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Planner Blog
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What’s new in Microsoft Planner – August 2025

NancyatMSFT's avatar
NancyatMSFT
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Aug 28, 2025

Our team has released a range of updates in Microsoft Planner’s Project Manager agent including improved suggestions, and seamless access through existing premium plans, and a new entry point in the web—enabling a more efficient planning experience. Additionally, Government Community Cloud (GCC) High customers can now access the new Planner for the web. Read on to learn more about how you can adopt these updates into your workflows! 

Project Manager agent now available in existing premium plans 

We’re excited to announce that Project Manager agent is now live and fully integrated across all existing shared premium plans in Microsoft Planner! With Project Manager agent available in the everyday context of premium plans, users can work more efficiently and collaboratively with their teammates. 

Project Manager agent now available in Planner for the web 

Project Manager agent is now integrated and available within Planner for the web, making task management and project coordination more accessible to users directly through their browser. This update allows teams to leverage Project Manager agent’s intelligent capabilities—such as plan generation, status report creation, and task execution—regardless of which endpoint they use Planner. 

Project Manager agent now supports web search 

The Project Manager agent in Planner can now search the web in real time to enhance the output of tasks it executes. It intelligently identifies which tasks can benefit from external information, performs the search, and incorporates relevant insights and references directly into the Project Manager agent output. This capability respects your organization’s existing controls—if web search is enabled for a user, it works automatically with no additional setup required.

A screenshot of a Planner plan shows a list of tasks in Goals view with a callout in the upper right that reads, "Web search. Project Manager agent is using latest web content for improved results."

Smarter plan generation with quality improvements 

We’ve rolled out improvements for Project Manager agent that significantly increase the quality of generated plans. Whether you're planning a sprint or setting quarterly goals, Project Manager agent now delivers smarter, more actionable suggestions. Try it out by going to the Goals view of any premium plan and selecting Generate tasks when you input a goal. 

New entry point for AI chat 

Project Manager agent chat (previously Copilot in Planner) is now available through a new floating button at the bottom right of your plan. This update makes it easier to interact with Project Manager agent from anywhere within your plan, allowing you to ask questions, get help organizing tasks, or understand what’s next. Project Manager agent chat is available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license in personal and shared premium plans.

A screenshot of a Planner plan shows a list of tasks in Board view with the Project Manager agent chat button called out in the bottom right corner.

New Planner for the web available to GCC High customers  

The new Planner for the web experience is now available to customers in the GCC High environment, marking an important milestone for secure task management in highly regulated organizations. With this release, users can access all their tasks, basic plans, and premium plans directly on the web—no migration required. Note that a few premium features are not yet available in GCC High, such as Copilot in Planner and task history for premium plans. Read more in our announcement blog post. 

Share your feedback  

Tell us what you think about the new Planner using the Feedback button in the top right corner of the app. You can also leave thumbs up/thumbs down feedback any time you try a Project Manager agent-enabled capability.  

We encourage you to share any feature requests by adding your ideas to the Planner Feedback Portal. Your feedback helps inform our feature updates, and we look forward to hearing from you as you try Planner’s new and existing capabilities!  

Resources  

  • Sign up to receive future communication about Planner.  
  • Check out the Microsoft 365 roadmap for feature descriptions and estimated release dates for Planner. 
  • Watch Planner demos for inspiration on how to get the most out of Planner in Teams. 
Updated Sep 16, 2025
Version 4.0

9 Comments

  • tvaughn12's avatar
    tvaughn12
    Iron Contributor
    Sep 08, 2025

    The disappointment I felt when I read through this blog... Once again, Microsoft continues to develop its AI Project Manager and remains quiet on the status key features that are needed to make Planner a cohesive and useful project planning system:

    • Any features that basic Planner has, Premium Planner should have (i.e., integrated chat, ability to view on mobile app, etc).
    • My team has complained multiple times about the inability to edit Premium Plan tasks in the My Tasks tabs-- something that really should have been available upon the initial merging of the Planner and Project. I would also like to be able to see a Buckets column on the My Task page. 
    • Portfolios, while a good concept, is not very useful for my Team because you can't sort rows or link to the Plan. 
    • The My Plans page is weak and needs an upgrade. No option to view all Plans you are apart of and sort them. The search feature will often say it can't find a plan and prompts me to click a "Search more Plans" button and then it will find it. Why doesn't it perform a search of all plans initially?
    • Ability to prevent others from deleting tasks or Plans and the ability to restore tasks or Plans. 
    • AdamWithTechnologyBiased's avatar
      AdamWithTechnologyBiased
      Copper Contributor
      Sep 16, 2025

      Did ya'll see the two updates recently posted to the Roadmap (see below)?  I'd like to know who the portfolio/project/product manager for this entire thing is that they've gotten themselves into?  And, how big is the team?  Like one US Product Owner and 2 overseas developers?

