The latest Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 expert community briefings, podcasts and upcoming community events for November 2025.
Expert Briefings
AI in Teams Devices: What’s New and What’s Next?
https://empowering.cloud/ai-in-teams-devices-whats-new-and-whats-next/
Irena Andonova, Head of Product for Teams Devices at Microsoft, discusses the evolution of Teams Rooms, Phones and Devices
- AI is transforming physical meeting spaces—supporting speaker attribution, voice isolation, and real-time summarisation, even in unscheduled in-person meetings
- Voice and face enrolment enables accurate transcript attribution across Windows and Android platforms
- AI-powered features in Teams Phones
- How AI is being embedded into the Pro Management Portal to support large-scale operations, automate issue resolution, and deliver actionable insights
- The importance of usage analytics for facilities planning—e.g. identifying underused or overbooked rooms by floor and day
- Ongoing investment in cross-platform scalability, including Autopilot for Windows and Android, and integration with MDEP (Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform).
Copilot Agents, No-Code to Pro-Code Options – Paolo Pialorsi, Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft
Tom Morgan speaks with Paolo Pialorsi, Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft, to demystify Microsoft 365 Copilot agents and how to choose the right build path for each scenario.
Pick the approach that fits the use case, skills and long‑term ownership. Start no‑/low‑code for speed and validation, move to pro‑code when you need custom orchestration, channels or packaging at scale.
- What an agent is: foundational model, orchestrator, skills, knowledge base, optional UX, and agent‑to‑agent interaction
- Two core models: declarative agents using the Copilot orchestrator vs custom engine agents where you bring your own model and orchestrator
- No‑code starting points: SharePoint agents for document‑centric scenarios, and Copilot Studio Lite for connectors, web content and generative features
- Low‑code with Copilot Studio (full): leverage Power Platform connectors, agent flows and optional custom engine agents
- Pro‑code declarative agents: build with the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit in VS Code, ship manifest‑driven packages, add APIs via OpenAPI, enable capabilities like image generation, web search and code execution
- Fully pro‑code custom agents: Microsoft 365 Agents SDK or Teams AI Library with your own hosting, channels and knowledge infrastructure
- Capabilities nuances: MCP support in Copilot Studio today, autonomous agents available in Copilot Studio but not in declarative agents yet
- Licensing overview: public‑web knowledge uses the included Copilot entitlement; Graph‑grounded scenarios require pay‑as‑you‑go or Copilot user licences
- Portability and composition: export from SharePoint agents or Copilot Studio Lite to edit as declarative JSON; mix approaches using agent‑to‑agent patterns
AudioCodes Voca is teams Unify Certified – discussing AI, Azure and Smarter Contact Centres
Gidi Adlersberg, Voca Business Line Manager at AudioCodes, unpacks the evolutions of Voca CIC, now one of only five Microsoft Unify-certified Contact Centres.
- Voca CIC was built cloud-first on Azure Communication Services, enabling deep native integration with Microsoft Teams Phone
- The Unify certification demands more than basic functionality—vendors must demonstrate real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, and AI-driven agent support
- Voca’s media handling is fully embedded in Teams, inheriting its five nines SLA and eliminating external API dependencies
- AI capabilities are now enterprise-grade and standardised, with Microsoft dictating fulfilment methods—bringing consistency and reliability to vendors and customers
- Voca’s commercial model simplifies Azure’s consumption-based pricing by offering predictable monthly agent tiers
- The model is designed to reduce cognitive load for IT leaders and improve budget predictability
- Voca CIC is seeing strong adoption beyond traditional contact centres—20% of deals now support informal agents like pension advisors and reception teams
Microsoft Teams Monthly Update October 2025
https://empowering.cloud/microsoft-teams-monthly-update-october-2025/
MVP Tom Arbuthnot shares all the latest Microsoft Teams news and announcements in less than 15 minutes for October 2025.
- Copilot Chat (free) in Office Apps
- Unified Copilot Chat in Teams
- Agent Mode in Excel and Word
- Teams Channel Agents
- Anthropic Claude Models Come to Copilot
- Office Agent (Anthropic)
- Bring Consumer Copilot to Work?
- New Teams Features
- Teams Devices News
- Events
Microsoft Teams Insider Podcast
How IQVIA scaled 650 Microsoft Teams Rooms with Global Standards & Smart Operations
Andre Razzuri, Associate Director at IQVIA, explains how IQVIA rolled out Microsoft Teams Rooms to 650 rooms globally, creating standards and managing a global environment.
Microsoft Teams Rooms – How to Choose Beyond the Specs
Simon Dudley, independent consultant and with extensive former experience at Polycom, Lifesize, and Logitech, examines how customers, OEMs and resellers can navigate the increasingly commoditised video conferencing market.
Upcoming Community Events
Teams Fireside Chat – 19th November | 16:00 BST / 08:00 PDT
Join us for November’s Teams Fireside Chat. We'll be joined by Kerry Perez Heffernan – Teams Product Marketing at Microsoft for all of the news from Microsoft Ignite 2025.
Teams Fireside Chat is an open community chat that is held each month. In each session, we are joined by a guest speaker who shares their insights. In the latter half, we open the floor to discussion and Q&A.
Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything
November Sessions
EMEA/NA – 26th November | 16:00 BST / 08:00 PDT
Hosts: MVP Graham Walsh, Michael Tressler, Jimmy Vaughan
APAC – 26th November | 16:30 AEDT
Hosts: MVP Graham Walsh, Phil Clapham, Andrew Higgs, Justin O’Meara
Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything is a monthly community event which gives you all an update on the important and Microsoft Teams devices news, as well as the chance to ask questions and get them answered by the experts. We have 2 sessions to cover different time zones, so there's really no excuse not to come along to at least one!
Copilot Fireside Chat with Garry Trinder – Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft – 29th October | 16:00 GMT / 08:00 PT
Join Microsoft MVPs Zoe Wilson and Kevin McDonnell for the monthly Copilot Fireside Chat series! The next session is on 29th October at 16:00 BST / 08:00 PT and we’ll be joined by special guest Garry Trinder – Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft to discuss the different options for building agents and which is best for your use case.
Copilot Fireside Chat is a virtual event that usually takes place on the last Wednesday of each month at 16:00 GMT. All are welcome to come along and discuss everything Copilot. Bring along your Copilot questions and get them answered by the experts, with special guest appearances alongside hosts Zoe and Kevin.
M365 Change Community Round Up
As Microsoft 365 Copilot rapidly expands its reach across the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem it's become more important to stay on top of Microsoft 365 change than ever before.
From urgent action items in the Microsoft 365 Message Center to exciting new features on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, many changes will significantly impact your organisation's productivity and even have implications for your security and compliance policies.
The new M365 Change Community Round Up is a new live monthly call open to all, where we take a closer look at Microsoft Message Center updates and what they really mean for your organisation.
🗓️ Join MVPs Darrell Webster, Daniel Glenn from the M365 Message Center show, Tom Arbuthnot and special guests every last Thursday of the month at 13:00 UK / 08:00 ET / 07:00 CT (25th September is the first session).
It's the perfect opportunity to stay in the know, not just on new shiny features, but the all important, high admin and high user impacting items which can have serious consequences if not prepared for.
