Microsoft 365 Insider Blog articles

Stay productive in new Outlook for Windows with these 5 features

Vicki_Milton — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:44:26 GMT

With the new Outlook for Windows, there are more ways than ever to stay organized, reduce everyday friction, and keep work moving across Mail, Calendar, meetings, and settings.

To help you make the transition from classic Outlook and explore new capabilities, we’ve compiled some of our favorite features for boosting productivity. (You can see even more little-known features in our Outlook blog: 15 productivity features in the new Outlook for Windows.)

1. Pin and snooze emails

The Pin feature allows you to select an email to always appear at the top of your inbox – useful for items you need to reference often or don’t want to lose track of. Just hover over a message and select the Pin button on the right.

Conversely, you can snooze an email from your inbox and have it reappear at a time you’d prefer to read it by right-clicking on the message, then selecting Snooze and choosing a date and time.

2. Automatically organize messages from a specific sender

With Sweep, you can create automatic actions for messages from a specific sender. For example, you can delete promotional mail after a set period, reducing manual cleanup and keeping your inbox focused on the tasks that matter. To use Sweep, select the broom icon on the ribbon, then select your desired rule.

3. Schedule emails to send later

Schedule Send lets you prepare messages whenever you want and send them at a time that works better for the recipient. No more leaving messages in Drafts indefinitely! To schedule an email, select the dropdown arrow next to the Send button, then select Schedule send and choose a date and time.

4. Stay informed on meetings you don’t attend

When you select Follow on a meeting, you get access to the meeting recap without having to attend. This can be useful if you have a conflict but need to know what was discussed or want to contribute to a brainstorm. Follow a meeting by selecting Follow when RSVPing to the invite.

5. Personalize your email accounts

Make your various inboxes more recognizable by assigning each one a custom name. You can rename accounts by selecting Settings > Accounts > Manage.

Your inbox just got a whole lot more manageable! Which feature will you try first?

Learn more tips and tricks: 15 productivity features in the new Outlook for Windows.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

From LaTeX to accessible PDFs: Transforming math workflows in Microsoft 365

PeteWu — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:45:00 GMT

Congratulations, Class of 2026! It's an exciting time looking forward to the next step in your journey. The rest of us salute you as we continue with our own journeys. For so many of us, math has been an integral part of the journey, enabling us to understand, solve, and build – which is why I'm very excited to share improved support for industry standard math formats in Microsoft 365 that make it easier to communicate inclusively with math.

Improved LaTeX support

LaTeX users, we heard you! You use LaTeX for your publications, Word for your documents, and PowerPoint for your presentations, and you need them to work well together. But it hasn’t been so easy since the LaTeX support in Word and PowerPoint didn’t handle all the complex math that you write.

With the latest version of Microsoft 365 in Beta Channel, LaTeX support is much more robust, making it easier than ever to bring your LaTeX into Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Rebuilt from the ground up, it supports more of the commands that you use. You can even include user-defined macros using \newcommand, \renewcommand, and \def in your equations.

How it works

Select the LaTeX expression including the \begin{environment}…\end{environment}, \[…\], $…$, $$....$$, or $...$ delimiters from your TeX document or Markdown and copy it to the clipboard by typing Ctrl + C (on Windows) or Command + C (on Mac).Selecting and copying LaTeX from a TeX document.
Open a new or existing file in Word, PowerPoint, or OneNote, then type Ctrl + V (on Windows) or Command + V (on Mac) to paste the LaTeX expression as native Office Math. In Excel, you can paste the text into a shape or SmartArt.Pasting delimited LaTeX into PowerPoint inserts native Office Math.

The LaTeX is automatically converted to native Office Math.

Tips and tricks

If the pasted text doesn’t include the delimiters, you can still easily convert it to native Office Math after pasting, by selecting the text and then selecting Insert > Equation while in LaTeX mode in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. And you can still convert native Office Math back to LaTeX if you need to edit it.
We heard that many of you write chemical formulas and equations in LaTeX, so we have added support for the \ce command from the mhchem package.

Copying delimited LaTeX using \ce and pasting into Word inserts a chemical formula.

We have published documentation for LaTeX support in Microsoft 365 to help you determine if you can use it for your content and integrate it into your workflow.

To the amazing LaTeX community: Thank you for building an incredible collection of content on the web and advancing science and human knowledge. I'm excited to see what you will do with Microsoft 365.

Great compatibility with MathML Core

MathML Core brings math to life on the web! With excellent support in all major web browsers, it's widely used in sites such as arXiv for math that's accessible and looks great.

In the latest version of Microsoft 365 in Beta Channel: Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel provide MathML Core on the clipboard, in the accessibility tree used by assistive technologies, in PDF, and in Open Document Format.

The Microsoft 365 apps continue to import MathML 3 well and then export it as MathML Core without <mfenced>, <maligngroup>, or <malignmark> elements and without mathvariant attribute values other than normal which have been dropped from MathML Core. This ensures compatibility with the web, assistive technologies, and other apps. One exception to be aware of is that the <menclose> element may be used.

MathML copied from Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, or Excel has been pasted into the HTML source for a webpage and it renders well in web browsers such as Firefox.

We have published documentation for MathML support in Microsoft 365 to help you assess compatibility with the other apps that you use.

PDF 2.0 standard format for math

Many publications are in PDF format, but unfortunately the PDFs are often inaccessible. You can help change that by using native Office Math in Word and PowerPoint and exporting PDFs using the built-in Export or Save As command! Word and PowerPoint are excellent at preserving accessibility of documents and presentations when exporting as PDF, and the latest version of the apps for Windows in Beta Channel builds upon this with great math accessibility. Now MathML is included in the PDF as associated files as specified in the PDF 2.0 standard. This allows people who rely on a screen reader to easily navigate and read the math in PDF viewers that support the format such as Firefox with JAWS, NVDA with MathCAT, or VoiceOver. While not all PDF viewers read the new standard format and not all assistive technologies provide a math navigation experience yet, support will expand in the future – and the support in Word and PowerPoint will increase the momentum.

How it works

Open a new or existing file in Word or PowerPoint for Windows.
Select File > Save or Save a Copy > More options... and select PDF (*.pdf) from the list of format.

Tips and tricks

You can also select File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document > Create PDF/XPS.
Depending on what you have installed, additional commands from add-ins may appear in the File and Export menus. Use the commands listed above to use the built-in PDF export.
Support for exporting PDF with math in the new format is coming soon to Word and PowerPoint for Mac, iOS, and Android and to Word for the web. It is currently available in Word and PowerPoint for Windows in Beta Channel and PowerPoint for the web.

PDF exported from PowerPoint viewed in Firefox and read with JAWS Math Viewer.

A community effort

George Kersher, Sara Shunkwiler, Richard Orme, and I recently presented Accessible Math Unlocks STEM Education and Careers at the Microsoft Ability Summit 2026. You can download the materials from daisy.org/ability26.

To learn more about the man who built much of accessible math in Microsoft 365 over the course of many years, read our blog post: Meet Murray Sargent, the quiet force behind accessible math (who was recently awarded the Microsoft Accessibility Lifetime Achievement Award).

Professor Jeffrey Kuan at Ohio State University shared one of his research papers as a Word document attached below to help you see what you can do with accessible math in Microsoft 365.

Availability

Improved LaTeX support and MathML Core support are available in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel for Windows in Version 2606 (Build 20105.20000) or later and in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel for Mac in Version 16.110 (Build 26050500) or later in Beta Channel.
Accessibility of exported PDFs with math in the ISO-standarized PDF 2.0 file format is available in Word and PowerPoint for Windows in Version 2605 (Build 20018.20000) or later in Beta Channel and in PowerPoint for the web.

Features covered on this blog will roll out over time to enable us to monitor quality and performance, so some preview features may not be available to you right away. Also note that features may be paused, adjusted, or removed as part of that process.

Feedback

Please click Help > Feedback in the app you are using to submit your thoughts about these features. We would love to hear from you! You can help spread the word about how important it is to make math accessible by sharing this post with your networks and tag it with #Microsoft365Math.

We’re thrilled by the feedback we’ve received from customers about recent math enhancements to Microsoft 365:

From Brydon Bacaycay, Assistive Technology Coordinator, Harvard University: “Recent community-driven efforts to expand math authoring and reading options within Microsoft 365 are a shining example of what is needed to ensure that educators and learners have increased opportunities to engage with STEM content at all levels across the digital frontier. Each accessibility improvement in math supports broader, lifelong interoperability for everyone.”
From Dax Castro, Chax Training and Consulting: “It carried the underlying MathML you pasted into Word into the PDF and allows that to be discoverable by NVDA and JAWS so that it is voiced correctly and as a fallback, has the Alt Text on top of it. It’s a great solution!”
From Jennifer Marsala, Instructional Designer, Department of Mathematics, University of Houston: “Wow! I had a 20-page section of a textbook in Microsoft Word that was full of MathType equations – and with a few clicks of the mouse, Word changed them to all to native Office Math format in about 20 seconds! Thanks so much for adding this mass conversion feature!!!”

