Microsoft has a new competitor, and it's not a big name like Google or Apple. A developer named Brandon Thomas has created open-source replications of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint using AI. Thomas made headlines recently for using AI to replicate the Adobe suite, and he has now pointed his AI agents at Microsoft 365.

GridCraft (Excel clone), DeckCraft (PowerPoint clone), and WordCraft (Word clone) are made using Claude. They're free to download and you can read more about their development through the ArtCraft GitHub page.

Thomas now has a growing suite of app clones that aim to replicate the functionality and design of the popular suites from Adobe and Microsoft. The situation was summed up brilliantly by Reddit user "EngFL92" who said, "Begun, the clone wars have."

Windows Central take: Proving a point

The concept of replicating apps is nothing new. LibreOffice has been available for years and there are a plethora of apps similar to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 applications.

WordCraft and other applications made by Thomas are important because they ask the question, "Can AI be used to replace paid industry-leading software suites."

At the moment, I'd say the answer to that question is "no." But the replica Office apps are in the alpha stage of development. We could see the feature gap close and bugs get squashed before general release, assuming Thomas decides to continue the project.

Projects like this often gain notoriety quickly as they get shared online. Microsoft and Adobe are tech giants that charge a lot of money to access software. They're easy targets and I believe some of the passion against the companies is justified.

Thomas said on X that they're "paying back a grudge that has been years in the making," so there seems to be some history there.

Quite the media frenzy has formed around these apps. I suppose I'm a part of that, but I think some outlets have gone too far and argued that the AI-coded clones of the Adobe and Microsoft 365 suites are further along than they really are.

I appreciate the dedication to create apps that compete with some of the best-known software around. Projects like this can demonstrate that some people don't need to pay monthly subscriptions for their entire lives to get work done. But I'd suggest pumping the brakes on narratives along the lines of "vibe coding takes down tech giants in a month."

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Microsoft 365 Family plans now come with 4TB less of OneDrive storage than they did until this week. Microsoft details the change in a support document.

That document frames the change as a positive because it means storage is allocated to users who need it automatically, but the public has had a different reaction. I've received several messages from disappointed users, and other outlets are rightly highlighting consumer outrage. Some people I know have already said they plan to cancel their subscription due to the change.

Regardless of how much storage an individual family actually uses, Microsoft 365 Family now includes substantially less cloud storage than it did before while costing the same amount.

I keep track of the best Microsoft 365 deals and update my piece with discounts regularly. If you know when to hunt, you can get a year of Microsoft 365 Family for $99.99 despite the normal price being $129.99 (the price of Microsoft 365 went up in January 2025). But with the massive 4TB reduction in OneDrive storage, there is no way to retain the value of Microsoft 365 Family. Even if you got it at a discount, you'd be getting less than before.

Considering Microsoft can roll out this change immediately for new and upgraded subscriptions, I understand why some people may hesitate before subscribing to Microsoft 365. Based on the Microsoft support document, Microsoft 365 Family plans will be moved to the shared storage model upon your first renewal on or after May 2, 2027.

Here is the exact phrasing from Microsoft:

"For existing Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers, this change generally takes effect after the first subscription renewal on or after May 2, 2027, unless an eligible plan change occurs earlier."

I interpret that to mean that renewals made before that cutoff should not force you to the shared storage model. If that's accurate, you should be able to stack some time onto your subscription to keep a total of 6TB for a bit longer.

I'd suggest checking with Microsoft before making any purchases. If you receive confirmation from Microsoft that stacking subscriptions delays the change, please let me know. I have also reached out to Microsoft.

Windows Central take

I actually understand Microsoft's argument for having shared storage across a family. I use much more cloud storage than my wife, so it would be convenient to have more than 1TB of storage accessible through my account. My daughter, who is a toddler, only "uses" cloud storage through the photos and videos I back up for her.

But sharing a pool of storage does not make up for reducing the total storage across the plan by 4TB. For my use, I'd be okay with sharing 5TB across the entire family. But any forced reduction in storage is difficult to justify.

Now, during a cost of living crisis, many people will have to look at alternatives to OneDrive or pay to have more cloud storage.

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Microsoft Outlook will soon be able to save you from a costly mistake in an email. An upcoming feature will automatically spell check your emails before sending them.

Of course, Outlook already has a built-in spell check feature that highlights misspelled words and other mistakes. The new feature adds another layer of proofing by checking for spelling errors before an email is sent.

While spell check catches many mistakes as you type, it's easy to miss a typo in a long email or make an error when responding to messages. Running a final spell check before sending provides one last opportunity to catch mistakes before an email is delivered.

