Unpacking Endpoint Management is back - and we’ve got a lot to talk about
If you've been missing real, candid conversations about endpoint management, good news! Unpacking Endpoint Management is officially back. This series is all about what actually works. No fluff, just practical tips, proven strategies, and honest discussions to help you optimize and simplify the way you manage and secure endpoints today (and prepare for what's next). We're bringing together people from across Microsoft Intune, Security, and Customer Experience engineering and product teams, along with guest practitioners, to share what's worked, what hasn't, and what we've learned along the way. And yes…we're absolutely here for the tough questions. A quick update on the hosts Danny Guillory, a familiar face to the community and a Product Manager for Intune and Configuration Manager, will continue to host the series. He's joined this season by Rachelle Blanchard as co‑host, bringing a strong community and discovery lens to the series. Rachelle focuses on surfacing real customer questions and guiding conversations toward practical outcomes, helping ensure each episode reflects how endpoint management works in the real world. Up next June 30, 2026 – 9:00 a.m. PDT Topic TBD - What should we cover? Drop ideas below in the comments. July 30, 2026 - 9:00 a.m. PDT Topic TBD Sign in to the Tech Community and follow this post for the latest updates on upcoming episodes. Catch up on demand You may have missed them, but you don't have to miss out on the learnings. Watch and learn when it's convenient for you. Device security with Microsoft Intune Trends in endpoint management (live from Tech Takeoff 2026) Not sure where to start? Watch our most recent episode, Policy: from hybrid to cloud-native, now on demand! What's the format? This web series is streamed live on Tech Community, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X. In addition to open discussion, we answer your questions so sign in (or sign up for) the Tech Community and RSVP to submit questions early and throughout the live show. How do I join? There's no call or meeting to join. Simply head to aka.ms/JoinUEM. Show up at start time, watch live, and jump into the discussion with us. Help shape the series This series is for you - so tell us what you want to hear. Drop a comment below with: Topics you'd like us to cover Tough questions you want answered Speakers you'd love to hear from We can't wait to get started - and even more excited to hear from you along the way. Join the Community to get early insight into what's coming for Intune, connect with experts, and share real-world feedback that helps shape the product. 👉 aka.ms/JoinIntuneCommunitySpeed where it matters: How Microsoft Intune helps IT prioritize time-sensitive actions
By: Albert Cabello Serrano | Principal Product Manager - Microsoft Intune A closer look at how Intune delivers updates to devices and the investments we’re making to help important changes move faster and more predictably. A common concern we hear from IT admins is, “How quickly will this change actually reach my device?” In many cases, the answer is much faster than expected. Today, 90% of policy updates, app deployments, and device actions in Intune are completed in under an hour. So where does the idea of “8-hour latency” come from? That number reflects a routine maintenance check-in used when devices are idle - not how Intune processes meaningful changes. Intune uses notification-based, priority-driven processing so that high-impact actions, like security policy changes or remediation steps, are handled promptly and reliably as possible. In this context, latency isn’t about making every action instant - it’s about providing predictable, prioritized delivery at global scale. The sections below break down how Intune prioritizes different types of updates and recent investments that are helping time-sensitive changes complete more consistently. How Intune delivers changes to devices Cloud-based device management is designed for real-world conditions; devices are not always online, fully charged, or on stable networks. Intune uses an eventual consistency model so devices can continue to be productive while converging to the desired state over time, without management actions unnecessarily disrupting users or workflows. Because devices operate in different conditions, not all device activity is handled the same way. To manage change reliably at scale, Intune uses different types of device check-ins depending on what needs to happen. Types of device check-ins in Intune Device check-ins generally fall into several categories, each triggered by a different type of action: Single‑device check‑ins: Occurs when an admin or user initiates an action on a specific device, such as starting a device action or installing an app from the Intune Company Portal. Change‑based check‑ins: Push‑triggered check‑ins used to deliver meaningful changes to devices as soon as possible. Client‑initiated check‑ins: Background activity that helps keep devices healthy, such as when a user signs in to a device or when malware status changes. Maintenance check-ins: Scheduled syncs that occur at predetermined intervals and can be client or service-initiated, depending on the platform. These typically occur approximately every 8 hours. Regardless of what triggers a check-in, any pending changes will be applied to the device when it occurs. What happens when an admin makes a change When an admin makes a change in Intune, such as updating a device compliance policy, deploying an app, or setting a configuration, Intune identifies the devices impacted by that change and initiates a change‑based check‑in for affected devices. For online devices, Intune sends a push notification prompting the device to establish a management session with the service, apply the change, and report enforcement status back to Intune. If a device is offline or unreachable, the change is applied when the device next checks in through available mechanisms. Four investments that help critical updates move forward faster The following product changes focus on reducing device‑change latency by shortening the time between an admin action in Intune and enforcement on the device, especially during peak or constrained conditions. 