What’s New in Microsoft Teams | February 2026
Welcome to the February edition of What’s new in Microsoft Teams. This month’s updates are all about helping you stay in flow: getting the most useful information to you faster, and reducing a few everyday frictions. Take custom meeting recap templates: now you can choose from a few different preset formats, or prompt Copilot to shape your AI-generated notes to match your work style. Recaps also now feature visual references, so you can see the images that were shared and get the full context of the conversation. It’s easier than ever to know the status of external participants in your chats as well. New automatically assigned Trust Indicator badges will label external users as familiar, unfamiliar, guest, verified, or unverified. Looking forward, this April we will be covering the latest Teams news live at the M365 Conference in Orlando. Join us to learn the new ways Teams and Copilot help you stay in the flow of work. Register now: Microsoft 365 Community Conference Feature categories: (All features listed are generally available unless otherwise noted) Chat and collaboration Teams Meetings Teams Phone Workplace: Teams Rooms Fundamentals and Security Certified for Teams Devices Chat and Collaboration Select multiple messages to forward You can now forward multiple messages at once in Microsoft Teams. Choose up to five messages from a chat or channel, and send them together in a single message, preserving both context and order. Whether you're sharing key decisions, project updates, or helpful resources, this streamlined experience makes it easier to keep everyone in the loop. Grid view for files in Teams search results Teams now has a preview‑based grid view for search results. This visual layout helps you differentiate files with similar names and more quickly identify the correct item, reducing the need to open files and interrupt the search flow. Simply go to the Files tab and toggle from the “list” to “grid view" icon. Trust Indicators in Teams show familiarity with external collaborators Trust Indicators are visual badges next to external users in Teams that help you quickly assess who you’re working with. Group chats and meeting chats that include external users are also marked as “external” to drive clarity and security. These labels include external-familiar, external-unfamiliar, guest, email verified, and unverified, and are automatically assigned based on the user's relationship with your organization. For instance, if a user is from a trusted domain, their label will be marked as “external familiar,” while those outside of known or trusted organizations are labeled “external unfamiliar.” This process helps provide context and enhances security by clearly indicating the nature of external relationships. Learn more about Trust Indicators. Meetings Copilot experience in Teams meetings The Copilot experience in Teams is being unified across chats, channels, and meetings for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, matching the experience in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Beyond the updated interface, Copilot in Teams can analyze chat history, meeting transcripts, and calendar content to generate smart recaps, rewrite messages, and surface relevant insights. Whether reviewing a thread or following up after a call, Copilot delivers context-aware summaries and suggestions based on your activity and goals. This experience is now generally available for meetings. Customizable meeting recap templates Staying aligned after a meeting shouldn’t mean settling for a one-size-fits-all recap. With our new customizable recap templates, you can shape your AI-generated notes to match exactly how your team works. For teams who prefer their own style, you can design custom templates using a simple free-text prompt: just describe the structure you want—even paste in a format you’ve used before—and your AI notes will instantly adapt. You can also save your custom templates for future reuse, giving every meeting the same level of clarity, consistency, and efficiency. Or you can choose from two ready-made templates: a Speaker Summary that organizes insights by participant, or an Executive Summary that highlights key takeaways at a glance. Available now across all languages that support AI summaries. Learn more here. Meeting recap summaries now include visual references AI summaries in meeting recap now include the visuals that shaped the conversation. When a screen is shared during a recorded meeting, key on-screen moments are captured and placed directly alongside the relevant sections of the meeting summary, so you can see the screen as it appeared in the discussion. The notes themselves remain focused on the conversation, but now they’re paired with the visual context that brought those ideas to life. The result is a more intuitive, scannable recap that helps teams quickly