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Shaping Copilot across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Katie Kivett — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:52:34 GMT

We’ve been working to make Microsoft 365 feel more connected and integrated with Copilot, available as a helpful thought partner, when you need it. We recently updated Word for the web, Excel for the web, and PowerPoint for the web as well as Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the Windows and Mac platforms with a consolidated, more visible entry point (Dynamic Action Button) at the bottom right of the apps that suggests actions from Copilot based on your document. You may have noticed similar entry points in other apps across Microsoft 365, all with access to the same Copilot.

As we continue to thoughtfully and intentionally shape how Copilot integrates with the tried-and-true workflows within Word, Excel and PowerPoint that you rely on, we’re listening, learning and improving as we go. To that end, we're already making a few updates based on feedback.

Updated entry points for Copilot

While we are seeing increased engagement with Copilot in Office apps with this update, we are also hearing the need for more control over how Copilot appears. Our vision is to evolve Copilot over time to be fully adaptive, flexible and personalized. For more on that see: A simplified system - Microsoft Design. In the short term, we've heard your feedback and are making some adjustments.

Move to ribbon option for the Copilot Dynamic Action Button

For customers who prefer using the ribbon, we’re adding a Move to ribbon option. We will be rolling this out soon, and you will see a new option when right-clicking the Dynamic Action Button.

Docking that stays in place while you work

The Dock option will continue to be available as well when you right-click or drag to button the right. You can still move it back onto the canvas whenever it fits your workflow or preference, allowing for flexibility, while still keeping Copilot easy and clear to access. So when you want the entry point close to the canvas but out of the way, you can dock it to the edge of the window. We are making an update so that the button will stay docked throughout your time in the document, instead of returning to its original position every time you engage with Copilot.

For more information about Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint and options for end-user and IT admin configuration, see our Support article here.

Looking ahead

6/5/2026 UPDATE: Updates mentioned in this post are now rolling out.

These updates will start rolling out soon in Word for the web, Excel for the web, and PowerPoint for the web as well as Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the Windows and Mac platforms. They are just a step on our journey toward a vision where Copilot is seamlessly integrated in Office to amplify, guide, and help you do your work, on your terms.

Stay tuned for more updates and we'll keep listening and evolving!

Meet Murray Sargent, the quiet force behind accessible math

SusanCockrell — Thu, 21 May 2026 15:54:12 GMT

If you’ve ever typed an equation into Microsoft Word, copied math from the web into a document, or relied on a screen reader to understand an equation, you’ve benefited from Murray Sargent’s work, even if you’ve never heard his name. As we celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we’re recognizing Murray, recipient of the Microsoft Accessibility Lifetime Achievement Award, for his extraordinary contributions to accessibility at Microsoft.

At 85, Murray is still contributing to Microsoft products, with a goal that sounds simple but is surprisingly hard to get right: make math not only readable, but writable, editable, and accessible for everyone.

Most people slow down at this stage of life. Murray is still shipping.

And what makes his story compelling is that his work has never really been about equations alone. It’s been about people. Students trying to finish homework independently. Researchers trying to express an idea clearly. Blind users trying not just to hear math, but to write it, revise it, and make it their own.

Murray is part of a long arc of computing history, from the earliest days of digital math display to accessibility breakthroughs that now reach millions of people every month.

From lasers to letters to living math

Murray’s path into this work started long before modern productivity software existed. As a Yale graduate student in theoretical physics, he was writing a dissertation in laser theory packed with Greek letters and notation that everyday typing tools handled badly.

One memory sticks with him because it’s so physical. The wife of one of his professors was typing a dissertation on an IBM typewriter and literally removed keys and replaced them with different keys just to type Greek letters. Even by the standards of the time, it was clunky.

For Murray, it was also revealing. The problem wasn’t the math. The problem was that the tools were getting in the way of people trying to express it.

That problem stayed with him.

When he finished his PhD and joined Bell Labs, he kept thinking about how math could be represented more naturally with computers. In 1968, because he needed to prepare slides and there was no PowerPoint waiting to save him, he created a way to display mathematical equations on presentation slides.

It wasn’t just a technical win. It gave shape to a belief that would guide the rest of his career: math should not be frozen in place. It should behave like text.

A career built around one stubborn question

By the time Murray joined Microsoft in 1992, he had already spent decades thinking about how people write math digitally. When he moved into the TextServices team supporting Word and RichEdit, he had a long-term goal: to bring high-quality math editing and display into Microsoft products in a way that felt natural and direct.

He’s candid that it took longer than he expected, but the goal never changed.

If you want a peek at the engineering stories he points to himself, Murray calls out work like LineServices and Mathematical typography in Office.

What fascinated him wasn’t just how equations looked. It was whether they could be edited like text. He wanted the promise of WYSIWYG editing: put your cursor where you want, change part of an equation, paste something into the middle of something else, and have it just work.

That shift matters more than it sounds. When math is treated like a picture, it becomes fragile. Harder to edit. Harder to speak. Harder to braille. Harder to make accessible. But when it is treated as structured, editable content, the door opens wider for everyone.

The part people miss about “math accessibility”

When people hear “accessible math,” many assume it’s mostly about reading. Murray gently disagrees.

“Most people seem to think that math accessibility is just providing math speech and braille for existing math in documents,” he says. “But for people documenting their own work or students writing up their math homework, math accessibility must include entering and editing math.”

That one shift changes the whole goal.

You are not just making equations understandable. You are making them authorable. For a blind student trying to finish homework independently, that difference is everything.

When braille changed the whole problem

Math braille became a turning point in Murray’s accessibility work.

He points to the Nemeth braille code, a linear format that predates FORTRAN. What grabbed him was that Nemeth showed you can represent sophisticated math in a linear way and still preserve meaning, even without visual layout.

That perspective fits perfectly with how he thinks about math formats like UnicodeMath. And it helps explain why he cares so much about structure. If the structure is right, math can travel. It can be spoken, displayed, edited, and felt on a refreshable braille display without losing what it means.

The tiny shortcut he’s proud of

If you ask Murray what behind the scenes contribution he’s proud of, he doesn’t point to something flashy. He points to a keyboard shortcut: Alt+X.

Alt+X converts Unicode character codes into symbols. For instance, pressing Alt+X in Microsoft Word toggles the text between its Unicode code value (221E) and the corresponding character (∞) in the same location.

It’s the kind of feature that feels small until you learn about it, and then it becomes part of how you think.

It’s also very on brand for him: practical, efficient, and quietly empowering.

The moment it stopped being hypothetical

Around the same time Murray’s work was taking off, Microsoft was beginning to rethink how accessibility work happened in the first place. Instead of building features and hoping they helped later, teams were starting to work more closely with the disability community to understand how people were actually interacting with math in real scenarios. That shift toward co design is now reflected in the company’s Inclusive Design hub, which emphasizes solving for one person’s needs in ways that extend to many.

For years, Murray hoped his work was helping people. But he didn’t always get direct confirmation.

He says he didn’t have confirmation until “the DAISY folks reported back that they wanted to recommend Microsoft Word for navigating a complex equation and having it understand when you entered a part of the equation”, but they just needed to eliminate some limitations.

“At that point, it really seemed like we could make math accessible,” he said. “I wish I had had that feedback back in 2017!”

That is the emotional center of this story. A person can work on something for decades and still wonder if it matters. Then, one piece of feedback validates your hypothesis and suddenly it is not theoretical anymore. The power of Murray’s work is also evident when you hear stories like that of Alex Benoit, now a senior developer on the Excel team, who recalled relying on Word’s equation tools throughout college and being “really, really grateful, even at the time” because they allowed him to write clean mathematical notation in his reports, even if he “didn’t know who to thank” at the time.

A moment of recognition, decades in the making

Yesterday, Murray's impact was recognized in a big way. He received the first-ever Microsoft Accessibility Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to digital math accessibility.

The award highlights the very work described throughout this story: helping make math in Microsoft Office more accessible for blind and low-vision users through innovations in equation editing, math speech, braille support, and structured digital math experiences.

During the ceremony, his work was described as life-changing, noting that these breakthroughs made it possible for students and professionals to read, write, and work with math in ways that were previously difficult or inaccessible.

It’s the kind of recognition that puts a spotlight on something Murray has focused on all along: not just making math visible, but making it usable for everyone.

Still curious, still building

In the past six months, in collaboration with Peter Wu and Rick Sailor, Murray has continued to build his legacy and make math accessible with new features like easier screen reading announcements while navigating equations and copy/paste equations using MathML.

