Check out the rollup of Microsoft 365 updates for September! We've curated some of the highlights below, but be sure to check out the full video too!
New Features
Live captions in Microsoft Teams meetings are now available on mobile devices with enhanced customization options. Users can personalize captions by adjusting font color, background color, and caption height—making captions easier to read and follow, especially in varying lighting conditions or while on the go. This update aligns mobile capabilities with Teams on desktop and web, supporting a consistent experience across platforms.
Coming mid-September 2025 and expect to complete by late September 2025.
Microsoft Teams is introducing a new protection feature that blocks messages containing weaponizable file types—such as executables—in chats and channels. This helps reduce the risk of malware and file-based attacks by preventing unsafe content from being shared. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android. Coming early November 2025; expected to complete by mid-November 2025.
Admins can enable this protection in the Teams Admin Center:
We’re introducing Teams Collaborative Notes (powered by Loop) in group chats across desktop and web experiences. This feature enables users to co-create and edit notes, agendas, and action items directly within the Teams chat interface, enhancing real-time collaboration without switching contexts. Coming late September 2025 and completes by early October 2025.
Microsoft Teams now enables users to report messages they believe were incorrectly flagged as security threats in chats and channels. This capability is available to organizations with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 or Microsoft Defender XDR. Coming early November 2025; expected completion by mid-November 2025.
To help users stay protected from malicious content, we’re introducing message warnings in Microsoft Teams. This new feature displays a warning banner on messages containing URLs flagged as Spam, Phish, or Malware—whether the message is internal or external. These warnings enhance user awareness and complement existing security protections like Safe Links and ZAP. Coming early November 2025; expected to complete by mid-November 2025.
Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: the new Manage what attendees see feature will empower organizers and presenters to deliver more engaging and professional town hall events. With enhanced customization options—including layouts, backgrounds, theme colors, and name tags—this update supports a visually rich experience. This feature is available exclusively to organizers with a Teams Premium license.
Coming late October 2025 – early November 2025.
7. New link in forwarded messages improves context and traceability
When someone forwards a message in Microsoft Teams, the forwarded message will now include a clickable link that takes the recipient directly to the original chat or channel message—if they have permission to view it. This enhancement improves message traceability and helps users quickly understand the context of forwarded messages. This update is based on customer feedback requesting better navigation and context when messages are shared across Teams.
Coming early November 2025; expected to complete by mid-November 2025.
New Features
You can now save a meeting as a draft on your calendar when you’re not ready to send invites. This update gives users more flexibility when planning events, especially when details are still being finalized. Planned for completion by mid-October 2025.
To simplify the transition experience, starting in October 2025, Microsoft Outlook will automatically set up users’ classic Outlook accounts and settings in the new Outlook for Windows—seamlessly and in the background—if certain conditions are met. This enhancement enables users to work across both Outlook experiences without manual setup or toggling.
Beginning the roll out in October 2025 and continue to expand it over the next few months.
The Outlook Lite app will be retired starting October 6th, 2025. After this date, new installations will be blocked. Existing users can continue using the app for a limited time before full retirement.
New Features
We’re introducing support for Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels in OneNote. This update enables users to classify and protect OneNote sections using the same compliance standards available across Microsoft 365 apps.
Coming late January 2026 and expect to complete by late January 2027.
Upcoming privacy-related changes in Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge) will increase restrictions on local network access. When enforcement begins, users accessing OneDrive for Web (and some integrated Microsoft 365 experiences such as Microsoft Lists and SharePoint Document Libraries) will encounter a browser permission prompt for local network access unless the required policy is in place. If the permission is not allowed, performance optimizations and offline capabilities powered by OneDrive and Share Point will not be available. This communication provides required administrator actions to prevent loss of functionality.
Who is affected:
What will happen:
If no action is taken:
When the recommended browser policy is deployed in advance, the prompt is suppressed for the specified trusted Microsoft 365 endpoints and existing performance, and offline behavior are preserved. The policy prevents loss of existing capability and avoids user confusion.
What you need to do to prepare:
Chrome and Edge will roll out this privacy related change as part of Chromium 141 at the end of September.