"If you don’t want to check spelling manually for every message—or you’re worried you might forget!—you can set Outlook to check spelling for you every time before sending emails," explains Microsoft through the Microsoft 365 Message Center (archived here).

When enabled, Outlook will review your message before it is sent and flag spelling issues that should be corrected.

The new spell check feature is expected to start rolling out mid-November, but it won't reach everyone until early December. Users in Targeted Release will be able to use the feature as soon as this month.

The new Outlook feature will sound familiar to those who have used Outlook for a long time. Classic Outlook already has the ability to check spelling before an email is sent through the "Always check spelling before sending" setting. Now, the same functionality is on the way to new Outlook.

Microsoft has spent the last several years bringing features from classic Outlook to new Outlook. Microsoft's latest update is another step toward feature parity between the two versions.

Are there any features you rely on that are still missing from new Outlook? Let us know in the comments.

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Microsoft Copilot has changed a lot over the past month. Microsoft recently outlined its broader plan for a unified AI experience across Microsoft 365, but it also shipped several new Copilot features users can try right now.

Microsoft rounded up the changes in a recent blog post, highlighting updates across Copilot Chat, Teams, Word, PowerPoint, SharePoint, and OneDrive. The updates expand Copilot to more services and add new features across Microsoft's software suite:

• "New design and functionality for Copilot Chat
• Plugins, connectors, and Work IQ enhancements to the Copilot App
• Teams Phone agent for Copilot in Teams Phone
• Citations and image modifications for Copilot in Word
• Skills and connectors for Copilot in PowerPoint
• General availability for Copilot in SharePoint
• General availability for Copilot in OneDrive"

Microsoft outlined several new features, but one stood out to me: citations in Copilot responses.

Copilot can be a useful tool, but it has limits. If you've ever asked Copilot to handle a task that depends on current information, you've probably run into those limits. AI tools can also struggle when interpreting historical, legal, or highly specialized material.

Now, Microsoft Word can show its sources for specific Copilot answers. You can then click the source to confirm the information provided by Copilot.

"Citations in Copilot responses in Word let users see the sources behind Copilot’s answers. Users can view citations to relevant web and work content directly in the response," explains Microsoft.

"This provides greater transparency and helps users understand where Copilot’s information comes from."

Hallucinations are one problem, but AI tools can also misinterpret legitimate sources and present incorrect conclusions. In some cases, an AI tool can misread context and produce an incorrect response. I've had Copilot share the exact opposite of the truth before.

Citations with links allow you to check the source material and make sure Copilot understood the context of the source and extracted the correct information.

Windows Central take

I've found that Copilot (and other AI tools) can make up seemingly authentic sources of information. If you ever use the tool for meaningful work, you need to double-check original sources and assume Copilot will make mistakes.

Of course, that fact could be used to argue that you just should not use Copilot for work. But there's probably a middle ground where Copilot helps draft or gather information while a human verifies the final output.

In general chats with Copilot, you should ask for a source and press Copilot if it continues to speak in generalities. The new feature in Word simplifies that process and ensures that there's a verifiable source of content generated by Copilot.

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You can't say Microsoft isn't trying everything when it comes to AI, even rolling back some consumer pushes around its PC strategy.

Today during its Copilot event, Microsoft announced a major update to said Copilot, and after going through the material myself, it’s clear the company is aiming for something bigger than a simple AI upgrade.

In a surprise to no one, Copilot is becoming the center of the Microsoft 365 experience. Instead of living inside individual apps (yes, we're all tired of that), it now acts as a unified workspace that connects your documents, conversations, data, and tasks. This shift shows how Microsoft wants AI to feel natural for everyday users, not just enterprise customers (even though the latter will benefit the most).

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella set the tone for this direction in his keynote. He thanked the Frontier program participants and connected Copilot’s evolution to Microsoft’s long‑standing mission “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” He described this new era of AI as a continuation of that goal, shaped by two design principles. The first is keeping humans “in the flow of work,” and the second is helping organizations build systems that learn continuously. Nadella said the aim is to design AI so that people stay in control of their tools and use them to expand their own ambition and creativity.

He also talked about how Copilot reflects a deeper shift in how Microsoft thinks about intelligence. “AI has to be shaped in such a way that it’s working for your firm to create and retain more knowledge,” he explained. That idea of compounding human expertise is central to Copilot’s design. It treats intelligence as something that grows through use and collaboration. Nadella’s framing gives the new Copilot a clear purpose. It is meant to amplify human judgment through context, automation, and shared knowledge rather than replace it. Hearing him describe it this way makes the rest of the update feel more intentional and more connected to Microsoft’s long‑term strategy.

