is rolling out in December.

 

Baseline security mode applies Microsoft-recommended security settings across key Microsoft 365 services, including, Microsoft 365 apps, SharePoint and OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, and the Entra identity platform. By standardizing these protections, administrators can more easily identify gaps and reduce risk, supporting a consistent security posture across cloud environments. 

• Act on tailored recommendations with preconfigured defaults that protect against known vulnerabilities from legacy configurations and emerging AI risks exploiting them.
• Adopt changes safely and test configurations safely in simulation mode before rollout.
• Take advantage of built-in protection and benefit from purpose-built integration with Microsoft 365.

This feature rolled out in November.

 

Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers act as standardized endpoints, exposing callable actions that agents can leverage to interact with data and services across Microsoft 365 and beyond. For admins, having visibility into these MCP-powered agents is essential for maintaining governance, compliance, and trust. Now, agents built with connected MCP servers appear in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Admins can find these under > Copilot > Agents> Inventory (note: for customers in the Frontier program, these appear under Agents > All agents > Registry). Admins can easily view all MCP-enabled agents, access detailed metadata including capabilities, data sources, and supported actions, and drill into the specifics of the MCP server powering each agent. By clicking on an MCP server-enabled agent, admins can navigate to a dedicated details section that surfaces the server’s URL, authentication type, and dynamic/static status. As MCP server agents become a core part of the Copilot ecosystem, this visibility helps AI admins continue to drive agent adoption securely and at scale. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Two major enhancements are coming to organizational messages, which enable admins to communicate directly with users in their flow of work through the Microsoft products they use every day.

• Action Segments enable admins to target messages based on user behaviors, driving more personalized and targeted communication. For example, a message encouraging adoption of M365 Copilot features can be sent only to inactive users.
• Organizational messages support for email as a delivery channel, offering greater flexibility and broader potential reach. While in Public Preview, support for email will be limited to templated messages only with custom messages planned for the general availability release. These updates make it easier than ever to engage the right users at the right time and simplify IT communications.

These features rolled out to Public Preview in December.

 

Innovations in the SharePoint admin center

Agent Insights with SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) delivers a tenant-wide view of SharePoint agent activity at the site level. With this visibility, admins can quickly identify where agent usage is high and take action to strengthen governance and reduce risk. Common pivots include the number of agents created or used per site and whether those sites already have safeguards like Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) and Restricted Access Control (RAC) in place. This capability is available directly in the SharePoint admin center, and admins can also export reports or use PowerShell for deeper analysis and automation. This feature rolled out in November.

 

Content management assessment helps tenant admins quickly evaluate site health, permissions, and lifecycle readiness—all in a single, actionable report. It brings together multiple SAM reports, including Site Lifecycle Management and Data Access Governance, and delivers clear, tailored recommendations to strengthen governance and prepare for Copilot onboarding. This feature is rolled out in October.

 

SharePoint Admin Agent is designed for administrators tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that their organizational content is governed properly in the AI era, with the help of AI. The SharePoint Admin Agent removes the need for admins to know what SAM reports to trigger, how to read the reports, and what actions to take. Now all admins need to know is what problem they are trying to solve. The SharePoint Admin Agent will help manage permissions, storage, lifecycle, and access, with more features planned for the future. This feature rolled out to Public Preview in November.

 

Safeguards and remediations in Microsoft Purview

Data Loss Prevention for Microsoft 365 Copilot to safeguard prompts is now included for all Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat users. We are expanding Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention for Microsoft 365 Copilot to safeguard prompts containing sensitive data. This real-time control helps organizations mitigate data leakage and oversharing risks by preventing Microsoft 365 Copilot, including pre-built agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, from returning a response when prompts contain sensitive data. This feature rolled out to Public Preview in November.

 

Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) item-level investigation and remediation for data risk assessments enables admins to identify and fix overshared links at scale, reducing exposure and strengthening compliance. Now, in addition to identifying sharing links across SharePoint sites, this enhanced capability enables bulk remediation by enabling admins to remediate or disable overshared links at scale. This helps organizations proactively reduce data exposure, strengthen compliance posture, and ensure sensitive files are only accessible to the right people. This feature rolled out to Public Preview in November.

 

Did you know? The Microsoft 365 Roadmap is where you can get the latest updates on productivity apps and intelligent cloud services. Microsoft 365 Copilot release notes is where you can see the Microsoft 365 Copilot features that are generally available (Current Channel for Microsoft 365 apps) and specific to each platform. Check back regularly to see what features are in development, coming soon and generally available. Please note that the dates mentioned in this article are tentative and subject to change.

 

*Response satisfaction from commercial and education users of Copilot Chat users and without paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses over a 6-month period of May 1 to November 1, 2025. To measure the changes in customer satisfaction through a consistent measurement, we tracked customer clicks of Thumbs Up/Down and found: 1. Thumbs up click all up count; 2. Thumbs up click rate %; 3. Thumbs down click rate %.