3. Microsoft 365 Copilot Apps installation on devices with Microsoft 365 Apps
Starting October 2025, Microsoft will automatically install the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices with Microsoft 365 desktop apps, except in the EEA. The app appears in the Start menu, enabled by default, with admins able to opt out and prepare users accordingly.
Admin Actions
Rollout begins in early October 2025 and completes mid-November 2025.
New Features
We’re introducing the Content Management Assessment (CMA) in SharePoint Advanced Management to help tenant admins evaluate site health, permissions, and lifecycle readiness—all in a single, actionable dashboard. CMA consolidates multiple reports, including Site Lifecycle Management (SLM) and Data Access Governance (DAG), and provides tailored recommendations to strengthen governance and accelerate Copilot onboarding.
Rollout begins early October 2025 (previously early September) and is expected to complete by early November 2025 (previously early October).
Admins can now upload a CSV file to define a custom scope of up to 10,000 SharePoint site URLs for SLM policy enforcement.
Sites with existing retention policies or holds are automatically included in the scope.
The inactivity period setting has moved from the Scope page to the Configuration page in both the policy creation wizard and the policy details panel.
This feature is available by default and does not require additional configuration to enable.
More info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/site-lifecycle-management
New Features
We’re introducing cross-cloud synchronization in Microsoft Entra to help organizations streamline user lifecycle management across Microsoft’s commercial, US Government, and China cloud environments. This feature automates creating, updating, and deleting users across supported cloud pairs and is currently in public preview. It is off by default and must be explicitly enabled by administrators.
General availability between late September 2025 (previously early September) and mid-October 2025
New Features
Starting with the September 2025 security update, IT admins can configure an initial Start menu layout that users can later customize. If you’ve used the Configure Start Pins policy previously, it would revert user personalization to the IT-set configuration after a restart. The enhanced policy allows user changes to persist. This new capability is available to you through configuration service providers (CSP) today, and the Group Policy (GPO) will follow in October.
New Features
We’re expanding model choice in Microsoft 365 Copilot Researcher and Microsoft Copilot Studio to include Anthropic models. You can read more about this announcement in our blog: Expanding model choice in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
This update gives organizations more flexibility to tailor AI experiences to their needs. Researcher can now be powered by either OpenAI’s deep reasoning models or Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1. Claude in Researcher is rolling out today via the Frontier Program to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed customers who opt in. In Copilot Studio, Claude Opus 4.1 and Sonnet 4 models are now available as optional model options in addition to existing options from OpenAI. Makers with Microsoft Copilot Studio licenses who opt in can now experiment with creating custom agents using Claude. Claude models in Microsoft Copilot Studio are currently in preview and not intended for production use.
Coming September 24, 2025. Admin opt-in required.
More Info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/connect-to-ai-models
An agent for every channel: Teams channels provide an organized space for teams to manage workstreams and communicate with stakeholders. Now, each channel can have a dedicated agent that draws on its conversations and meetings to act as a domain expert for the team.
These agents adopt the channel’s name and help with common tasks – for example, flagging important deadlines that are buried in conversations, summarizing progress with succinct status reports, assigning tasks and due dates, and answering questions asked in natural language like “What’s the latest on our budget?” You can even invite these agents into meetings when you need expert insights in the discussion.
Public Preview: mid-September 2025 and expect to complete by mid-October 2025.
We’re introducing Knowledge Agent, a built-in SharePoint capability that helps organizations prepare content for AI at scale. It unifies fragmented AI features into a single, context-aware interface that adapts to user roles and surfaces intelligent actions directly in the flow of work. This enhancement supports high-quality, trustworthy responses from Microsoft 365 Copilot and custom agents.
A floating button will appear in the lower-right corner of SharePoint surfaces, launching a context-aware menu with intelligent actions. Learn more about opting into the preview: Get started with Knowledge Agent (preview).
Preview: Microsoft 365 Copilot: Enabling human-agent teams | Microsoft 365 Blog
Public Preview (Worldwide): Begins mid-September 2025; completes by late February 2026.
We’re updating Memory in Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve personalization and enhance the user experience. With this update, Copilot will personalize responses using chat history, helping users receive more relevant and contextual replies. We’re also introducing refreshed user controls in Copilot settings to make it easier to view and manage what Copilot remembers.
Coming mid-October 2025 and expected to complete by late October 2025.