Murray stays active outside of his passion for writing math code, too. His advice is simple and very him:

“Carpe diem! Regular exercise is possibly the best investment a person can make; eat healthful food; have good personal relationships; work hard on meaningful goals.”

He also names recent hikes he loved, including Mt. Wrightson (south of Tucson) and Sahale Arm in the North Cascades.

And yes, he has a cave photo near Sedona that belongs in the post because it’s the perfect visual shorthand for his whole vibe: still exploring, still climbing, still game.

A legacy written in equations and people

Murray’s legacy is not just standards work, file formats, or clever shortcuts.

It’s about making sure math, the language of science, education, and discovery, is available to everyone.

Not someday. Today.

If you’re a Microsoft 365 user or educator, you can explore math accessibility features right now in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote. And if you want to go deeper, Murray has documented much of this work in his own words across years of posts, including his retirement reflection, “It’s been so fine!” and his story about early Windows days.

A faster, more efficient Editor experience with Narrator in Word

shireensalma — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:13:27 GMT

Hi, Insiders! We are Doug Geoffray and Shireen Salma, Product Managers on the Office Accessibility team. Today, we are excited to share improvements we’ve made to the Editor experience for people using Narrator in Word for Windows. Reviewing and fixing spelling and grammar issues will now be faster, clearer, and more efficient.

A faster, more efficient Editor experience with Narrator in Word

If you’re sighted, you can often catch spelling errors implicitly through visual cues like red squiggles. Those of us who use screen readers, by contrast, must take explicit steps to identify these same issues, which makes Editor an essential assistive experience for discovering and fixing spelling and grammar errors.

If you use screen readers, especially at higher speech rates, reviewing spelling and grammar issues in the Editor pane can feel inefficient and overwhelming. Previously, when moving through errors, Narrator would announce a large amount of information at once, repeat labels, read out spelling at full speed, and required extra navigation steps or keystrokes just to reach suggestions or take remediation actions. While complete, this experience often made it harder to focus on what mattered most: what the error is and how to fix it efficiently.

With this update, we focused on streamlining how errors, context, and suggestions are presented (without changing the visual UI) so you can work more efficiently and with less cognitive load when you use screen readers.

How it works

In your Word document and with Narrator on, press F7 to initiate spellcheck. Narrator will voice the error type, the word in error, the context of the error, number of suggestions, followed by each suggestion.
On your keyboard, press number 1 to activate the first suggestion, press number 2 to activate the second, and so on.
Press the letter i for Ignore once, the letter g for Ignore all, and the letter a for Add to dictionary.

Tips and tricks

Here is what you can expect with this update to Editor.

Clearer, more focused announcements: When you move to a spelling or grammar issue in the Editor pane, Narrator now presents information in a more intentional order:

The type of issue (for example, spelling or grammar).
The problematic word or phrase.
The sentence context, so you understand how the error appears in your writing.
Available suggestions to fix the issue.
For spelling errors, Narrator will also slow down temporarily when spelling out the incorrect word, making it easier to understand, even if you normally use a fast speech rate. This approach reduces unnecessary repetition while ensuring you still get the information you need to decide what to do next.

Faster access to suggestions and actions: We’ve improved keyboard efficiency so fewer key presses are required to fix issues. These changes help you move from one issue to the next with less friction and fix any spelling issue with a single key press:

Simply press 1 to activate the first suggestion, press 2 to activate the second, and so on.
Press the letter i for Ignore once, g for Ignore all, and a for Add to dictionary. These keys now perform the action directly instead of just moving focus.
The overall tab and arrow navigation order has been refined to reduce the number of key presses and keep it efficient.

Availability

This improved Narrator spellcheck experience is available in Word for Windows for users running Version 2601 (Build 19725.20126) or later. You also need to be running one of these three Windows OS versions or later:

28000.1764 (26H1 Windows)
26200.8116 (25H2 Windows)
26100.8116 (24H2 Windows)

Recent accessibility posts

We have heard from some of you that you'd love to be able to keep track of the availability status of accessibility experiences and features we have covered on our blog in the past several months, so take a look below and do let us know if this provides the information you are looking for.

Blog	Feature availability status
Better contrast checking for slides in PowerPoint \| Microsoft Community Hub	Current channel
Accessibility Assistant now flags inaccessible hyperlinks	Current channel

Feedback

We’d love to hear how this experience works for you. Open Editor review issues with Narrator, and let us know what you think by selecting Give Feedback to Microsoft in Word.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Choose how OneNote opens Microsoft 365 file links

Daniel Beade — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:30:00 GMT

Hi, Insiders! I am Daniel Beade, a Product Manager on the OneNote Notebooks team. I’m excited to share with you a new capability in OneNote for Windows and Mac that gives you more flexibility in how Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote file links open.

Get more control over how links open in OneNote

Whether you’re reviewing a report, jumping into a presentation, or revisiting linked content, moving seamlessly between files when you’re working in OneNote is key to staying in flow.

That’s why we’re introducing a new capability that gives you more control over how you open links from OneNote. You now have a choice: links can open either in your browser or in the desktop app.

The default setting is for files to open in your browser, but it’s easy to change your preference in your OneNote settings.

How to use

You can update your preference directly in OneNote settings.

How to update your link open preference in OneNote for Windows:

Go to File, then Options.
Navigate to Advanced.
From the menu in Link open preference, choose desktop or browser.

How to update your link open preference in OneNote for Mac:

On the top menu bar, go to OneNote, then Preferences.
In the OneNote Preferences dialog box that opens, select Navigation.
Under Link open preference, choose Desktop or Browser.

Browser vs desktop scenarios

This new setting allows you to tailor your experience based on how you prefer to work because different tasks call for different workflows:

If you’re quickly scanning content or referencing material, opening in the browser can be fast and lightweight.
If you’re editing, reviewing in depth, or working across multiple files, opening in the desktop app can provide a rich experience without leaving the app.

Availability

This feature is available to OneNote users running:

Windows: Version 2603 (Build 19820.20000) or later.
Mac: Version 16.110 (Build 26050124) or later.

Features covered on this blog will rollout over time to enable us to monitor quality and performance, so some preview features may not be available to you right away. Also note that features may be paused, adjusted, or removed as part of that process.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! Please submit your comments and feedback by selecting Help > Feedback in OneNote.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Goodbye Together mode, hello simplified meeting layouts in Microsoft Teams

KatarinaTranker — Thu, 14 May 2026 15:33:35 GMT

Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Katarina Tranker, a Product Manager on the Teams team. Today, I’d like to share an important update: Beginning June 30^th, the Together mode experience will no longer be available.

Moving to a simpler meeting layout experience

We’re always working to make meetings easier to join, simpler to manage, and better for everyone, regardless of device or network conditions.

As part of that ongoing effort, we’re retiring Together mode in Microsoft Teams. This change helps:

Simplify the meeting experience
Reduce complexity behind the scenes
Focus our engineering investments on improvements that benefit every Teams meeting such as video quality, stability, and performance.

Today, the core need Together mode was designed to support, namely seeing the people who matter in a meeting, can now be fully met by the modern Gallery view, which can display up to 49 participants at once.

What’s changing?

As this update rolls out:

The Together mode toggle will be removed from the meeting View menu.
Scenes and custom scenes, including seat assignments, will be retired along with Together mode.
Organizations that used scenes for brand presence can instead use organization‑provided branded backgrounds, including frosted glass options.

Meanwhile, the modern Gallery will automatically scale the number and size of participant video tiles based on device capability, helping sustain smooth frame rates and consistent meeting quality across a wide range of environments.

Why are we making this change?

Over time, Microsoft Teams has added several meeting layout options including Gallery, Large Gallery, Together mode, and dynamic views.

While choice can be helpful, having too many layout options can also:

Increase cognitive load for users
Fragment the meeting experience across desktop, web, mobile, and Teams Rooms
Add implementation complexity across platforms

By consolidating on a single, adaptable Gallery experience, we can:

Simplify the meeting interface and deliver a more consistent experience across devices.
Deliver higher and more stable video quality across meetings by focusing on client-optimized rendering.
Free up service capacity that can be reinvested into foundational video improvements that you have asked us to prioritize such as super‑resolution, denoising, and improved color accuracy

Expected benefits

With this change, you can expect:

Fewer clicks, less hunting: A single Gallery view that “just works,” with built‑in tools like pin and spotlight to keep presenters and key participants visible.
Smoother video on modest devices: Adaptive video tile counts help prevent machine overload and reduce choppiness.
Faster innovation: Consolidating on one layout pipeline helps us deliver quality improvements more quickly to all Teams users.