reconnect decisions to what was presented, without scrubbing through the recording. Resizable right & top gallery Introducing resizable right and top gallery, a new capability that improves layout flexibility, video size, and visibility. This update will put you in control of the size of the right gallery when someone is sharing, spotlighted, or pinned to the stage during a meeting—so you can prioritize what matters most throughout your meetings. You will be able to shape the meeting layout to increase content and video size, show more participants, swap content and video positioning, or find the balance that works best for you. Custom banner for recording and transcription Custom in-meeting notifications for recording and transcription in Microsoft Teams allow IT administrators to tailor the message displayed to meeting participants when recording or transcription is enabled, across all Teams supported languages. These in-meeting notifications either inform participants implicitly or request explicit consent, depending on the organization’s meeting policy configuration. Learn more. Network Strength Indicator in Teams We’re introducing Network Strength Indicator to give every participant clearer insight into their own meeting experience. When connectivity drops, a notification in your self-view lets you know your network may be the cause, eliminating guesswork and reducing confusion. If network strength is weak, users receive suggestions, like: turn off all video, to help stabilize the connection and keep the conversation on track. In addition, if another attendee is having network issues, you will see a weak connection notification by their name. These simple additions are designed to make meetings more transparent, resilient, and focused on what matters most. Teams Phone Queues app shared history of calls and voicemails Coordinating customer call follow‑ups is easier when service teams have visibility into calls that happen outside shifts or while representatives are unavailable. Now generally available, the Queues app shared history enables teams to access a unified view of all missed, incoming, outgoing calls, and voicemails within a call queue. By consolidating call activity into a shared history, it improves transparency and fosters better collaboration among team members handling customer interactions. This feature reduces duplication of effort and ensures that no customer call is overlooked. Admins can configure access to shared history for all queue members or restrict it to authorized users. Queues app historical reporting supports 45 days of data Track calling performance trends over time with extended historical reports in the Queues app. Supervisors and approved viewers can now access up to 45 days of call history reporting data, up from the previous 30‑day limit, to better analyze call volumes and service patterns over time. For example, this extended history helps supervisors make more informed staffing decisions that reduce customer wait times and improve service. By default, reports show 7 days of data, with the option to expand the date range to review up to a month-and-a-half of historical activity. Operator Connect Co-Branding in Teams Phone We’re introducing operator co‑branding in Microsoft Teams Phone so customers can see who provides their Operator Connect PSTN connectivity service right where calls happen. When a user makes or receives a 1:1 PSTN call on a number through an Operator Connect partner calling plan, the partner’s logo and name appear on the dial pad and in‑call screens across Teams desktop, web, and mobile experiences—clearly indicating that the call is serviced by your organization's chosen operator. This gives added visibility to IT and end users for who their network carrier is while giving operators the opportunity to represent their brands inside the Teams calling experience. Operator co‑branding is a capability administered by Operator Connect partners. Customers with questions or concerns about how an operator’s brand is displayed should work directly with their Operator Connect partner about the experience. Microsoft Graph APIs for Teams Administration and Phone enablement Microsoft Graph APIs for Teams User Configuration, Phone Number Management and Policy Assignment are now generally available. Collectively, these APIs provide a programmatic solution for managing Teams users, policies, and phone numbers. Organizations can use these tools to automate Teams administration and phone enablement at scale. For example, organizations can streamline routine tasks like assigning voice policies to new hires and configuring call settings for frontline teams. These capabilities enable IT admins to integrate Teams administration into existing enterprise workflows, thereby streamlining onboarding processes and ensuring predictable, compliant configurations across extensive and distributed setups. Workplace: Teams Rooms