1. Check-in prioritization focused on what matters most Not all device activity carries the same urgency. Routine background check-ins can compete for service resources with devices that have important pending changes, such as compliance updates, remediation actions, or administrator-initiated configuration changes. Intune evaluates the potential impact of delaying a device check-in on security posture, compliance state or user productivity, and dynamically prioritizes processing accordingly. This real-time prioritization model ensures that high-impact actions move forward without being delayed by lower‑impact background activity. Prioritization adapts as conditions change, helping important updates reach devices more quickly and predictably without being delayed by lower-impact background activity. 2. Built-in resilience when multiple changes occur in quick succession Change activity often happens in bursts, with several related updates occurring in rapid succession. These periods of activity may be driven by operational needs or background processes, and can involve adjusting assignments, updating multiple policies, or rolling out configuration changes across the same set of devices. Intune dynamically coordinates notifications, so that each change requiring action triggers a corresponding device notification, even during high-activity periods. This helps improve consistency when applying multiple updates and reduces delays across consecutive changes on devices. Over the next several months, these improvements will extend to additional payloads delivered through the Intune Management Extension (IME), including scripts, Win32 apps, and custom compliance across both Windows and macOS platforms. 3. More timely notifications on Windows Intune notifies devices to check-in when changes require action. If the device is offline, on an unstable network, or low on battery, notifications may be delayed. This can cause missed check-ins or delayed actions. When notification services are delayed, blocked, or unavailable, devices may fall back to scheduled maintenance check‑ins to apply changes. For timely delivery, required notification service endpoints need to remain accessible so devices can receive management signals when updates occur. On Windows devices, Intune complements the Windows Notification Service (WNS) with the same notification protocol that powers Microsoft Teams via the Intune Management Extension. This helps increase the likelihood that devices receive management notifications when they’re online and reachable, improving visibility into whether policy updates or device actions have reached their destination. For more information, see the network endpoints for Intune documentation. 4. Optimized maintenance check-ins for iOS devices Background check-ins are still important to keep devices healthy when nothing else is going on. Unlike Windows devices, iOS devices don’t have client scheduled check‑ins and depend on service‑initiated maintenance check‑ins to ensure device health and compliance. During peak usage periods, these maintenance check‑ins can account for a significant portion of overall traffic, which can compete with devices that require immediate updates. Intune considers device activity in the scheduling of maintenance check‑ins during peak activity, making room for higher‑impact updates, while continuing to ensure devices check in regularly. This helps manage traffic and improves responsiveness when applying policies or remediation actions. What this means for you For IT admins: No additional configuration or workflow changes are required to benefit from Intune’s built-in notification system. When bidirectional communication with notification service endpoints is open, devices can receive and act on updates as they become available. For security teams: Faster delivery of device changes helps shorten the time between a policy update, a tightened Conditional Access rule, an updated compliance baseline, and a remediation action. For Zero Trust frameworks, where posture signals drive access decisions, this helps narrow the window during which a device could be out of compliance or vulnerable. Together, these improvements reflect how Intune is evolving into a more intelligent, priority-aware system. Rather than making every action instant, the focus is on prioritizing high-impact updates so they are delivered without unnecessary delays. This approach is expanding across a number of scenarios to provide a more consistent and predictable experience, helping reduce delays for key updates. Resources to learn more For another perspective on this topic, read an MVP’s take on demystifying the “8-hour” timing myth in this LinkedIn post. You can also watch the recent Tech Takeoff about this same topic to learn more about these improvements. Also, in the April edition of the What's New in Intune blog, we introduced a new segment called Myth vs. Reality. This post is part of that series. To stay current on new capabilities and updates as they ship, follow the What's New in Microsoft Intune blog. What myth should we debunk next? Leave a comment below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam or @MSIntune.Known issue: Customizations not saved with security baseline policy update
