What's New in Microsoft 365 | April Updates

Highlights

• Teams => Create new channels faster from the “New items” menu at top of the list of chats and channels 

• Teams Meetings=> Town hall organizers, co-organizers, presenters can join the event to preview as attendee

• Teams Meetings =>Preview changes before making them visible to attendees with “Manage what attendees see”

• Teams => Bi-directional calendar syncing between Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams

• Outlook => Shared Mailbox display going to the classic experience

• M365 apps => New Startup Boost task from Microsoft Office installer for Office applications

• M365 apps => Microsoft SharePoint Online eSignature for Microsoft Word   

• Copilot => AI adoption category in Adoption Score now generally available

• Copilot => Microsoft Teams – Copilot Summary for Transferred Calls

• Admin => Microsoft Defender for Office: “Threat classification” in Mail flow status summary and Threat protection status reports 

• Admin => Data security & compliance capabilities for GenAI applications in Microsoft Purview transitioning to paid public preview 

• Admin => Microsoft Purview: New Purview Data Security Investigations (DSI) solution 

Microsoft Teams

New Feature

Create new channels faster from the “New items” menu at top of the list of chats and channels 

When will this happen:

late June 2025 and expect to complete by late July 2025. 

New Feature

5. Town hall organizers, co-organizers, presenters can join the event to preview as attendee

How this will affect your organization 

Organizers, co-organizers, and presenters in a Microsoft Teams town hall will soon be able to join and view the event from an attendee’s perspective. 

When will this happen: 

mid-June 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025. 

New Feature

6. Preview changes before making them visible to attendees with “Manage what attendees see”

How this will affect your organization 

Before this rollout, when an organizer or presenter brings a participant or shared content on or off screen, the change is immediately reflected in the attendees’ view. 

After this rollout, organizers and presenters will have the option to preview their changes before applying them. This allows for smoother, more polished transitions in the attendee’s view, without showing every adjustment made by the organizer or presenter managing the screen. Organizers can go to the town hall Meeting options to locate the Manage what attendees see feature. 

When will this happen: 

mid-June 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025. 

New Feature

8. Microsoft Teams Premium: Ultra-low latency (ULL) attendee experience for town halls

How this will affect your organization 

Before this rollout, Microsoft Teams town hall attendees typically watch the presentation with a 20-30 second delay. After this rollout, with ultra-low latency (ULL), attendees will be able to view and participate in a town hall at a much lower latency than before, ensuring they are in sync with content being shared by presenters and organizers. 

When will this happen: 

early June 2025 and expect to complete by mid-June 2025. 

New Feature

9. Bi-directional calendar syncing between Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams

How this will affect your organization 

Businesses using Google Workspace for email and calendaring can now enable bidirectional syncing with Microsoft Teams through the Admin app in Teams. This improved sync ensures that events created in either platform are seamlessly reflected in both, reducing missed meetings and simplifying scheduling. 

More info: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/setup-calendar-syncing-with-google-workspace  

When will this happen: 

early May 2025 and is expected to complete by late May 2025. 

Microsoft Outlook

New Feature

1. Changes to how shared mailboxes are displayed in the folder pane

How this will affect your organization 

To align with the behavior of classic Outlook for Windows, we will display shared mailboxes in the same way accounts are displayed and add a Shared icon to give users a visual distinction between standard mailboxes and shared mailboxes. 

When will this happen: 

early July 2025 and expect to complete by late July 2025. 

New Feature

2. New “Shared with me” page in Settings for shared email accounts and folders 

How this will affect your organization 

The new Microsoft Outlook for Windows and Microsoft Outlook for web will soon have a new Settings page called Shared with me where users can view and manage all shared email accounts and folders that they have been granted permission to access.   

When will this happen: 

early July 2025 and expect to complete by early August 2025. 

Microsoft 365 Apps

New Feature

1. New Startup Boost task from Microsoft Office installer for Office applications

How this will affect your organization 

We are introducing a new Startup Boost task from the Microsoft Office installer to optimize performance and load-time of experiences within Office applications.  After the system performs the task, the app remains in a paused state until the app launches and the sequence resumes, or the system removes the app from memory to reclaim resources. The system can perform this task for an app after a device reboot and periodically as system conditions allow. 

When will this happen: 

mid-May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025. 