For recent Teams Rooms feature releases, please see the January 2026/ISE Blog Fundamentals and Security Automatic synchronization with device time zone, no client restart required Microsoft Teams is enhancing its user experience by introducing a feature that automatically applies a new time zone without the need to restart the client. This improvement ensures that the time zone in Teams always matches the OS time zone, providing a seamless and accurate time display when traveling across time zones. Users can view the currently used time zone in Teams General Settings. Admins can easily discover and enable Apps that meet their organization’s trust standard This update adds a new Teams Admin Center capability that lets IT admins evaluate app trust using standardized compliance and security criteria. It surfaces trust signals and required documentation in one place, giving admins a faster, more consistent process to determine whether apps meet organizational requirements. New VDI solution for Teams optimization in Amazon WorkSpaces The New VDI solution for Teams introduces multimedia offloading and an optimization solution for Microsoft Teams when running in Amazon WorkSpaces (Personal and Pooled). Users of the WorkSpaces Client for Windows can enjoy a high-definition experience in virtual desktops, where audio/video/screensharing are offloaded to the user's device and processed by the SlimCore media engine. This entry applies to WorkSpaces only. AppStream, a separate application streaming service, is not supported. For more information, see the VDI solution for Teams optimization in Amazon WorkSpaces blog. Certified for Teams Devices Lenovo ThinkSmart Tiny Kit Lenovo’s ThinkSmart Tiny Kit delivers a compact, powerful, and ready‑to‑deploy Microsoft Teams Rooms solution designed to elevate any meeting space with seamless, professional collaboration. It combines enterprise‑grade performance, intuitive controls, and a clutter‑free footprint to transform conference rooms into efficient, modern communication hubs. Learn more. Lenovo ThinkSmart One Pro with ThinkSmart or IP Controller Smart sound. Sharp vision. Designed for conversations that matter. ThinkSmart One Pro is an all-in-one video conferencing bar that brings built-in compute, smart camera tech, and AI-powered audio to small meeting rooms. With autoframing, noise suppression, and eight beamforming microphones, it delivers sharp video and clear, room-filling sound, making it easy for conversations to stay focused and natural. Its sleek, wall-mountable design makes setup simple, while ThinkSmart Manager gives IT teams full remote visibility and control. ThinkSmart One Pro is easy to deploy, manage, and scale across rooms for consistent, high-quality collaboration. Lenovo ThinkSmart One Pro with ThinkSmart Controller Lenovo ThinkSmart One Pro with IP Controller Lenovo Wired VoIP Headset 5000 Experience clarity with the Lenovo Wired VoIP Headset 5000—made for modern professionals who demand reliable performance. Certified by Microsoft Teams and engineered for intuitive plug-and-play via USB-C or USB-A, this sleek, lightweight headset adapts instantly to any setup. Whether you’re commuting or anchored at your desk, AI-powered audio by LADM allows you to be heard clearly. Learn more. Biamp Vidi 280 With intelligent auto-framing, the Biamp Vidi 280 is designed for medium to large conference rooms. It dynamically switches between its wide and ultra-wide angle lens with 16x digital zoom to keep all participants in the conversation. Installation is fast, mounting options are flexible, and deployment is effortless—whether for a single medium-sized room or hundreds of large meeting spaces. Learn more. Biamp Vidi Content Cam 250 The Vidi Content Cam 250 is designed to simplify content sharing in Teams meetings. Remote participants get an unobstructed view of the whiteboard, so they can follow every note, sketch, and diagram as if they were in the room. Designed as a complete solution in one box, it includes flexible mounting options for walls or ceilings, adapts to any room layout, and supports the maximum Teams whiteboard capacity. Setup is quick, reliable, and built for the realities of modern collaboration. Learn more. Biamp All-in-One Video Bar Parlé VBC 2800 and Parlé VBC 2800 Teams Rooms system The Parlé VBC 2800 is an all-in-one conferencing bar designed to deliver exceptional audio and video performance in medium-to-large meeting rooms. Combining Beamtracking microphones, dual 4K ePTZ cameras, AI-driven noise reduction, and automated room tuning, it brings professional-grade clarity and remote meeting equity to every space. The Parlé™ VBC 2800 Video Conferencing Bar combines the latest in Biamp Audio Intelligence with advanced 4K Video Intelligence to deliver exceptional Microsoft Teams experiences in small to medium-sized meeting rooms. Paired with the Biamp UCC + Controller, its modular design offers flexible mounting options — on the wall or a credenza — with minimal cabling to keep your space clean and professional. It also features Biamp Launch™, an automated tuning system that adapts audio performance to each unique conferencing environment. Biamp All-in-One Video Bar Parlé VBC 2800 Biamp All-in-One Video Bar Parlé VBC 2800 Teams Rooms SystemWhat’s New in Microsoft Sentinel: March 2026