Overview Microsoft Intune security baselines enable organizations to create turnkey policy configurations with Microsoft's recommended settings. Intune supports two upgrade paths for your customizations: automatic migration and manual migration. Our upgrade process is explicit when a manual customization upgrade is required as documented in Configure security baseline policies in Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn. Issue Identified in Security Baseline Updates We’ve recently identified an issue in the security baseline update process where, during upgrades from specific versions, customizations are not automatically retained. Instead, these values are replaced with the default recommended values contained in the latest release. The impacted baselines upgrades are as follows: Security Baseline for Microsoft Edge: Version 112 to Version 128 Security Baseline for Windows 10 and later: Version 23H2 to Version 24H2 Windows 365 Security Baseline: November 2021 to Version 24H1 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Security Baseline: Version 6 to Version 24H1 Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise Security Baseline: Version 2206 to Version 2306 When updating these security baselines, Intune creates a duplicate policy (without assignments) and automatically populates Microsoft’s recommended settings for the new version. These default configurations can be edited to apply customizations. However, customizations are not automatically carried over from the previous version when updating and admins will need to manually apply the customizations when creating the new profile. If your organization deploys the new policy alongside the existing one and there are conflicting settings, Intune’s conflict resolution logic will determine which setting is applied (i.e. most secure wins, merge values), or leave the existing value in place until the conflict is resolved. In the event of conflict, Intune never removes policies from the device ensuring that devices always have security policy applied. The Intune team will be delivering an update to automate migration of the impacted security baselines (and all future versions) in an upcoming release. Interim Steps to Enable Custom Configurations in your Baseline Updates When updating a policy to a newer baseline, your customizations must be recreated in the policy creation wizard. Customizations to the version 23H2 baseline are not carried over to the new policy, and the new policy will revert to Microsoft’s default recommended values for version 24H2. Note: As mentioned above and reiterated here, this update does not remove the previous policy. > Security baselines blade. Organizations can upgrade an existing baseline (mentioned above) that will duplicate the profile: The Microsoft Intune admin center showing where to update the Security baseline. Organizations can customize baselines including modifying and editing the baseline in accordance with their organization’s policies: To identify devices with conflicts between baseline updates, refer to the steps below: Navigate to: Devices > Manage devices > Configuration > Policiestab and select an existing policy. On the summary page, click View report. The View report provides detailed insights into the devices targeted by the selected configuration policy, including: Devices that have received the policy Usernames associated with those devices The check-in status and the most recent time each device/user checked in with the policy You can also select a specific device to view more detailed information. Use the filter column to apply assignment filters. For example, the Check-in status filter helps you identify devices in different states such as Success, Error, and others - indicating how the policy was applied. For more information on policies and reporting, refer to: See device configuration policies with Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn. For further guidance, refer to the Update a profile to the latest version in the Microsoft Learn documentation or see the section above for more details on the baseline update process. If you have any questions, leave a comment on this post or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam. Post Updates: 7/7/25: Post updated with additional details and screen captures for clarity.Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive - Part 3: Explore and act on your Intune data with AI
By: Ravi Ashok - Sr. Product Manager & Zineb Takafi - Product Manager | Microsoft Intune Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune advances the way IT admins can accelerate their day-to-day endpoint management tasks by embedding generative AI capabilities directly into your Intune workflows, transforming how IT teams plan, troubleshoot, and optimize device configurations. Now generally available, Copilot in Intune delivers insights by summarizing policies, analyzing update deployments, and assisting IT with uncovering root causes of endpoint issues based on organizations Intune data. Today, we’re thrilled to introduce an AI-first experience in the Intune admin center to allow IT admins to explore and act on Intune data with the ease of natural language. As part of our ongoing commitment to help IT teams manage endpoints more effectively, this new experience provides a new way to find data they need about their digital estate and initiate endpoint management tasks based on the results. With a library