This brings us to the actual news with three new Copilot experiences called Home, Code, and Autopilot, each focused on a different part of work. Together they create a more complete picture of what Microsoft thinks productivity should look like in the AI era.

"Home", a place where work actually comes together

Home should be obvious. It's the new landing spot for Copilot. When you open it, you'll see your recent activity, suggestions for what to tackle next, and a clear view of the tasks Copilot can help with. It seems more like a dashboard than a chat window. You can do the usual AI stuff like asking Copilot to draft a document, summarize a meeting, or help prepare for a presentation, and everything stays connected across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams.

Microsoft is also improving how Copilot works inside those apps. PowerPoint keeps slides on brand automatically, Excel explains changes in plain language, and Word can refine a document while you collaborate with teammates. It seems to be more cohesive than before, and it makes Copilot feel like part of the workflow instead of a separate tool.

At least that's the goal here.

Home also includes a new feature called Today, which acts like a personal command center. It highlights missed emails, meetings, and tasks, and it helps you catch up quickly.

In typical Microsoft fashion, not everyone gets this on day one. Today enters private preview in October, and Microsoft plans to expand it across Outlook and Teams later this year.

"Code", a way to build without being a developer

Code is one of the most interesting additions, in my opinion. It uses the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, but it’s designed for anyone who wants to automate something or build a simple app without writing code. Basically, I can describe what I want in plain language, and Copilot creates it inside my Microsoft 365 environment.

The result might be a dashboard, a workflow, or a lightweight app that connects to live business data.

I think this is a smart move for Microsoft because it opens up automation to people who have never touched a line of code (including myself). Developers still get deep integration with GitHub Copilot, but everyday users get a way to create tools that fit their needs. Code runs in a secure sandbox, connects to Microsoft IQ for context, and syncs with the rest of the workspace.

Basically, as noted in the event, creating apps via Code feels the same as creating (and sharing) a Word document, which is certainly intriguing.

Code enters the Frontier program later this month, with broader availability "coming soon," likely before year's end.

"Autopilot", a teammate that keeps working

Autopilot, previously known as Scout, I believe, is the most ambitious part of the new Copilot. It acts like a digital teammate that manages ongoing work. I can give it a name, a role, and a goal, and it handles tasks like scheduling meetings, managing reviews, and keeping projects moving. It sounds very Meta Muse-ish, but it's better equipped for Microsoft customers, as it works across Teams, Outlook, and other apps, and it keeps going even when you are offline.

Autopilot has its own identity inside a Microsoft 365 tenant, which means it can participate in conversations, track decisions, and follow up on action items. It understands how an organization operates, and it uses that context to make smart choices.

This kind of automation could change how teams handle routine work, freeing people to focus on strategy and creativity instead of logistics.

A smarter foundation for everything

Diving into all the nitty-gritty enterprise jargon (forgive me), we can say that all of this is powered by Microsoft IQ, a unified intelligence layer that connects data, workflows, and context across the Microsoft ecosystem.

Basically, Copilot now understands not just your documents, but your business environment. With Fabric IQ and Work IQ, it can pull insights from Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and other systems, which helps break down silos and reduce the need to switch between apps.

Microsoft is also introducing a plugin registry that lets IT teams and developers extend Copilot with custom or partner-built integrations. It’s similar to an app ecosystem, but built for AI. This gives organizations more control and flexibility, and it helps Copilot adapt to different industries and workflows.

Since AI costs are becoming a real concern, Microsoft is adding FinOps for AI, a framework for managing and optimizing AI spending. Businesses can choose between fixed-cost subscriptions or usage-based billing. Copilot’s Auto mode selects the best option for each task based on accuracy, speed, and cost. It’s a practical way to keep AI powerful and predictable.

Why This Matters

After reading through everything, it’s clear that Microsoft is treating Copilot as the future of its productivity ecosystem. I think we've always known that was the goal here, but it's taken Microsoft a few iterations and market maturity for AI/LLMs to get to this next level, based on customer feedback.

The company is blending creativity, automation, and collaboration into one experience that feels more personal and more capable than before. For small businesses, this means the same AI that powers enterprise workflows will soon feel approachable and useful in everyday tasks. For Microsoft, it’s a strategic shift that positions Copilot as the centerpiece of its long-term vision, which, let's be honest, is the right move.

What about regular non-business consumers? Well, you'll get access to some or all of this based on your M365 Premium or Pro subscription. Whether you make use of it all depends on your goals.