New Feature

2. Microsoft SharePoint Online eSignature for Microsoft Word   

How this will affect your organization 

SharePoint eSignature includes the capability to request eSignatures from a PDF using Microsoft’s native eSignature service. With this update, users will also be able to create eSignature requests from Microsoft Word documents without the need to create a PDF. 

More info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/syntex/esignature-overview  

When will this happen: 

late May 2025 and expect to complete by early July 2025. 

Microsoft Intune

New Icon

1. New icon for Microsoft Intune

How this will affect your organization 

Refer to the above icon. You will now see this in the Intune Admin Center

Microsoft Copilot

New Feature

1. AI adoption category in Adoption Score now generally available

How this will affect your organization 

The AI adoption category page in Adoption Score helps adoption specialists measure progress towards making Microsoft 365 Copilot a daily habit. 

New Feature

2. Microsoft Teams – Copilot Summary for Transferred Calls

How this will affect your organization 

Copilot enabled users will now be able to share the summary of the call from within the transfer panel and the context will be shown in the toast notification and within the call. 

When will this happen? 

mid-May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025. 

New Feature

3. Teams Meetings Copilot response can be shared to external apps (Word or Excel)

How this will affect your organization 

Microsoft 365 Copilot responses in Microsoft Teams meetings can be shared to external apps (Word or Excel). Responses generated by Copilot in Meetings will come with a button to Open in another app 

When will this happen: 

mid-May 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025. 

New Feature

4. Outlook: Draft with Copilot Highlight & Rewrite in classic Outlook for Windows

How this will affect your organization 

Now you can use Draft with Copilot to improve sections of your email draft. Highlight a specific section and then use Draft with Copilot to iterate on the text of the highlighted section. 

When will this happen? 

late May 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025. 

New Feature

5. Microsoft PowerPoint: Copilot will create an automatic presentation summary 

How this will affect your organization 

Microsoft PowerPoint will create an automatic presentation summary to help readers understand the topics covered in the slide deck. 

When will this happen? 

mid-April 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025. 

New Feature

6. Microsoft PowerPoint: Microsoft 365 Copilot can convert text to bullet points or a list

How this will affect your organization 

Microsoft PowerPoint will soon offer text editing with Microsoft Copilot, where users can ask Copilot to convert their paragraphs of text to bullet points or numbered lists. 

When will this happen? 

mid-April 2025 (previously late March) and expect to complete by mid-May 2025. 

New Feature

7. Microsoft 365 Copilot in Forms: Users can reference files and forms to help generate draft

How this will affect your organization 

When creating a form with Copilot, users can reference existing documents such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint or existing forms. 

When will this happen? 

mid-April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025. 

Microsoft Admin

New Feature

1. Microsoft Defender for Office: “Threat classification” in Mail flow status summary and Threat protection status reports 

How this will affect your organization 

Will introduce Threat classification into the Mail flow status summary report and the Threat protection status report to enhance understanding of the intent behind an email attack.

When this will happen: 

mid-March 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025

New Licensing Model

2. Data security & compliance capabilities for GenAI applications in Microsoft Purview transitioning to paid public preview 

How this will affect your organization 

Detection, processing and storage of interactions done on generative AI applications such as Security Copilot, Copilot Studio and others under Microsoft Purview Data Compliance solutions including Data Lifecycle Management, eDiscovery, and Communication Compliance, and Microsoft Purview Data Security capabilities including Insider Risk Management and data classification will begin using a pay-as-you-go pricing model on May 1 in preparation for general availability. 

To learn more: Enable Microsoft Purview PAY-AS-YOU-GO features 

When will this happen: 

mid-June 2025 and expect to complete by late June 2025. 

New Feature

3. Microsoft Purview: New Purview Data Security Investigations (DSI) solution 

How this will affect your organization 

DSI enables data security admins to efficiently identify incident-relevant content by searching their Microsoft 365 data estate to locate emails, Microsoft Teams messages, Microsoft Copilot prompts and responses, and documents. 

After an admin scopes an investigation, DSI’s generative AI capabilities allow admins to gain deeper insights into the impacted data, revealing critical security risks and sensitive information. Investigative capabilities include the ability to categorize evidence, perform vector searches, and examine impacted data for security and sensitive data risks. 

Learn more: Accelerate data security investigations with AI-powered deep content analysis | Microsoft Community Hub 

When will this happen: 

mid-June 2025 and expect to complete by late July 2025.