Microsoft 365 Roadmap Updates

Stay "In The Know" with weekly Microsoft roadmap updates from Planet's Evolve 365 training experts.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap Updates

Stay ahead of the latest Microsoft updates without the clutter. Each week, Planet’s Evolve 365 team delivers a concise, no-fluff summary of key Microsoft 365 Roadmap updates tailored for the needs of our partners.

  • Play of the Week. We highlight a key update, breaking down why it’s important and how it impacts you.
  • No Noise. Just Updates. We filter through the roadmap and deliver only what matters.

Keep your team informed and ready for what’s next—without the hassle of sifting through endless updates.

Play of the Week

January 31, 2025

New Outlook continues to improve. Microsoft is working to improve the reliability of calendar sharing to make sure events are constantly updated instead of just periodically. This update should be available in May for customers worldwide.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap Updates for January 31, 2025

Be aware and prepared for Microsoft 365 features in development, rolling out, launched, and cancelled.

Microsoft Teams: ‘Add emoji’ updated keyboard shortcut

Insert emojis directly from your keyboard without any distractions. Use colons (e.g. :smile:) in the compose box to add any emoji, even your custom ones, making it quicker to express yourself.
ID: 369345 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD, GCC Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Viva Amplify – Distribute from SharePoint

We are bringing Amplify capabilities to SharePoint. Soon, you will be able to share your Pages to multiple channels using Amplify without needing to navigate away from SharePoint. You will receive the in-depth Amplify reporting on these pages.
ID: 473450 Release: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Copilot in Excel with Python for Mac

Using everyday language, ask Copilot to perform advanced analytics that would usually take you hours or is beyond your skillset like machine learning, predictive forecasting, and more. Copilot will write Python code for you and insert it on the grid, resulting in deeper insights and stunning visuals. Available on Excel for Mac in English, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish, with additional languages coming soon.
ID: 473456 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Microsoft 365 app – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: June CY2025

Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Copilot uses enterprise assets hosted on SharePoint OAL when creating presentations with Copilot

Once you integrate your organization’s assets into a SharePoint OAL (Organization Asset Library), you will be able to create presentations with your organization’s images.
ID: 475051 Release: PowerPoint, Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365) – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: February CY2025

Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Copilot uses enterprise assets hosted on SharePoint OAL when creating presentations with Copilot

Once you integrate your organization’s assets into a SharePoint OAL (Organization Asset Library), you will be able to create presentations with your organization’s images.
ID: 475056 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), PowerPoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: February CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Insider Risk Management- DLP alerts as indicators

IRM admins can now select DLP alerts as indicators in IRM policies. IRM admins can select DLP policies that they would like to bring into IRM. By enabling this indicator, admins can detect if a user has alerts for the pre-selected DLP policies. When an IRM alert is generated, admin can see if there are any high-risk alerts for this user within DLP for the policies that are enabled as indicators. This feature will help admins view this information within IRM itself without having to switch to DLP. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates various signals to identify potential malicious or inadvertent insider risks, such as IP theft, data leakage, and security violations. Insider Risk Management enables customers to create policies based on their own internal policies, governance, and organizational requirements. Built with privacy by design, users are pseudonymized by default, and role-based access controls and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy
ID: 475057 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD, GCC Tags: May CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Insider Risk Management- Insider risk management user analytics

With this feature, Insights will be generated for potentially risky behaviors at a user level and will be surfaced across the following experiences: 1) Insider risk management context in DLP alert investigation 2) Insider risk management context in Communication compliance alert investigation 3) Insider risk management context in Microsoft Defender XDR user entity page 4) Advanced hunting in Microsoft Defender XDR. User analytics will cover all eligible users in the tenant including users not in the scope of any Insider risk management policy. During the initial rollout, user analytics will be enabled by default for all customers who have enabled Insider risk management analytics. This will help customers benefit from this additional intelligence right from the start. Customers can enable/disable user analytics in your tenant from Insider risk management Global settings. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates various signals to identify potential malicious or inadvertent insider risks, such as IP theft, data leakage, and security violations. Insider Risk Management enables customers to create policies based on their own internal policies, governance, and organizational requirements. Built with privacy by design, users are pseudonymized by default, and role-based access controls and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.
ID: 475058 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), DoD, GCC High Tags: July CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Scan cold files in SharePoint and OneDrive for sensitive information

This new capability will enable admins to scan existing files at rest in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business for sensitive data and classify and/or label them accordingly. This includes files that have never been scanned or scanned in some time.
ID: 475062 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: July CY2025

Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Read aloud available in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Play back Copilot responses as audio with read aloud in Copilot Chat.
ID: 475967 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Microsoft 365 – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: February CY2025

Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Dictate your prompts in Copilot Chat

Use the dictation button to input your prompts with speech.
ID: 475968 Release: Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365) – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Loss Prevention – Admin units support for SharePoint Online

Delegate management and remediation authority for different people in different regions or organization units with role-based access control (RBAC). For example, German investigators should be able to investigate alerts and audit events for only German users. This update extends support to SharePoint for Microsoft 365.
ID: 475970 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: July CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Add CVI Coordinates to Townhall and webinar invites

With CVI coordinates in invites, now non-Teams users—such as external customers or partners—can easily join Teams Townhall and webinar meetings using a third-party teleconferencing device.
ID: 476487 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Ability to separate out the Townhall attendee invites

This backend change will now address the ‘separation of attendee’ invites from the events crew. This feature allows the organizers of Townhalls to maintain separate invites for attendees.
ID: 476488 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Townhall Attendee/Presenter email dial in details.

With the release of this feature, the Townhall attendee and presenter invites will have dial in details available in the body of the email.
ID: 476489 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Clipchamp: Editor simplification and introduction of light mode

This change will simplify the Clipchamp editing experience and increase the space you have on the stage to make great videos. We’re also introducing light mode as a new option for people to choose whether they view the Clipchamp editor in a Light or Dark scheme.
ID: 476490 Release: Microsoft Clipchamp – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: February CY2025

Microsoft Intune: Support for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) attach for synthetic devices for GCC and GCCH environments

This provides simplified onboarding changes to MDE attach functionality through integration with Intune and Defender.
ID: 476495 Release: Microsoft Intune – GCC, DoD, GCC High Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Introducing the SCO Setting in Walkie Talkie app for Enhanced Battery Life on older Bluetooth headsets

This feature introduces SCO (Synchronous Connection-Oriented) user setting in the Walkie Talkie app. This feature is designed to manage the Bluetooth headset connection to optimize battery life. When a Bluetooth headset is connected to the Walkie Talkie app, the SCO setting controls whether the microphone remains constantly connected or disconnects after a period of inactivity. This helps in reducing battery drain by allowing the headset to disconnect when not in use and reconnect when needed. The user control feature allows users to set a timeout period after which the Bluetooth headset will automatically disconnect if there is no activity. While the SCO setting is turned on, users may experience a slight delay in transmission as the headset reconnects. However, once the headset is reconnected, users will hear a sound indicating that they can start transmitting on the app. This brief delay is a small trade-off for the substantial battery savings on older Bluetooth headsets.
ID: 476733 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Wired headset support for Walkie Talkie on iOS.

This feature adds the wired support to Walkie Talkie on iOS. It adds support for both specialized PTT headsets and generic headsets.
ID: 476734 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Outlook: Open previous email with Email Auto-advance

This feature allows users to automatically open the message above the current one in the message list after performing actions like moving or deleting the current message. Users can turn this behavior on in the “Email Auto-advance” Mail setting.
ID: 477362 Release: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: March CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Lifecycle Management – General availability of Microsoft partner data connectors for T-Mobile and HKCSL

These connectors will support ingestion for T-Mobile and HKCSL data to user mailboxes and makes them available for compliance.
ID: 477365 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC Tags: February CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Viva Amplify – Support for file upload

Viva Amplify will support authors uploading a file with a list of emails to make it easier for the Outlook channel to reach large audiences.
ID: 477369 Release: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: April CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Viva Amplify – Sensitivity labels

Viva Amplify will support sending mail with sensitivity.
ID: 477370 Release: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: April CY2025

Outlook: Support for enhanced calendar-sharing architecture in the New Outlook for Windows and Web

This update improves the reliability of calendar sharing and ensures that the events seen by delegates are always up to date. #newoutlookforwindows
ID: 477373 Release: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: May CY2025

Microsoft 365 admin center: Adoption Score AI assistance category

We are introducing a new people experiences category in Adoption Score in the Microsoft 365 admin center. The new category helps organizations understand the adoption Microsoft Copilot features in Microsoft 365.
ID: 185700 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Microsoft 365 Admin Center – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Loss Prevention for endpoints – Support for Four New predicates on Endpoint DLP