of queries and using intelligent semantic search, admins can select natural language questions across key Intune domains including devices, apps, policies, users, compliance, app configuration, and app protection and refine the question with customizable parameters. Within the Intune admin center, IT admins can go from insights to taking direct action by adding devices or users to groups for streamlined endpoint management. This release marks a significant milestone towards simplifying endpoint management and accelerating day to day tasks by enabling iterative, natural language query refinement and actionable insights with generative AI assistance to enhance operational efficiency and decision-making. Explore Intune data across your workloads The new Explorer experience with Copilot in Intune enables admins to have a consistent experience viewing details about their Intune resources. Whether they’re navigating devices (including Windows 365 cloud PCs, physical PCs, or mobile devices), apps, users, or policies, IT admins can ask custom questions in natural language about their Intune resource data. They can see and iterate on the results of those questions, and then complete management tasks in one streamlined workflow. Admins can click into individual objects in the results view and navigate to Intune resources like a device details page as they complete their work. This journey in Intune applies to many workflows including: Troubleshooting and fixing issues: Identifying and acting on a specific set of devices, users, apps, or policies to resolve an issue. Creating custom reports: Building custom data views to answer questions that typically require exporting and joining reports today. Day-to-day management tasks: As part of regular admin tasks, navigate Intune data to find specific resources and inspect them to ensure things are configured correctly. Demo In today’s cyber threat landscape, maintaining device compliance is critical to minimizing security risks and ensuring operational continuity. In this demo scenario, the Explorer experience is used to identify and act on non-compliant devices in real time. To enforce compliance, an IT admin plans to mark Windows devices as noncompliant if they haven’t installed patches in the last three months. Given the variety of Windows versions, they want to understand the impact of excluding these devices. Using Copilot, they simply ask the natural language question and get a list of impacted devices without advanced filtering of the versions for each operating system release. The functionality surfaces devices and apps that haven’t received critical patches and seamlessly add them to a remediation group. This streamlined workflow reduces time-to-action and supports proactive compliance enforcement at scale. By integrating directly with Intune policies and device groups, this capability empowers organizations to close vulnerability gaps swiftly. Demo: aka.ms/Intune/CopilotJuly2025-Demo What’s next The addition of the new Explorer experience marks a significant step forward in how organizations can harness the power of Copilot to interact with their Intune data. By enabling IT admins to quickly surface insights, identify compliance gaps, and take action directly from query results, Copilot enables IT admins to streamline their endpoint management workflows to enhance operational agility. To learn more about setup and capabilities, be sure to read our documentation: Explore your Intune data with natural language. We look forward to providing further updates as part of the Copilot in Intune blog series. Make sure to check out the previous blogs if you missed it: Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive – Part 1: Features available in public preview, and Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune - Pt. 2: Vulnerability Remediation Agent in limited preview. And to learn what a few of the Microsoft MVPs think about Copilot in Intune, feel free to get perspectives from Andrew Taylor here, Ugur Koc here, and Mattias Melkers here and here. If you have any questions or want to share how you’re using Copilot in Intune, leave a comment below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam or @MSIntune. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune - Pt. 2: Vulnerability Remediation Agent in limited preview
By: Julia Idaewor - Product Manager 2 | Microsoft Intune The threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with attackers constantly advancing their techniques to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities—leaving organizations at greater risk. In 2024, more than 40,000 vulnerabilities were disclosed, marking a 38% increase from 2023. For IT and security teams, evaluating the impact of thousands of vulnerabilities and deciding which to address first is a complex and resource-intensive task. It often involves manual analysis, siloed tools, and competing priorities. Microsoft Intune is bringing the power of AI directly to IT teams with the introduction of Security Copilot agents. The new Vulnerability Remediation Agent for Security Copilot is now in limited public preview. The agent helps reduce the burden of managing an ever-growing list of vulnerabilities by leveraging rich data from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management to detect and prioritize vulnerabilities across managed devices. It also delivers a comprehensive Copilot-assisted impact analysis, and step-by-step remediation guidance directly in the Intune admin center along with a comprehensive list of exposed devices that can be exported for actionable responses, enabling faster, more confident action. As part of the upcoming enhanced AI experience in Intune, the agent exemplifies how Microsoft is embedding Copilot into its workflows turning raw data into actionable insights and empowering security teams to stay ahead of evolving risks. Getting started You can get the Vulnerability Remediation agent up and running in just a few steps. To set up the agent navigate to the Endpoint security in the Intune admin center, review set up details and start the agent. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management to surface a prioritized list of top vulnerabilities based on risk and impact. The agent delivers these insights directly to the Intune admin center, giving admins clear visibility into the most critical threats across their device estate. directly to the Intune admin center, giving admins clear visibility into the most critical threats across their device estate. The Vulnerability Remediation Agent dashboard in the Intune admin center provides a comprehensive view, including an Impact score for each suggestion, number of exposed devices, remediation status, last applied time for tracking actions, and an agent activity log for historical context. By removing silos between IT and security teams and surfacing vulnerability data and actionable insights directly in Intune, the agent helps increase transparency, streamline workflows, and boost operational efficiency across the board. The Vulnerability Remediation agent provides IT pros with actionable insights from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management in the form of a prioritized list of suggestions. When admins open a suggestion, they can view a comprehensive, AI-assisted vulnerability impact analysis designed to equip admins with the most critical insights needed to assess high-impact vulnerabilities and the actionable steps to take in Intune to resolve them. Each suggestion highlights the recommended action to take, the most critical vulnerabilities, presence of active exploits, step-by-step recommended remediation steps, affected systems, and organizational exposure. To streamline next steps, the agent also surfaces a comprehensive list of exposed devices, which are easily added to either new or existing Microsoft Entra device groups for remediation. After reviewing and completing the recommended steps, admins can select “Mark as applied” to instantly update the status to “Applied”. This action serves as an attestation that remediation is now completed—providing teams with traceability. The agent does not take any action on the devices, ensuring that full control remains with your IT team. Demo The Vulnerability Remediation Agent empowers IT teams to proactively strengthen their endpoint security posture. By surfacing prioritized insights and delivering clear, actionable guidance within Intune, the agent helps admins quickly assess and remediate high-impact vulnerabilities. From insight to action, it’s never been easier to stay ahead of threats while bridging the traditional gap between IT and security teams. With AI-driven support, organizations can enforce best practices, respond faster, and build resilient, future-ready endpoint security strategies. The new Vulnerability Remediation Agent with Copilot in Intune transforms how IT teams manage vulnerabilities connecting insights from Microsoft Defender directly to action in Intune. Instead of relying on manual escalations across teams, the agent continuously scans for vulnerabilities, prioritizes them based on risk, and recommends remediations aligned with Defender guidance. IT admins can now review and approve these fixes directly within Intune, streamlining the path from detection to deployment. This reduces delays, increases control, and accelerates response - empowering teams to remediate confidently and efficiently. What’s next The launch of the Vulnerability Remediation Agent in preview paves the crucial foundation for our ultimate vision: achieving end-to-end automation for the entire vulnerability remediation lifecycle—dramatically reducing risk exposure and accelerating response times. By combining Copilot-assisted guidance with device ecosystem data, this agent represents a significant leap forward in streamlining operational efficiency and transforming how organizations not only focus on high-impact vulnerabilities but also understanding the right actions to take to protect their endpoints. As we continue to innovate, our commitment is to empower organizations with the tools and insights they need to build resilient, future-ready security infrastructures. The Vulnerability Remediation Agent is currently in a limited public preview and available to only a select group of customers. To learn more about setup and capabilities, be sure to explore our documentation on the Vulnerability Remediation Agent. We look forward to providing further updates as part of the Copilot in Intune blog series. Make sure to check out the previous blog if you missed it: Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive – Part 1: Features available in public preview. If you have any questions or want to share how you’re using Copilot in Intune, leave a comment below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam or @MSIntune. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.Microsoft Defender ATP onboarding support for Configuration Manager tenant attach
Microsoft is excited to announce another step in the deep integration between Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Microsoft Defender ATP. Microsoft Defender ATP onboarding capabilities are now available in the Endpoint Manager console for deployment to Configuration Manager standalone clients.