Tips for creating a cohesive meeting experience with Gallery

You can still create a collaborative and engaging meeting environment using:

Pinning to keep important speakers visible
Spotlighting to focus attention on presenters
Branded backgrounds to maintain a cohesive team presence
Dual displays, when available, to balance participants and shared content

Admins can deploy and enforce organization‑provided backgrounds through the Teams Admin Center to help ensure consistency across meetings.

Scenarios to try

In your next team meeting:

Use Gallery with pinning or spotlight to keep presenters in focus.
Publish one or two branded background images for your team.

Availability

Together mode will be removed progressively across platforms following Teams’ standard safe‑deployment process.

NOTE: Targeted Release or Public Preview users may see this change earlier.

We recommend monitoring the Microsoft 365 Message Center for rollout timing by platform and cloud.

Feedback

Your feedback helps us continue improving meetings for everyone. Share your thoughts and your experience with the modern Gallery in Teams by selecting Help > Give feedback.

New Copilot entry points, smart suggestions, and keyboard-first design

Clint Covington — Wed, 13 May 2026 23:46:04 GMT

Copilot is evolving to become a true thought partner inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft apps and services such as Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint. The ability for Copilot to better connect to your content when using a keyboard and screen readers has been part of that evolution.

We heard from many of you that you’re unsure how to start engaging with Copilot. We’re now offering proactive suggestions right from the Copilot button. Simply hover over it or leverage keyboard shortcuts and start engaging. Before you know it, Copilot will be editing your content directly from conversation.

This update is part of a broader effort to create a more streamlined and intuitive Copilot experience. Learn more about the design principles behind this approach.

How Copilot shows up

To streamline access to Copilot and proactive suggestions, we’re reducing the number of entry points to two locations:

A Copilot icon at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
A contextual entry point when you interact with content, such as selecting text.

When you are ready to focus on your content and move the entry point, right-click the Copilot button and select Dock. Coming soon, you will also be able to drag the icon to dock to the right of the content you’re focused on and minimize it (or left of content for right-to-left locales). To re-engage with Copilot after docking, simply click the smaller icon or drag it back.

Smart suggestions to get you started

Alongside the new canvas entry point, you'll see curated suggestions designed to help you understand how Copilot can take action or what improvements can be made to your content.

As you refine content, suggestions evolve from helping you decide what to write to shaping how it’s written, and finally to validate whether it’s ready to share. As you select more specific content—the whole document, a section, a paragraph, a sentence, or even just a word—the suggestions become increasingly targeted, moving from broad drafting guidance to precise edits, rewrites, and fixes for the selected text.

Updated keyboard shortcuts

For those of you who have been using Alt + H, F, X to open the Copilot pane, you can now just press F6 instead to give focus to the Copilot button. Then, use the up arrow to move between suggested prompts.

Copilot keyboard shortcuts are being unified across Microsoft 365 apps and services, as well as across platforms, bringing consistency and supporting keyboard-first users and anyone using a screen reader. They are available in Outlook and Word for Windows and Mac in English today. Other apps are coming soon.

Platform	Shortcut	Action
Windows (Win32 and Web)	Alt + C	Sets focus on the Copilot button in the canvas. If the Copilot Chat pane is already open, focus moves to the chat edit box so you can begin typing immediately.
Mac (Desktop and Web)	Cmd + Control + I	Sets focus on the Copilot button in the canvas.
All platforms	F6	Moves focus to the Copilot button in the canvas.

Availability

The new Copilot button and updated shortcuts are rolling out to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows and Mac, with web coming soon. They will reach general availability by early June.

Windows: Build 2606 (Version 19822.20182) or later
Mac: Build 16.108 (Version 26050324) or later

The new simplified Alt + C and Cmd + Control + I shortcuts are available today in Outlook and Word for Windows and Mac in English. Other apps are coming soon, rolling out across languages shortly after the new entry point. If the shortcuts are still not available in the app or language you’re using, remember you can use F6 today for navigation.

Share your feedback

We'd love to hear from you, especially from those of you navigating Microsoft apps with keyboards or screen readers. How is working with Copilot in the apps, including new entry points and shortcuts working for you? Use the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons in the Copilot, share feedback in the app or in the comments below.

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Plan a fun Family Wellness Month with Copilot

StephanieParry — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:37:21 GMT

May is Family Wellness Month, and with the help of Copilot, you can turn your family’s wellness goals into tailored plans and activities in seconds.

Here are some ideas to get you started!

Plan a device-free family week

Looking to cut back on screen time and spend more meaningful time together? Copilot can help you structure a realistic plan that keeps everyone engaged.

Try this prompt

Plan a one-week “device-free evenings” challenge for my family. My kids are in 7^th and 9^th grade. We all like games and crafts but we get bored with the usual so we often turn to our screens. Suggest screen-free activities for each night that encourage movement, creativity, and connection.

Use this prompt to quickly generate a week’s worth of ideas, from outdoor play to creative indoor projects, so you can focus less on planning and more on enjoying the time together.

Introduce mindfulness for the whole family

Wellness isn’t just about movement. It’s also about slowing down and being present. Copilot can help you introduce simple mindfulness routines that work for both kids and adults, and that you can practice together as a family.

Try this prompt

Suggest 5 simple mindfulness or meditation activities my family and I can do together, including step-by-step instructions and tips to keep my kids engaged. My kids are 6, 8, and 11.

This is a great way to explore short, approachable practices, like breathing exercises or gratitude rituals, that fit easily into your day.

Turn fitness into fun

Getting active doesn’t have to be limited to workouts. Copilot can help you reframe fitness as something playful and something everyone looks forward to.

Try this prompt

My family lives in Tampa, FL, and includes two active high schoolers who enjoy baseball and softball. Give me 10 fun, game-based fitness activities for my family that make exercise feel like play rather than a workout. Include both indoor and outdoor options.

In seconds, you’ll have a list of creative ideas that make it easier to keep everyone moving.

Make wellness simple with Copilot

Family Wellness Month is a great opportunity to build habits that last, but it can be hard to know where to start. Copilot helps you turn broad goals into clear, actionable ideas, tailored to your family’s needs. With just a few prompts, you can spend less time planning and more time making the most of May together.

Watch Part 2 of our video series: Navigate a busy workday with Copilot

AliciaAl-Aryan — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:30:00 GMT

Hello again, Insiders! We are Alicia Al-Aryan, Oby Omu, and Patrick Gan, program managers on the Microsoft 365 Copilot app team. We’re passionate about helping people learn how to use Copilot to make work easier, get more productive, and stay on top of everyday tasks, which is the inspiration behind our video series. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Part 1: Getting started with the Copilot app.

The videos we have created for Part 2 demonstrate how the Microsoft 365 Copilot app can help you get through your workday. This series is for you if you have ever started your day thinking, “Where do I even start?”

How the Microsoft 365 Copilot app fits into a busy workday

The topics of these short videos tackle a common reality for many of us: with work spread across meetings, files, chats, and ongoing projects, getting oriented can take more time than expected. Each episode focuses on a simple, everyday moment where Copilot can help you quickly understand what’s going on and decide what to do next.

📸 Video 1 | Start your day with Chat

Use Chat to get a quick snapshot of your day: upcoming meetings, tasks, recent updates, and anything you might have missed, all in one place.

Presenter: Caroline Chen

👀 Video 2 | Preview files before opening them

File Preview Cards can help you quickly understand what’s in a file without needing to open it. Find what you’re looking for fast without opening a bunch of files!

Presenter: David Stephens

⚡ Video 3 | Catch up on meetings with video highlights

When you miss a meeting (or just need the gist), this video highlights how Copilot surfaces key moments from a meeting recording—no speed‑watching required.

Presenter: Constance Gervais

📖 Video 4 | Pull project context together with Copilot Notebooks

The final episode shows how Copilot Notebooks bring related documents, meetings, and references into one place, helping you get up to speed on a project faster.

Presenter: Caroline Chen

Together, these short videos are meant to reflect real workdays — the moments where you’re trying to catch up, regain context, or refocus — and show how the Copilot app fits into those moments in practical ways.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, they’re quick to watch and easy to skim between meetings.

Stay connected

Check out the other videos in our series!

We’ll continue building this series with additional short videos and deeper learning moments that can help you get more value from the Microsoft 365 Copilot app as part of your everyday work.

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 community. Want to share best practices or join community events? Become a member!

For tips & tricks or to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements directly from the product teams, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Microsoft 365 community blog.

📚 Keep learning

Try the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and learn more ways to be productive.
Dig deeper into real-world Microsoft 365 app scenarios with our webinar series.
Find tools for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and agent deployment and adoption that deliver value and employee satisfaction.
Learn how to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app from Microsoft Support.
Follow @Copilot on X.
Follow @MicrosoftLoop on X.
Join the "Microsoft Loop Community" public group on LinkedIn.
Follow the Microsoft 365 public roadmap.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Teacher Appreciation Week: Create expressions of gratitude with Copilot

StephanieParry — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 22:01:33 GMT

Teacher Appreciation Week is a great moment to recognize the educators who made a difference this year, but it can be hard to move beyond the standard thank you note and gift.