March brings a set of updates to Microsoft Sentinel focused on helping your SOC automate faster, onboard data with less friction, and detect threats across more of your environment. This month's updates include natural-language playbook generation for more flexible SOAR workflows, streamlined real-time data ingestion with CCF Push, and expanded Kubernetes visibility with a dedicated GKE connector. Together, these innovations help security teams simplify operations, move faster, and strengthen coverage without added complexity. And if you're heading to RSAC 2026, check out how to join us for Microsoft Pre-Day below. What’s new Microsoft Sentinel playbook generator brings natural-language automation to SOC workflows The Microsoft Sentinel playbook generator lets you design and generate fully functional, code-based playbooks by describing what you need in natural language. Instead of relying on rigid templates and limited action libraries, you describe the workflow you want, and the generator produces a Python playbook with documentation and a visual flowchart. This has been a top ask from enterprise customers looking for more flexible automation in their SIEM workflows. The playbook generator works across Microsoft and third-party tools. By defining an Integration Profile with a base URL, authentication method, and credentials, it can create dynamic API calls without predefined connectors. That means you can automate tasks like team notifications, ticket updates, data enrichment, or incident response across your environment, then validate playbooks against real alerts and refine through chat or manual edits. You keep full transparency into the generated code and full control to customize it. Watch a demo and learn more. CCF Push delivers seamless, real-time security data to Microsoft Sentinel (public preview) The Codeless Connector Framework (CCF) Push feature allows you to send security data directly to a Sentinel workspace in real time. Instead of configuring Data Collection Endpoints (DCE), Data Collection Rules (DCR), Entra app registrations, and RBAC assignments, you press "Deploy" and Sentinel sets up all the resources for you. Built on the Log Ingestion API, CCF Push supports high-throughput ingestion, data transformation before ingestion, and direct delivery to system tables to speed up SOC detection and response and to enable more flexible access to critical security telemetry. This opens pathways to advanced scenarios, including data lake integrations and agentic AI use cases. Sentinel solution developers can begin leveraging CCF Push immediately. Partners like Keeper Security, Obsidian Security, and Varonis are already using CCF Push to stream security data into Sentinel. Learn more and check out the getting started guide. Detect threats across GKE clusters in Microsoft Sentinel with a dedicated CCF connector (general availability) A dedicated data connector for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is available in the Microsoft Sentinel content hub, built on the Codeless Connector Framework (CCF). The connector ingests GKE cluster activity, workload behavior, and security events into the GKEAudit Log Analytics table, bringing GKE monitoring in line with how Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters are monitored in Sentinel today. It includes Data Collection Rule (DCR) support, data lake-only ingestion, and workspace transformation support so you can filter or modify incoming data before it reaches its destination. For security teams running workloads on GKE, this means you can apply Sentinel analytics, workbooks, and hunting queries across your GKE signals alongside the rest of your environment, giving you consistent visibility into Kubernetes threats whether your clusters run on Azure or Google Cloud. Get the GKE data connector Solve hybrid identity challenges with an RSA agent on Microsoft Sentinel data lake and Security Copilot RSA has built an agentic solution that combines RSA ID Plus telemetry with Microsoft Sentinel's data lake and Security Copilot agents. The integration ingests administrative identity telemetry from RSA ID Plus into the Sentinel data lake for cost-effective, long-term retention, then uses Security Copilot agents to assess that data and surface anomalous or risky admin behavior automatically. For security teams managing complex hybrid identity environments, this means identity risk signals from RSA are analyzed alongside your broader Sentinel telemetry without manual correlation. Admin