We’ll see more of this at Microsoft Ignite in November, but even now, the direction is obvious. Copilot is becoming the place where work happens, and Microsoft is building the tools to make that feel natural for everyone.

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Microsoft plans to get rid of three Microsoft 365 companion apps before the end of the year. Calendar, People, and Files are all on the chopping block and set to be retired on December 16, 2026.

Calendar, People, and Files are apps that integrate with the taskbar on Windows 11 to allow quick access to certain tasks and pieces of information.

I'd forgive you for not knowing about the companion apps since they only shipped last year.

Microsoft outlined the three companion apps at the time and highlighted how the apps "enhance productivity" by providing quick access to information. Now, one year later, that productivity boost is going away.

It's interesting to compare the language Microsoft used to describe the apps when they were new and now as the apps approach retirement.

Microsoft's text from when the apps were new:

"Microsoft 365 companions are a suite of apps designed to enhance productivity by providing quick access to people, files, and calendar- powered by the Microsoft Graph, directly from the Windows 11 taskbar."

Microsoft's new text as the apps approach retirement:

"The companion apps were an additional way to find calendar information, people, and files. Removing them doesn't delete or affect any existing capabilities or Microsoft 365 data. You can continue finding the same information by using existing Microsoft 365 and Windows experiences."

It appears sometime over the last year the apps devolved from being ways to enhance productivity to additional ways to find information you can get elsewhere.

Microsoft recommends a mix of Outlook, Teams, Windows Search, File Explorer, SharePoint, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft tools to replace the three companion apps.

The three companion apps will stop working on or before December 16, 2026, so even if you have them installed on your PC, they will not work after the cutoff.

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Microsoft is having a bit of a rough September when it comes to bugs. Another issue has been discovered in Windows 11. This time, it's Excel's copy and paste feature that's been broken by an OS update.

That bug was discovered shortly after Microsoft confirmed issues with Hyper-V Linux folder shares, Remote Desktop, and USB audio. Those have since been fixed through an out-of-band update, but the Excel bug has not been fixed yet.

Here's what's wrong, according to Microsoft:

"In Microsoft Excel 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016, the paste operation might fail silently. Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected and the destination is unmodified. When this issue occurs, users receive no indication of the failure, such as a beep or error message. Microsoft is researching the issue and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available."

The September Patch Tuesday update has almost 1,000 security fixes, so it is important to install it on PCs. But it may be worth holding off a bit if your workflow would be hindered by lingering bugs.

I don't want to come across as a doomsayer. The sky is not falling because copy and paste in Excel is broken. But it's frustrating to see bugs creep into Windows 11 updates.

Microsoft is aware of negative feelings many users have toward Windows 11. The company has a Windows K2 initiative that aims to reduce pain points and improve the overall Windows 11 experience. Part of that initiative centers around improving Windows updates.

On paper, Microsoft is trying to reduce how many updates people need to install each month. But I've had to install several Windows 11 updates just in September, including the out-of-band update that fixed the audio issue.

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Microsoft Copilot will soon support Grok models from xAI. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint users in the Microsoft Frontier Program can test Grok models now, with general support expected to roll out in the future.

Grok models are being added to Microsoft's Online Services Subprocessor list. By offering different models as subprocessors, Microsoft can give customers access to those models without people having to switch away from the overall Copilot experience.

For example, Researcher Agent in Microsoft Copilot works with Claude AI models from Anthropic. Other Copilot experiences may use multiple AI models to complete tasks.

"Our multi-model strategy gives customers access to leading AI models while maintaining the trusted Copilot experience," said Microsoft in a Tech Community post.

For different models to appear as options, admins need to enable them through the settings of their respective organization.

During the testing period, Grok models will not be available in the European Union, European Free Trade Association, or the United Kingdom.

What is a subprocessor?

Subprocessors are third-party providers that help Microsoft deliver online services. Microsoft has an expansive list of subprocessors used for everything from powering data centers to completing tasks in Copilot.

Using Grok as a subprocessor helps Copilot tackle different tasks and provides redundancy that protects against outages or issues with other subprocessors. But users should not expect the witty or irreverent tone and style that Grok has become known for on X.

Subprocessors sit under Microsoft's system prompts and enterprise guardrails, so the generated responses will still be professional. Essentially, you get the benefit of Grok's multi-step logic and mathematical prowess but within Copilot.

Once an admin enables the integration, you can set Copilot in apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to automatically pick the best model for a task, or manually pick between GPT, Claude, or Grok directly from a drop-down menu in the interface.

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Switzerland's federal government wants to move away from any reliance on Microsoft 365, as it begins testing alternatives to replace the American-made software suite. It's a recurring theme of European countries pursuing digital sovereignty, as we saw earlier this year when the French government began dropping Windows 10/11 in favor of Linux-based operating system 'distros'.