With Microsoft Copilot, you can turn specific moments from the school year into a thoughtful message, present, or creative project that are personal and heartfelt. Below are a few ways parents and students can use Copilot to reflect, organize their ideas, and express gratitude during Teacher Appreciation Week.

Parents: Turn end-of-year classroom projects into a community effort

Genuinely lighten your child's teacher's load by inviting other parents to take on end‑of‑the-school- year classroom projects. This effort not only honors a teacher’s hard work, but it also creates a shared sense of community and care around the students. It’s a simple idea with an outsized impact, helping teachers end the year feeling seen, supported, and celebrated.

Copilot prompt

To show my appreciation for my daughter's teacher I'd like to organize an effort for classroom parents to help him with end-of-the-school-year projects. Give me three projects that would be good for parents to manage, and 5 tips to help me get parents organized.

Copilot response

High school kids: Turn gratitude into a video teachers will never forget

Looking for a more meaningful way to say thank you this Teacher Appreciation Week? With Copilot, you can turn your personal experience into a short, shareable gratitude video by simply prompting it with the impact a teacher had on your life. It’s a powerful way to celebrate the educators who have shaped your vision for your future.

Copilot prompt

Mr. Gutierrez, my Biology teacher, is the reason why I've decided to study Biochemistry in college. I'd like to express my gratitude for his impact on my education with a short video I'll share on social media. Give me a script, shot list, and anything else I need.

Copilot response

Kids and parents: One message of appreciation shared in two distinct ways

Teacher Appreciation Week is the perfect moment to reflect on the impact your child’s teacher has on their growth. Hearing how that growth has been observed and celebrated from a parent’s perspective is satisfying and meaningful. Hearing that appreciation as experienced from your child’s perspective is priceless. Use Copilot to share the same message of appreciation in two unique ways, from both you and your child.

Copilot prompt

My 2nd-grader's love of reading, and her reading skills, really blossomed this year with her teacher. We'd like to show our appreciation in our own ways. What are some ideas?

Copilot response

Teachers give their time, energy, and encouragement all year long. With Copilot, it’s easy to express gratitude during Teacher Appreciation Week in ways that feel personal and meaningful.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Get more out of Microsoft Clipchamp with these little‑known features

MSArmelle — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:38:59 GMT

If you’ve used Microsoft Clipchamp, you already know it’s a powerful, easy‑to‑use video editor for creating everything from quick updates to dynamic presentations. But creating the video is only one part of the story, the real impact comes from how content is shared, discovered, and experienced by viewers. Beneath the surface, Clipchamp unlocks lesser‑known features that help you not only create faster and stay on brand, ensuring your content lands effectively with your audience when it’s shared and watched.

If you’re only using Clipchamp for basic edits, you might be missing out. Let’s take a look at a few features worth trying.

Stay on brand with Brand kits

Creating videos for work often means keeping logos, colors, and fonts consistent, and manually setting those up every time can slow you down.

With Brand kits in Clipchamp, individual users or Microsoft 365 administrators can create curated, organization-wide sets of logos, brand colors, and fonts in one place to ensure consistent use, and then apply them across videos with just a few clicks. This is especially helpful when multiple people are creating content for the same team or project.

Once your Brand kit is set up, you’ll spend less time formatting and more time focusing on your message.

Learn more

Create polished transitions with fade and blur effects

Jump cuts and abrupt transitions can make videos feel unfinished, especially when you’re stitching together screen recordings, webcam footage, or slides.

Clipchamp includes subtle fade and smooth transitions between clips without needing complex animations. These effects are easy to apply and work well for professional content like walkthroughs, demos, and internal updates.

Small visual refinements like this can make a big difference in how polished your final video feels.

Learn more

Speed up editing with automatic captions

Accessibility matters — and so does saving time.

With automatic captions, Clipchamp can generate captions for your video in just a few steps. This is a great way to make content more inclusive, improve comprehension in noisy environments, and reduce the time spent manually transcribing audio.

You can review and edit captions directly in the editor, making it easier to ensure accuracy before sharing your video.

Learn more

Repurpose content using aspect ratio presets

Creating one video often isn’t the end of the job — you may need versions for Teams, presentations, or social channels.

Clipchamp’s aspect ratio presets make it easy to resize your video for different formats without starting over. You can switch between common layouts and adjust framing as needed, helping you reuse the same content across multiple destinations.

This is a simple way to extend the life of a video while keeping everything looking intentional.

Learn more

Find what you need faster with stock search and filters

Need background footage, music, or sound effects but don’t want to hunt for assets elsewhere?

Clipchamp includes built‑in stock content with search and filtering tools that help you quickly find visuals and audio that fit your tone. Whether you’re creating an explainer, announcement, or highlight reel, this can save time and keep everything in one workflow.

Learn more

Discover, watch, understand

Video is one of the most engaging ways to communicate, but its value depends on how easily it can be consumed. Within the Clipchamp video hub, Copilot enhances the playback experience by making videos searchable, summarized, and interactive. This completes the video flywheel—helping content not just get created and shared, but fully understood and acted on.

Final thoughts

Clipchamp makes video a scalable way to capture, share, and understand information across your organization. Its features enable individuals and teams to create on‑brand, accessible content quickly, so that information can be shared more dynamically, consumed more broadly, and delivered with greater impact and less effort.

We’d love to hear from you: What’s one Clipchamp feature you use all the time or one you just discovered? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Converse naturally across languages with consecutive interpretation

harinlee — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:30:00 GMT

Hi, Insiders! I am Harin Lee, a Principal Product Manager on the Microsoft Teams team. I’m excited to share a new way to collaborate across languages in your meetings: consecutive interpretation in Interpreter.

Keep two-language meetings flowing with consecutive interpretation in Teams

Interpreter brings speech-to-speech translation to Teams meetings so everyone can participate in the language they're most comfortable using. Consecutive interpretation is a new mode in Interpreter for Windows, Mac, and the web that helps participants collaborate more naturally in meetings with two spoken languages. With this update, Interpreter now supports two modes: real-time simultaneous interpretation (launched last year) and a new consecutive interpretation mode designed for back-and-forth conversations.

With consecutive interpretation, the translation begins after each speaker finishes speaking. This creates a turn-based flow that more closely reflects how people naturally communicate in multilingual conversations. In addition, consecutive interpretation brings Interpreter onto the meeting stage for everyone to see and hear, making it easier to follow, participate, and stay aligned.

How it works

After the meeting starts, as the meeting organizer you can click the More menu and select Turn on Interpreter.

Select Consecutive interpretation, choose the two spoken languages from the drop down menus, and click Turn on.

Interpreter will be added to the meeting stage, and everyone will be notified it’s on.
Take turns speaking, and wait for Interpreter to translate after each speaker.

Tips and tricks

Consecutive interpretation is designed for interactive, two-way conversations across a language pair (E.g., Spanish and English). Simultaneous interpretation is suited for broadcast-style, listening scenarios across multiple languages.

Known limitations

Consecutive interpretation is available across 10 languages, supporting any language pair between them. Supported languages include Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Requirements

To enable the Teams client for the Public Preview, IT administrators must enable Show preview features in their update policy. Learn more.

For Targeted release, global admins can go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and give access to a select set of individuals or the entire organization. Learn more.

Availability

Consecutive interpretation is available for meeting organizers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and Teams clients enabled for Public Preview.

During the preview period for consecutive interpretation, access is subject to available service capacity. Beyond preview, additional details will be shared when the feature becomes generally available.

Features covered in this blog roll out over time to enable us to monitor quality and performance, so some preview features may not be available to you right away. Also note that features may be paused, adjusted, or removed as part of that process.

Feedback

We’d love to hear what you think about this feature! Select the thumbs up or down buttons in your Copilot response, or select Settings and more > Feedback in the top-right corner of the Teams app, and then select either Report a problem, Give a compliment, or Suggest a feature to share your thoughts.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Bringing transparency to AI-generated content with watermarks in Microsoft 365

MSArmelle — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:43:46 GMT

As AI becomes part of everyday work, it’s more important than ever to clearly indicate when content has been generated or altered using AI. To help support transparency and responsible use, Microsoft 365 now includes watermarking options for AI‑generated content, giving organizations and individuals clearer signals about AI involvement while maintaining flexibility and control.

Whether you’re an IT admin, an information worker, or a consumer using Microsoft 365 at home, here’s what you need to know.

Why watermarks for AI‑generated content matter

AI can help people create faster and more confidently, but transparency builds trust. Watermarks help provide a visible or audible signal when content has been generated or modified using AI in Microsoft 365, supporting responsible sharing and clearer communication.