accounts remain one of the highest-value targets for attackers, and having agentic AI continuously assessing identity patterns helps your SOC detect compromised credentials earlier and reduce investigation time. Learn more Join Microsoft Security at RSAC 2026 Pre-Day If you are heading to RSAC™ 2026 in San Francisco, join Microsoft Security for Pre-Day on Sunday, March 22 at the Palace Hotel. Hear from Vasu Jakkal, CVP of Microsoft Security Business, and other Microsoft Security leaders on how AI and autonomous agents are reshaping defense strategy. Product leaders will share what they are focused on for security operations, threat intelligence experts will discuss emerging trends, and Microsoft researchers will highlight the newest areas of security R&D. Register for Microsoft Pre-Day Explore all Microsoft experiences at RSAC 2026 Evaluate your SIEM platform for the agentic era with our strategic buyer's guide Our buyer’s guide from Microsoft Security helps security leaders evaluate what a modern SIEM platform should deliver. The Strategic SIEM Buyer's Guide walks through three essentials: building a unified foundation that is future-proof, accelerating detection and response with AI, and maximizing ROI with faster time to value. Whether you are assessing migration from a legacy on-premises SIEM or benchmarking your current platform, the guide offers practical buyer's tips and capability checklists grounded in real outcomes, including how organizations using Sentinel have achieved a 44% reduction in total cost of ownership and 93% faster deployment times. Learn more Additional resources Sign up for upcoming events: Mar 11: Microsoft Security Day (in-person, Mumbai) Mar 18: Tech brief: Next‑Generation Security Operations with Microsoft Mar 19: Microsoft Security Immersion Event: Shadow Hunter (in-person, Toronto) Mar 23-26: Microsoft Security at RSAC 2026 (in-person, San Francisco) Mar 25: Microsoft Tech Brief: Modernize security operations with a unified platform Apr 2: Master SecOps in the AI Era: Kickstart Your SC-200 Certification Challenge Stay connected Check back each month for the latest innovations, updates, and events to ensure you’re getting the most out of Microsoft Sentinel. We’ll see you in the next edition!Introducing a refreshed design, task chat, and more in Microsoft Planner
We’re excited to announce that a modernized user interface and new features are now rolling out to basic plans in both Planner in Teams and Planner for the web. The updated design offers enhanced navigation, responsive layouts, a new goals view for setting objectives and priorities, and task chat—one of your most requested features—to enable real-time collaboration and @ mentioning team members. This release aims to make planning easier for everyday users while preparing for future AI-powered capabilities. Our goal is to streamline planning by making it more intelligent and connected, so teams can concentrate on achieving results rather than managing tasks. What's new in Planner A refreshed design: With this rollout, users will be able to manage their plans in a cleaner, more modern interface that brings a more consistent planning experience across work. Planner’s new look was designed to feel simpler, allowing users to find what they need. It reduces visual clutter, improves layout and spacing, and creates a more focused workspace. Task chat with @ mentions: A new task chat is coming to basic plans, bringing real-time, threaded conversations directly into tasks, including @ mentions, rich formatting, emojis, and notifications to help keep decisions tied to the specific task at hand. Plan members who are @ mentioned in a task will receive a notification in their Teams Activity feed and via email and can select the notification which takes them directly to the task card for additional context. Note that previously, users received notifications for every task comment, but as a result of customer feedback, we now only send notifications to mentioned users. The ability to @ mention team members directly in a task has been a top request, and we’re excited to roll this out in a familiar, chat-based experience. Please note, premium plans will continue to utilize the existing task conversation experience. This will converge into the new experience at a later point in time. Goals view: Basic plans will now include a dedicated Goals view, allowing teams to set clear, well-defined objectives to help prioritize work. By connecting tasks to shared goals, teams achieve greater alignment, gain clarity on priorities, and track progress and outcomes—driving the plan forward together. Access to Goals view in basic plans requires either a Planner premium license or a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Notes on availability Please note that not all users will see the new Planner interface at the same time. This refreshed interface, along with Task chat and Goals