With this capability, admins can extend the below mentioned predicates to Microsoft Purview DLP for Endpoint – Document is unscannable – Document didn’t complete scanning – Document name matches patterns – Document size equals or is greater than
ID: 374811 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC High, DoD, GCC Tags: January CY2025

Outlook: Chat with Copilot in Outlook for Mac

The same Microsoft Copilot experience you can get in the Microsoft Teams app, at copilot.microsoft.com (work mode) and in other places is now available from within Microsoft Outlook for Mac. You can find the Copilot app in the left app bar.
ID: 395788 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Dynamic watermarking for files protected with sensitivity labels

Dynamic watermarking is a new sensitivity label setting that overlays watermark text containing the consuming user’s information on content in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
ID: 400717 Release: PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Multiple camera view for Teams Room on Windows

Teams Room on Windows will support up to four single stream cameras that will be shown to remote meeting attendees. With multiple camera view, remote meeting attendees will have the ability to follow all the action in the room and manually toggle between views from the room that they want to see.
ID: 402517 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Viva Engage – Questions surfacing in Copilot results

Viva Engage questions from communities, storyline, and Answers will surface in Copilot results.
ID: 408166 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Viva Learning – AI & Copilot Resources provider

The AI & Copilot Resources provider will power the OOB Microsoft Copilot Academy and will be visible by default to users who have Copilot licenses. Admins will be able to enable, disable, and apply permissions on the content of this provider.
ID: 412064 Release: Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365) – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Private moderator replies to individual attendees

Allows moderators to answer questions from specific attendees without displaying the reply to the other participants. This capability can be helpful for sensitive questions, personal inquiries, or follow-up discussions that are not intended to be broadcast to the entire audience.
ID: 417158 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Endpoint Data Loss Prevention – Support for Document Property Predicate on Endpoint DLP

With this capability, admins can extend the condition ‘Document Property is’ to Microsoft Purview DLP for Endpoint.
ID: 417482 Release: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, DoD, GCC High Tags: January CY2025

SharePoint: Approvals integration in Document Libraries

SharePoint Document Libraries will begin to leverage the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams. Users will be able to navigate to the Automate dropdown, Configure Approvals to enable the feature on the library. Once enabled you can specify the approver for the file, submit a request which will appear in the Approvals app in Teams or can be approved directly in the library. Once approved, the file metadata will update in the Approval status column.
ID: 420336 Release: SharePoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Copilot in Teams now available for multitenant organizations

Copilot is available to users in a multitenant organization, provided the user has an active Copilot license in their host tenant.
ID: 423474 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Viva: Ability to request delegate access in Viva Insights

Viva Insights users will now be able request delegate access from a Manager in the Insights Teams or Web app. Previously, Managers could assign delegates, but potential delegates could not request access from a Manager. This request access update will allow for increased ease & flexibility of providing delegate access in Insights.
ID: 464174 Release: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Planner: Board view in My Tasks

Board view in My Tasks offers a visual representation of your tasks similar to a kanban board, making it easier to track progress and manage your workload. See all your tasks at a glance and move them between columns to update their progress. You can group tasks by Plan, Progress, Due Date, and Priority, allowing you to tailor the board to your specific needs. Board view is available in addition to the existing grid view in My Tasks.
ID: 467255 Release: Planner – GCC High, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Auto-association of BYOD room devices in the Pro Management portal

Manually associating peripherals to rooms may feel like an endless task if your organization has several bring your own device (BYOD) rooms. IT admins can streamline the process and get enhanced inventory visibility with this feature which utilizes meeting room invite data to intelligently associate peripherals to these spaces.
ID: 469495 Release: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Word: Chat with Copilot about selected text

Start a chat with Copilot while text in your document is selected, and Copilot’s response will be scoped to what you have selected.
ID: 473441 Release: Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365), Word – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

Microsoft Teams: Vote on and archive Questions in Teams Q&A

Question voting allows instance participants to upvote the most important questions and sort by highest votes or recent activity. This gives moderators the ability to derive insights from the audience about what topics they care the most about and address them. Additionally, for questions that might be outdated or irrelevant, moderators can move them to a separate feed to ensure that presenters can focus on providing the most value to attendees.
ID: 415413 Release: Microsoft Teams – GCC Tags: January CY2025

Outlook: Tips pane entry point moving from Suite Header to Ribbon

The Tips pane’s entry point is moving from the Suite Header (found at the top of the window) to the Help tab of the Ribbon. #newoutlookforwindows
ID: 470022 Release: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Tags: January CY2025

No Microsoft 365 roadmap cancelled updates this week