Even when watermarks aren’t visible, Microsoft 365 also adds AI‑related metadata to generated or altered content to help provide additional context about how that content was created.

How watermarks work in Microsoft 365

Watermark behavior varies slightly depending on the type of content and account type, but the goal is consistent: make AI‑generated content easier to identify.

At Work

Video and audio content (admin‑controlled)

For video and audio content generated or altered using AI in Microsoft 365, organizations can enable the Include a watermark when content from Microsoft 365 is generated or altered by AI policy that adds:

Visual watermarks to AI‑generated videos (for example, videos created with Clipchamp)

Audible watermarks to AI‑generated audio (such as audio overviews created with Copilot)

Images (user-controlled)

Images follow a slightly different model. Instead of an admin policy, individuals in your organization can choose whether to add watermarks to AI‑generated images. When turned on, the Show watermark toggle in Settings & Privacy adds a watermark to new AI‑generated images or existing images that are altered using AI.

At home

AI-generated images, videos, and audio can include watermarks to indicate AI involvement, along with embedded metadata for additional context.

By default, the Include a watermark when content from Microsoft 365 is AI-generated control toggle is off. To turn it on:

Sign in to the Microsoft privacy dashboard with your Microsoft account.
In the dashboard, go Privacy > Empower your productivity > Copilot.
Turn on the toggle under Include a watermark when content from Microsoft 365 is AI-generated.

Additional resources

For IT Admins: Add watermarks to content generated or altered by using AI in Microsoft 365
At school or at work: Watermarks on content generated or altered by using AI in Microsoft 365
At home: Include a watermark when content from Microsoft 365 is AI-generated

Feedback

Microsoft is committed to continue to evolve these features and offerings as we learn from you, our customers.

We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback about this capability. Please share your thoughts by:

Selecting Help> Feedback in your favorite app or service.
Signing in with your Tech Community profile and leaving a comment on this blog post.

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

Modernizing Change Management for Microsoft 365 Customers

JDBarber — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:57:17 GMT

Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Jim Barber, a Principal PM Manager on the Microsoft 365 Change Management team. I'm excited to share with you our first step in modernizing the change management release and communication processes for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 is constantly evolving, making it challenging for IT admins to keep up with continuous service change. This is especially true with AI-driven innovations accelerating beyond the pace that traditional change management processes were designed to support.

Based on your feedback, we’re modernizing our approach to change management by providing the release infrastructure, communication clarity, and deployment control to help you confidently use AI-assisted workflows to manage and realize value from Microsoft 365.

Modernizing change management initiative

Microsoft’s modernizing change management initiative is the foundation that leads you, as IT admins, into the Frontier era. It equips you with the clarity, control, and confidence you need to lead your organizations into the next era of productivity. It aligns with Microsoft’s Frontier Transformation vision: Human-led, agent-operated organizations that are grounded in Intelligence + Trust.

The modernizing change management initiative introduces:

Audience-based release model: A release model (Frontier, Standard, Deferred) that gives IT admins audience-based control over how and when features reach users.
Smarter communications: A restructured Message center experience with compliance-first, actionable communications that support legal, security, and helpdesk readiness.
AI-powered change insights: The Microsoft Release Communications (MRC) Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server and Microsoft MCP for Enterprise, two services that give IT admins confidence they are not missing critical changes, enabling the shift from reactive firefighting to proactive, signal-driven planning..

NOTE: The initial scope of this new, modern change management and release model is focused on Microsoft 365 Copilot features and experiences.

Together, these capabilities shift IT from reactive change management to proactive enablement—transforming change management from a disruption into a strategic advantage.

What’s changing

Microsoft 365 is evolving how service changes are released and communicated by introducing a more flexible and modern delivery approach that better aligns with different tenant needs. The table highlights how the new model differs from today’s approach.

From	To
One-size fits all release model	Audience-based release: Frontier (opt-in) is designed for early adopters who want pre-GA access to evaluate and prepare. Standard release is designed for rapid adopters who want access to new features as soon as they are generally available. Deferred release is for audiences in more complex environments needing additional time to validate changes before deployment. Learn more about standard and deferred releases.
30-day notification posts for major changes	A structured, compliance-first format Message Center designed to help IT admins digest updates quickly, extract the compliance and operational details that matter, and immediately identify what action is required.
Inconsistent communications	AI-assisted methods to access trusted, up-to-date information for clients compatible with MCP: Microsoft MCP Server for Enterprise uses tenant-specific Message center and Service Health dashboard data. Microsoft Release Communications (MRC) MCP Server leverages publicly available Microsoft 365 Roadmap and Azure feature release data. IT admins can search, filter, and retrieve the latest feature release information using natural language.

Availability

The updates outlined in this blog are starting to roll out now. Our initial scope is focused on Microsoft 365 Copilot features and experiences.

Be sure to regularly check Message Center and other existing communication channels to learn about expanded scope.

Additional Resources

Feedback

This new change management model delivers on what matters most: clarity, control, and confidence. By modernizing our approach, we empower every Microsoft 365 customer to innovate at their own pace—securely, efficiently, and with complete transparency.

We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback about this new change management model. Please share your thoughts by:

Going to https://admin.microsoft.com, selecting Open Health > Product feedback, and then selecting the Give feedback icon in the bottom right corner of the page.
Signing in with your Tech Community profile and leaving a comment on this blog post.

Get more from Power Query in Excel with these little-known capabilities

jokahati — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:39:57 GMT

If you use Excel or Power BI to work with data, you’ve likely encountered Power Query - and may already rely on it regularly across desktop and web. It pulls data together, cleans it up, and prepares it for analysis. But beyond those familiar tasks, Power Query includes several capabilities that can make solutions more flexible, scalable, and easier to maintain.

The capabilities below are especially useful when you want Power Query solutions to be easier to maintain, faster to refresh, and more reusable across similar workflows.

Parameters that act like smart controls

Parameters allow you to separate logic from configuration. Instead of editing queries every time something changes, you simply adjust a parameter.

With parameters, you can:

Switch data sources (for example, Test → Production)
Control date ranges (Last 7 days vs. Last 12 months)
Enable or disable filters
Pattern: use a True/False parameter and write your filter step as an if (apply the filter only when enabled), or branch queries and select the branch based on the parameter.
Drive logic across multiple related queries

Because parameters are shared across queries, they can be referenced by any other query in the workbook, and become a single source of truth.

For intermediate workflows: parameters are evaluated at refresh time and are best for configuration (environment, date window, thresholds). For per-row/per-file logic, use a function (covered below).

To create a parameter and reference it to drive a filter and a source toggle:

To open Power Query in Excel, select your table or data range, and then click Data > From Table/Range (or Get Data and choose your source).
To create a parameter, in the Power Query window, select Home > Manage Parameters > New Parameter, and then reference the parameter in a step.
To use multiple queries, right‑click your query, duplicate or reference it, and then use the same parameter to control filters across those queries.
To toggle data source with a parameter, create another parameter and branch the Source step to pick connection strings/paths based on Env.
Switching sources can change credential and privacy behavior; test refresh end-to-end in each environment, and re-check privacy level settings if you hit unexpected prompts or firewall errors.
When you’re ready to publish or use the parameter, select Close & Load and then click Data > Refresh/Refresh All. Adjust Manage Parameters values as needed, and watch downstream queries update.

Query folding: letting the source do the work

Query folding is one of Power Query’s most important performance features - and one of the least understood. In simple terms, it means Power Query can translate some of your transformation steps into operations that run at the data source instead of in the local engine. When that happens, less data needs to be transferred, and refreshes can be significantly faster.

The following diagram demonstrates the steps that take place in this optimization process.

The M script, found inside the advanced editor, is submitted to the Power Query engine. Other important information is also supplied, such as credentials and data source privacy levels.
The Query folding mechanism submits metadata requests to the data source to determine the capabilities of the data source, table schemas, relationships between different tables at the data source, and more.
Based on the metadata received, the query folding mechanism determines what information to extract from the data source and what set of transformations need to happen inside the Power Query engine. It sends the instructions to two other components that take care of retrieving the data from the data source and transforming the incoming data in the Power Query engine if necessary.
Once the internal components of Power Query receive the instructions, Power Query sends a request to the data source using a data source query.
The data source receives the request from Power Query and transfers the data to the Power Query engine.
Once the data is inside Power Query, the transformation engine inside Power Query (also known as mashup engine) does the transformations that couldn't be folded back or offloaded to the data source.
The results derived from the previous point are loaded to a destination in Excel.

In simple terms, query folding determines whether Power Query can translate your steps into operations that run directly at the data source (most commonly in databases such as SQL Server), rather than pulling everything locally and processing it row by row.