view, begins rolling out to basic plans today and will continue to roll out over the coming weeks. This is only the beginning This redesign lays the groundwork for many more improvements coming to Planner in the next few weeks and months, including: Project Manager agent in basic plans – to help with task execution and the creation of status reports. Custom templates. Planner in Outlook. Stay tuned for announcements regarding these updates and more aligned to our long-term vision for integrated work management. Feature availability, naming, and timelines are subject to change. Please refer to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap for the latest status. Addressing your feedback We heard your feedback about inconsistencies between basic and premium plans. This refresh starts closing those gaps, so features appear consistently across plans based on your license. For example, users with a Planner premium license will now see Goals in basic plans, and users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will soon have access to Project Manager Agent in basic plans as well. Tell us what you think about the new Planner interface, Task chat, and Goals view by selecting More (circled question mark icon) in the top right corner of the app, then selecting Feedback from the dropdown menu. We also encourage you to share any feature requests by adding your ideas to the Planner Feedback Portal. Your feedback helps inform our feature updates, and we look forward to hearing from you. Learn more Visit planner.cloud.microsoft to access Planner directly from your browser. Sign up to receive future communication about Planner. Learn more about Planner in our Frequently asked questions. Check out the Planner adoption page and Planner help & learning page to learn more about Planner. Visit the Microsoft 365 roadmap for feature descriptions and estimated release dates for Planner. Walk through the interactive demos for Project Manager Agent in Planner and Project Manager Agent skills in Teams meetings.What's New in Excel (February 2026)
Welcome to the February 2026 update. This month we are excited to announce expanded availability for Agent Mode in Excel, as well that you can now query modern Excel workbooks (like .xlsx, .xlsb, .xlsm, .ods) stored locally on your device using Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, on Windows and Mac. In addition, we've heard your feedback that working across multiple Copilot entry points can feel fragmented; and to address this, the editing capabilities that App Skills provided will be integrated into Copilot Chat and Agent Mode in Excel, which became generally available earlier this year. Click here to read more > Excel for Windows and Mac: - Agent Mode in Excel expanded availability - Query your local Excel files with Copilot Chat Excel for Windows and Mac Agent Mode in Excel expanded availability Agent Mode in Excel is now also available for Copilot in Excel users in the EU, including Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel. Read more here > Query your local Excel files with Copilot Chat Copilot in Excel now works with locally stored modern workbooks. This gives users faster, more consistent assistance across all their files, improving productivity without requiring changes to how workbooks are stored. Previously, insights and analysis from Copilot Chat were limited to Excel workbooks stored in the cloud. With this new feature, analyzing your locally saved Excel workbooks with Copilot Chat makes it possible to stay productive even when you’re offline. This feature is currently rolling out on Windows and Mac. Read more here > Check if a specific feature is in your version of Excel Click here to open in a new browser tab Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action (#FIA) helps improve Excel for everyone. Please let us know how you like a particular feature and what we can improve upon—"Give a compliment" or "Make a suggestion".. You can also submit new ideas or vote for other ideas via Microsoft Feedback. Subscribe to our Excel Blog and the Insiders Blog to get the latest updates. Stay connected with us and other Excel fans around the world – join our Excel Community and follow us on X, formerly Twitter. Special thanks to our Excel MVPs David Benaim, Bill Jelen, Alan Murray, and John Michaloudis for their contribution to this month's What's New in Excel article. David publishes weekly YouTube videos and regular LinkedIn posts about the latest innovations in Excel and more. Bill is the founder and host of MrExcel.com and the author of several books about Excel. Alan is an Excel trainer, author and speaker, best known for his blog computergaga.com and YouTube channel with the same name. John is the Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer at MyExcelOnline.com where he passionately teaches thousands of professionals how to use Excel to stand out from the crowd.