       

      Planner: New Microsoft Planner app for Microsoft Teams in GCC High and DoD

      After further review, we will not be rolling this out to DoD. We apologize for any inconvenience. The new Microsoft Planner app in Teams is a single, unified work management experience.

      Added to roadmap: 04/23/2025
      Last modified: 09/11/2025

       

      Planner: New Microsoft Planner app for the web in DOD

      After further review we have decided not to proceed with this change at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience. The new Microsoft Planner app for the web is a single, unified work management experience.

      Added to roadmap: 05/06/2025
      Last modified: 09/09/2025

      • Tickers's avatar
        Tickers
        Brass Contributor
        Sep 16, 2025

        Very good point.  The same thoughts occurred to me when I started looking at the"Roadmap".  I assumed the lack of adding fundamental features the majority are asking for, was due to MS focusing on the DoD and GCC, so its a double kick in the teeth for us.  This news is not a small thing, its huge for us users.

        Planner to me operates like a beta testing project, so us a customers need to see accountability and authenticity from MS.  They want us as businesses to essentially bet and risk our time, effort and money, on something that could be scrapped, or changed with little notice beyond usefulness.

        The gas lighting from them is also particularly provocative.  They say one thing and do another.  This has been going on for too long.

        Yes, we want to know as project managers... show us the project brief, the plan, the commitment of resource.

    • Tickers's avatar
      Tickers
      Brass Contributor
      Sep 15, 2025

      Yes, the past 12 mths has seen token updates and changes, while MS seemed to be focusing on their Planner version to comply with USA defence industry security regulations.   
      AI is great, and I'm sure it can and will do great things for project management.  But right now Microsoft, please deliver quickly on some, what appears to be, quite basic and fundamental features that other similar software packages have had for many years.

    • OwenJones's avatar
      OwenJones
      Iron Contributor
      Sep 11, 2025

      Completely agree. Copilot in Planner is a marketing gimmick right now. It's far more important to focus on basic functionality:

      • Backup, recovery and archiving for the default environment, either for whole plans or buckets
      • Manage tasks across multiple projects, eg allow the same task in multiple projects, or create inter-project dependencies
      • Give line managers ability to control incoming work requests vs capacity, and report/plan resource utilization across projects
      • Make effort calculations realistic - could be done by exposing the Schedule Mode and Hours per day options in the main Teams/SharePoint interface instead of hiding them in the Power App which is obscure
      • If you must develop Copilot features, then focus on predictable automation of repetitive functions, not trying to act like a full-scale PM. Copilot should be very low priority though, the basics above are much more important.
      • Above all, seek and act on real feedback from real PMs and resource managers, not marketing diktat. A lot of development effort seems to have been diverted recently onto features no-one is asking for, with very little benefit.
      • Tickers's avatar
        Tickers
        Brass Contributor
        Sep 15, 2025

        We need to hear a convincing reason for neglecting these features.  No gas lighting us MS!  Question, was it the 2 versions of planner for the USA defence industry that have distracted your development engineers away from serving your other customers?

  • AdamWithTechnologyBiased's avatar
    AdamWithTechnologyBiased
    Copper Contributor
    Sep 01, 2025

    Aloha Microsoft.  I appreciate the effort you're putting into this consolidation.  I didn't even know Planner existed until a few months ago, and I was a big MS Project fan for years, funny enough.  The 'idea' of having an app like Planner so there's a middle-ground between To Do/Lists/Calendar and Microsoft Project is a great concept.  Especially for my own personal projects and goals.

    My biggest gripe at the moment is that there's still no Premium Plans showing on the Mobile App.  That has to be a top priority, even if it's with limited functionality.  I'm on Planner and Project Plan 3 and I may have to cancel my subscription if y'all aren't expecting this in the near future.  I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max, so a large phone, and even with that, trying to scroll and navigate the planner website through a mobile browser is a very bad experience.

    Otherwise, I wish you luck.  Sometimes things work, sometimes things don't.  Just keep pushing forward, onward and upward.

    Respectfully,

    Adam N

  • PetrKrenzelok's avatar
    PetrKrenzelok
    Iron Contributor
    Sep 01, 2025

    When will MS admit, that there is no Planner and Planner Premium, but just rebranded and completly disintegrated two environments? Even the screeshot you have posted as a Board view, displays just Project very limited task cards - no ability to display images, checklist, no integrated chat. This is not what we, as users, were expecting by "integrated backends". 😕 

    • Tickers's avatar
      Tickers
      Brass Contributor
      Sep 15, 2025

      MS need to face up to reality, and admit they are behind the curve.  But also convince us quickly that the next 12 mths will deliver what they should have done more than a year ago.