Why it matters

When query folding is preserved:

Less data is transferred
Refresh times are dramatically faster
Large datasets stay manageable

When folding is broken, Power Query still works - but it does more of the effort itself.

To preserve folding so filters/join logic runs at the source (for example, in SQL Server):

Start with a connector that commonly supports folding (for example, Data > Get Data > From SQL Server Database). Many file/web sources (including some SharePoint patterns) won’t fold the same way - so validate folding as you build.
In Power Query, apply filters as soon as you have the columns you need (and before expensive steps like merges/expands where possible) (e.g., only current fiscal year).
Prefer fold-friendly steps (filters, removing columns, simple merges/joins, grouping). Note: Group By often folds (especially simple aggregations), but “All Rows” typically breaks folding.
To check folding, right-click a step and select View Native Query when available. If it’s disabled, folding may be broken or the connector doesn’t expose a native query - use this as a signal to test performance and keep earlier steps as simple as possible.
When supported, check it step-by-step: right-click successive steps to find the first step where View Native Query becomes unavailable - that’s often where folding stops.
To delay custom columns, add custom columns/calculations later in the chain to avoid breaking folding prematurely.
To validate performance, refresh and note timings, and then compare with/without early filters.

Turning queries into reusable functions

If you’ve ever copied the same transformation steps from one query to another, you’ve already done the hardest part of creating a Power Query function.

What many users should know

Any query can be turned into a function - often by adding a single parameter. Once created, that function becomes a reusable building block you can apply anywhere.

Why functions are a gamechangers

Reusable functions help you:

Standardize cleanup logic
Reduce copy‑paste errors
Apply consistent transformations across dozens - or hundreds - of datasets

Instead of rewriting steps, you apply the function like a tool.

To convert an existing query into a function and apply it broadly (intermediate-friendly pattern):

Start with a working query that transforms one input (for example, one file).
Identify what should vary (for example, FilePath as text). Instead of a global “Manage Parameters” value, you’ll make it a function argument so it can change per file/per row.
Open Advanced Editor and replace the hard-coded source (path/URL) with the argument (for example, use File.Contents(FilePath) or the appropriate connector call that accepts a path).
Wrap the query in a function signature and name it (example):
FileTransform = (FilePath as text) as table =>
let
  Source = Excel.Workbook(File.Contents(FilePath), true),
  Sheet = Source{[Item="Sheet1",Kind="Sheet"]}[Data],
  PromotedHeaders = Table.PromoteHeaders(Sheet, [PromoteAllScalars=true]),
  ChangedTypes = Table.TransformColumnTypes(PromotedHeaders, {{"Date", type date}, {"Amount", type number}})
in
  ChangedTypes

NOTE: The Sheet1 reference is a “happy path” example. In real-world folder ingestion, prefer importing a named Table (more stable than sheet names) or add defensive logic when sheet/table names can vary.
To apply the function to many files, create a table of file paths (or use Data > Get Data > From Folder to get a list of binaries), then use Add Column > Invoke Custom Function to call your function for each row. NOTE: If you hit Formula.Firewall or unexpected privacy prompts, review privacy level and try to avoid combining unrelated sources in a single query (or separate staging queries to isolate sources).
To combine results: use Expand (when you invoked a function returning a table) or use Append Queries to stack tables with the same schema. Use Combine Files specifically when starting from From Folder and you want Power Query to generate the sample-file pattern for you. NOTE: If you hit Formula.Firewall or unexpected privacy prompts, review privacy level and try to avoid combining unrelated sources in a single query (or separate staging queries to isolate sources). TIP: When ingesting many files, add basic resilience so one bad file doesn’t break refresh (for example, use try … otherwise around the function body or filter out error rows after invoking the function).

Folder + sample file pattern (automated ingestion)

Many people know Power Query can import data from a folder - but fewer explore how sophisticated the sample file pattern really is.

When you connect to a folder, Power Query automatically:

Selects a representative sample file
Applies transformations to that file
Reuses the logic for every file in the folder

Why this matters

With the right setup, Power Query can:

Handle hundreds or thousands of files
Automatically include new files as they’re added
Enforce a consistent schema over time

The result feels less like a spreadsheet and more like a lightweight data pipeline.

How to use a folder connector with a robust sample file transform

To connect to a folder, select Data > Get Data > From Folder and select a folder.
In the Power Query window, review the file metadata (Name, Extension, Date modified), and then click Transform Data.
Power Query creates helper queries (for example, Sample File, Transform Sample File, and the main combined query). Edit Transform Sample File - Power Query applies that logic to every file in the folder.
In Transform Sample File, perform all cleanup (remove top rows, promote headers, set types). TIP: Keep most transformations in Transform Sample File. Avoid heavy edits in the auto-generated helper queries unless you’re intentionally changing the pattern.
In the main query, keep Name and Date modified to preserve lineage.
To validate the connection, drop a new file into the folder and notice that the added data is automatically included.

TIP: Avoid adding complex logic directly in the auto‑generated helper queries unless you intentionally want to change the pattern—doing so can make future edits harder to reason about.

Applied Steps pane: your logic map

The Applied Steps pane may look like a simple audit trail, but it’s actually the heart of Power Query’s logic.

What’s often overlooked

Step order affects:

Performance
Query folding
Long‑term maintainability

Renaming and reordering steps isn’t cosmetic - it’s foundational.

Best practices experienced users follow

Rename important steps so intent is clear
Group transformations logically (Filter → Shape → Enrich)
Be intentional with Changed Type steps - auto-detected types can make refresh brittle when schemas drift (and type steps can affect folding depending on connector).
Review steps periodically as workflows evolve
In Excel, keep intermediate/staging queries as connection-only (disable load) and load only the final outputs you actually need.

Treating Applied Steps like readable code pays off over time.

To make steps readable, improve performance, and avoid accidental logic breaks:

In Power Query, locate the Applied Steps list.
To rename critical steps, right‑click a step name, and then click Rename (e.g., Filter_FY25, Join_ProductDim).
To group transformations, select Filter > Shape > Enrich (filters first, column cleanup, then joins/calculations).
To safely re‑order steps, drag them upward or downward carefully, and check dependencies (e.g., a step refers to a column removed earlier) if an error appears.
Periodically review steps as workflows evolve, and delete obsolete steps only after confirming no later steps depend on them (then rename steps so they read like a story).
After re-ordering, check folding where supported (right-click a step and select View Native Query). If it’s not available, validate via refresh time and by confirming you aren’t pulling unnecessary rows/columns early.

Feedback

We want to hear from you about how these features and others can make working with Power Query more effective. If you have any requests or suggestions, select Send Feedback or use the respective feedback icons.

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Meet video recap: a new way to revisit key moments in Teams meetings

Anqi_Chen — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:34:29 GMT

Hi, Insiders! I am Anqi Chen, a Senior Product Manager on the Microsoft Teams team. I’m excited to share with you a new way to catch up on your meetings: video recap.

Meet video recap: a new way to revisit key moments in Teams meetings

Video recap is a video‑based feature in Microsoft Teams for Windows, Mac, and the web that helps you quickly catch up on meetings you’ve missed or revisit key moments. Video recap creates narrated highlight videos from recorded meetings, combining key takeaways with short video clips so important discussions and decisions are surfaced conveniently for you. Get up to speed fast with video recaps that both summarize what was discussed and captures the tone of the meeting.

By leveraging this feature, you:

Quickly see what was presented during the meeting, including slides or shared visuals.
Understand the flow of discussion without having to watch the entire recording.
Watch real clips from the meeting, selected to capture key moments.
Get a sense of meeting context and sentiment through narrated visual highlights.

How it works

From the meeting recap page in your Teams app, click Video recap in the top left corner.

Known issues

Video recap requires meeting to be between 10 and 90 minutes long.
Transcribed-only meetings are not supported and will not result in a video recap.
Video recap is available 10 to 15 minutes after a meeting recording has been successfully uploaded.

Availability

To enable your Teams client for the Public Preview, IT administrators must enable Show preview features in their update policy. Learn more.

For Targeted release, global admins can go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and give access to a select set of individuals or the entire organization. Learn more.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! Please submit your comments and feedback by clicking on thumbs up or down in the video recap window.

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Watch our video series: Getting started with the Copilot app

AliciaAl-Aryan — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:06:44 GMT

Hello, Insiders! We are Alicia Al-Aryan, Oby Omu, and Patrick Gan, program managers on the Microsoft 365 Copilot app team. We’re excited to share a video series we created in collaboration with our wider team that will show you how Copilot can help you at work.

From meetings to momentum: Learn how to use Copilot at work

This video series is inspired by real work. Instead of walking through features, each video focuses on common, everyday moments where a little clarity can make a big difference. You’ll see how Copilot can fit into workflows you encounter every day.

Download the Microsoft 365 app and let’s get started!