We’re introducing a major upgrade to the AI video creator in Microsoft 365 Copilot. This next-generation experience makes it easier than ever to create professional-quality videos from a text prompt, PowerPoint, PDF, or Word document. Key enhancements include:
Coming late September 2025 and expect to complete by late October 2025.
To enhance creative flexibility in Copilot Chat, users will soon be able to upload multiple reference images in a single conversation. This update streamlines the image generation process and reduces repetitive steps, based on feedback from users seeking more dynamic visual creation capabilities.
Coming late September 2025 and is expected to complete by the end of September 2025.
We’re introducing a new Open in Word action button in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. This feature allows users to seamlessly transfer Copilot-generated responses into Microsoft Word for further editing, formatting, or collaboration. It enhances productivity by bridging AI-generated content with familiar document workflows.
Coming late September 2025 (previously mid-September) and is expected to complete by early October 2025 (previously late September).
Library provides a central, visual-first destination in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app where users can easily access their Copilot-generated content like images and Pages and as Copilot-generated content shared with them.
Coming mid-October 2025 (previously late September) and is expected to complete by mid-October 2025 (previously late September).
AI Workflows in the Workflows app for Microsoft Teams provide users with intelligent automation templates powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot. These workflows are powered by scheduled Copilot prompts through predefined templates for easier setup, helping users automate complex tasks and streamline daily operations.
Coming mid-October 2025 (previously late September) and is expected to complete by mid-October 2025(previously late September).
To help organizations manage metered consumption costs for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, we’re introducing support for prepaid Capacity Packs in the Microsoft 365 admin center (MAC). This feature enables global administrators to use prepaid message bundles before incurring pay-as-you-go (PAYG) charges.
This update applies specifically to Copilot Chat environments provisioned via the Power Platform admin center (PPAC), including departmental or custom Copilot agents built using Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Each Capacity Pack includes 25,000 Copilot messages per month, which can be allocated to Copilot Chat environments via PPAC. Once enabled, MAC will prioritize usage from these prepaid packs and automatically switch to PAYG when capacity is exhausted.
Coming late September 2025 and expect to complete by early October 2026.
We’re excited to announce that we are making Copilot Chat available as a side-by-side experience in Teams. This will help users access the power of M365 and Web data in addition to current capabilities of Copilot in Chats, Channels, Calling, and Meeting. On Teams desktop (Windows and Mac) and web, users can open Copilot Chat from the Copilot icon located on the top right corner in these surfaces. Copilot Chat will be available in Teams for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Rollout of this change starts mid-November and completes in the weeks following.
New Features
Previously, external access settings could only be configured at the tenant level, with policy-level settings limited to either inheriting tenant settings or blocking all external domains. With this update, you can assign custom external access policies to users or groups with five configuration options:
Coming late October 2025 and completes by mid-December 2025.
Introducing a streamlined experience for the email entity page in Microsoft Defender for Office 365. This update improves how users navigate between email records, reducing friction and enhancing productivity. Coming early November 2025 and expect to complete by late November 2025.
Security Operations Center (SOC) teams rely on remediation actions like Move to Junk, Delete, Soft Delete, and Hard Delete to swiftly eliminate email threats from user inboxes. However, meeting invite emails have posed an additional challenge: even after the email is removed, Outlook automatically creates a calendar entry during delivery, which remains active and accessible to users.
This residual calendar entry can still contain malicious links or phishing content, creating a security gap. We’re closing that gap.
With this update, the Hard Delete action will now also remove the associated calendar entry for any meeting invite email. This ensures that threats are fully eradicated—not just from the inbox, but also from the calendar—reducing the risk of user interaction with potentially harmful content. Note that calendar entries manually created by users by adding .ics attachments to the calendar will not be deleted.
Coming early September 2025 and is expected to complete by late September 2025.
Today’s small and medium-sized business (SMB) leaders are facing mounting pressure to protect sensitive data, maintain compliance requirements, and address oversharing risks compounded by the advancement of AI.
To address these challenges, Microsoft is launching three new SMB-security suite SKUs that are purpose-built for the mid-market:
Offer details:
Full Announcement: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2025-september#announcing-two-new-csp-promotions-for-microsoft-365-copilot