🛠️ Video 1 | Downloading the Microsoft 365 Copilot App

Constance shares a quick walkthrough of the app, showing you how to download it and start getting productive right away.

Presenter: Constance Gervais

🚀 Video 2 | From insights to impact: Turn action items into deliverables

Copilot can help you turn action items into deliverables that are polished, impactful, and executive-ready.

📊 Video 3 | From chaos to coordination: Gather vital information and deliver it fast

There’s no need to chase updates to ever-changing data and information alone. Use Copilot to gather and organize vital details and create content that makes it easy to digest and share with others.

🕒 Video 4 | Catch Up After Time Away

Coming back from out‑of‑office or a packed meeting calendar? Cora shows you how Copilot can help you quickly catch up, prepare, and re‑orient yourself for the workday ahead.

Presenter: Cora Chen

✨ Video 5 | Create with confidence using brand kits

Oby shows you how Copilot supports content creation with Brand Kits, helping you turn everyday ideas into on-brand materials.

Presenter: Oby Omu

🤝 Video 6 | Prepare for your next presentation

A beautiful PowerPoint deck won’t get you far if you’re not prepared for the presentation. Copilot can help you prepare and be ready with answers to likely questions you’ll get during your presentation.

Presenter: Ishita Sharma

Stay connected

We’ll continue building this series with additional short videos and deeper learning moments that can help you get more value from the Microsoft 365 Copilot app as part of your everyday work.

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 community. Want to share best practices or join community events? Become a member!

For tips & tricks or to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements directly from the product teams, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Microsoft 365 community blog.

📚 Keep learning

Try the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and learn more ways to be productive.
Dig deeper into real-world Microsoft 365 app scenarios with our webinar series.
Find tools for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and agent deployment and adoption that deliver value and employee satisfaction.
Learn how to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app from Microsoft Support.
Follow @Copilot on X.
Follow @MicrosoftLoop on X.
Join the "Microsoft Loop Community" public group on LinkedIn.
Follow the Microsoft 365 public roadmap.

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Scale knowledge sharing with AI community agents in Viva Engage

cferancik — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:20:20 GMT

Hi, Insiders! We are Kaleem Rahman and Christina Ferancik, Product Managers on the Viva Engage team. We're excited to share with you some new capabilities coming to agents in Viva Engage communities.

Transform community support with AI‑powered answers in Viva Engage

AI-powered community agents are your new built-in knowledge assistants to help communities scale knowledge, speed up answers, and reduce repetitive work for admins.

Communities in Engage help employees learn from one another and share knowledge. In a time of rapid change, questions are often coming in faster than admins and experts can answer them. Community agents are designed to help community managers quickly answer repeat questions with high-quality trusted content from the community.

These new AI agents live directly inside Viva Engage communities and act as helpful assistants, powered by your organization’s trusted content. They can help ensure important answers don’t get buried and expertise becomes part of your long‑term organizational memory. They can:

Proactively answer questions by drawing from past conversations and approved content.
Ground answers in information from trusted, admin-defined SharePoint sites.
Support @mentions, so members can bring the agent into any conversation to clarify or answer follow-up questions (coming soon).
Add to the community’s searchable history of answered questions, so knowledge compounds over time.
Offer admin controls to define content sources and maintain confidence in every response.

Agents can be of great help in communities where questions repeat or where accurate guidance is critical, like:

AI change and adoption communities, such as Copilot adoption communities
Communities of practice (HR, IT, Communications, Sales Enablement)
Onboarding and “how‑do‑I” hubs for employees navigating change
Global communities spanning time zones and languages
Product, program, or tool‑focused communities where up‑to‑date answers matter

With these new agents, your communities can be more responsive and productive, especially when engagement surges. Your communities can handle more questions without adding to the workload of admins and experts.

You’ll experience:

Fewer repetitive questions thanks to instant, consistent answers, so experts can focus on the questions that need a human touch.
Faster access to information, so newcomers and infrequent contributors can get unblocked quickly.
Smoother conversation flow, with questions answered where they’re asked instead of redirecting you elsewhere.
Scaling support as your community grows, without a proportional increase in admin workload.

How it works

A Viva Engage network admin needs to opt into community agent preview via the Engage admin center. Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed community admins can add a community agent to communities they manage.

You can then opt your network into the Agents in communities public preview through a simple network toggle:

Go to the Engage admin center and select Tenant settings.
Set the Community agent preview toggle to On.

Find more instructions here.

Add and configure the agent in your community

To add an agent, Copilot-licensed community admins can select to "Add agent" in the community member panel to the right.

From there, Agent configuration is straightforward.

From the Set up your agent page, apply the following settings:

Require review before posting: By default, the agent automatically posts answers to questions asked in the community. To require admin and expert review and approval before posting, enable this toggle.
Add sources: Add a SharePoint site or library to give the agent deeper information to draw from. Enter the URL (E.g., https://zava.sharepoint.com/teams/Sales_Marketing_Resources) and select Add. The agent will only use content that’s accessible to all community members. If the site isn’t already shared with the community, you’ll be prompted to grant read access.
To update agent configuration, select the Edit icon next to Agent in the community member panel.

Select Save to complete setup.
To update agent configuration, select the Edit icon next to Agent in the community member panel.

Review agent-drafted answers

If you enable reviews of agent-created information, suggestions appear in a dedicated Review agent suggestions page. Community admins and experts can apply the following actions:

Approve: Select Post to push the answer to the community, marked as verified by the reviewer.
Edit and Approve: Edit the answer before posting. The answer appears as posted and verified by the reviewer.
Dismiss: Remove the suggestion from review. The agent doesn't attempt to answer questions again when the agent answer is dismissed.

Availability

The agents in communities feature is currently in public preview. A network admin needs to opt in through the Engage admin center. Features may change before general availability.

Community agent can be added by Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed community admins. After the agent is active, Copilot-licensed admins and community experts can review, approve, and edit agent-drafted answers. After agent responses get posted, admins can delete them. All community members can see content posted by the community agent, regardless of license assignment.

Find set up and licensing information here.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! When you question your agents, rate agent responses with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Your feedback can help us to improve.

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Work with Copilot as a co‑creator directly in Word for iPhone

PalashMJ — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:30:00 GMT

Hi, Insiders! We are Pratik Das and Palash MJ, Senior Product Managers on the Word team. I’m excited to introduce a new feature that allows you to co-create Word documents with Microsoft 365 Copilot on your iPhone.

Work with Copilot as a co-creator directly in Word for iPhone

You can now work with Copilot as a co-creator directly in your Word document on your iPhone. Copilot helps you turn ideas into polished Word documents faster, without having to navigate between Word and Copilot apps. Stay in Word and stay in your flow! Working as a co‑creator, Copilot lets you create, refine, and format content directly in place using Word’s built‑in styles, so your document stays structured and consistent while you focus on what you want to say.

In earlier releases, this was referred to as Agent mode.

How to use

Open Word on your iPhone and sign in with your Copilot-enabled account.
Create a new document or open an existing document and select Edit document.
Tap the Copilot icon to open Copilot chat.
In the prompt box, type your request.

To watch the video on YouTube. follow this link,

Tips and tricks

In your edit request to Copilot, be clear and provide details, like “Update the table in the document with numbers from /Sept Data Pull email.” Continue to ask and create as Copilot does the heavy lifting.
If you want to ask Copilot to use an existing document as a source, type / and then type the name of your document, email, meeting, etc. Alternatively, in the pane that opens, select Files and then select your document from the list.
If you don’t see the icon in your Copilot chat that signals you’re editing, check that you are in Edit view. (You can always go into Edit view by selecting the Edit icon from the top bar in any document. Click on “+” to select it if it’s not selected by default.)
Be careful when working with sensitive or shared files, as Copilot makes direct changes to your Word documents. If you need to revert your changes, you can easily undo changes or view prior versions at any time.
When using a shared document, Copilot will always show a preview of its suggested changes in chat first. You must review and confirm these changes before they are applied to the document. This prevents accidental sharing of sensitive or unintended content with collaborators.
Copilot can only create content in the currently open Word document. It can't create new files at this time.
Copilot cannot generate or insert images into the document. To use Copilot to generate an image, turn off the edit function by tapping the Word icon in the Chat field. Then submit a prompt to generate an image in Chat as usual.
Copilot cannot add or modify comments in your Word document at this time. If you request changes to content in the document that a comment is associated with, the comment may be deleted if Copilot makes changes to the paragraph to which the comment is anchored.
Copilot cannot turn Track Changes on or off, or accept or reject tracked changes, but it will respect tracked changes. If Track Changes is enabled, changes made while editing the document with Copilot will be tracked.

Availability

This feature is available to all Word for iOS users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Feedback

To share your feedback, use the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons in the Copilot chat window.

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