Alternatives to Microsoft's long-standing 'Office' mainstays already exist, with 'Euro-Office', for example, advertising itself as a "sovereign solution for collaborative document editing", so finding potential picks presumably wouldn't be too difficult. However, choosing which app replacement to trust with the Swiss government's "most sensitive data" will be the hard part (via It's FOSS).

3,000 Swiss workstations will drop Microsoft 365

For my money, the most interesting part is the data protection reasoning, as Professor Matthias Stürmer at Bern University of Applied Sciences described his concerns about the implied risk of leaks from a system controlled by foreign governments. Stürmer predictably lists rising license costs as a secondary problem, but it's frontloaded by the move away from America's Microsoft.

For now, it's just a trial that could yield unsatisfactory results, ultimately leading the Swiss government to stick with Microsoft 365. Either way, the pilot is apparently expected to move 7% of federal admin staff and their 3,000 workstations to whichever alternative suites are selected, taking private government data with them.

On the other hand, Microsoft's own Sovereign Cloud already focuses on data sovereignty, so it's not as if the company isn't aware of these kinds of concerns. The platform "ensures customer data stays in Europe, under European Law — and encryption is under full control of customers," but that hasn't been enough to convince the governments of Germany, France, and now Switzerland.

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The Microsoft 365 Roadmap is gone. This week, the site was rebranded as the "AI at Work Roadmap." The baffling change raises questions about what's going on at Microsoft and why its leaders think they can label anything as AI.

The roadmap lets you track features and updates to a variety of apps and services from Microsoft. Microsoft justifies the name change by highlighting that the roadmap now includes features from Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Dataverse as well.

But the AI at Work Roadmap still details plans for thousands of features that have nothing to do with AI.

Neowin's Usama Jawad shared an editorial on Microsoft's latest rebrand already, and I'll echo some of the same thoughts. But some decisions are so astonishingly stupid that they require editorials from multiple outlets.

The name isn't even accurate

Microsoft is so eager to push AI that its decision makers have not even considered if the new name of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap is accurate. Yes, the roadmap includes AI features across the Microsoft 365 suite. It also now outlines changes to Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Dataverse.

But there are a massive number of features discussed in the roadmap that do not use AI in any way. Let's look at the entries that appear on the "AI at Work Roadmap" when filtered to list anything new or updated within the last week.

• Microsoft Teams: Coordinated meetings support on Teams Rooms on Android
• Outlook: Manage multiple inbox rules at once.
• Microsoft Teams: Hide organizer name in the calendar view on Teams Panels and MTR-A
• Microsoft Teams: Breakout room support on Teams Rooms on Android
• Microsoft Teams: Report a message or an external user for security concerns in Gov clouds.

As far as I can tell, none of those are AI features. Perhaps there's some AI-written code in there or AI working in the background, but I doubt anyone would refer to breakout rooms support as an AI feature.

Microsoft, what are we doing here? Have we reached a point of desperation so extreme that the option to hide an organizer name needs to fall under the AI umbrella? I suppose if every single feature to ever ship to Microsoft 365 is considered AI, that metrics measuring AI use will trend upward.

A history of bad branding

Microsoft already had an established brand name recognized around the world in "Office." But the tech giant decided to rebrand its productivity suite as Microsoft 365. While that decision drew criticism, it at least made sense because Microsoft 365 includes several pieces of software that are not Office apps.

In 2025, Microsoft announced the baffling decision to rebrand Microsoft 365 as "Microsoft 365 Copilot." Our Executive Editor Jez Corden took Microsoft to task for that, and rightly so:

"The rebrand of Microsoft Office was dumb to start with, trampling on a legacy spanning decades. The second rebrand attaching Copilot is even more dumb, and follows the Copilot+ PC thought process of firmly putting the cart several miles before the horse. Copilot hasn't earned the right to be showcased alongside [technological] cultural milestones like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word."

Microsoft went on a spree in which it renamed a bunch of services to include some form of Copilot. The company had so many types of Copilots that it had to merge Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

That obsession with Copilot begs another question: If Microsoft needs to rename the Microsoft 365 Roadmap to mention AI, why not call it the Microsoft 365 Copilot Roadmap? I'd still hate the change but at least it would be somewhat consistent.

The idea of slapping "AI" onto anything is still silly, but at least Microsoft would be reusing a name that appears elsewhere.

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Microsoft Outlook has a handful of changes in the works that will make it easier to stay on top of emails and events. Some of the upgrades, such as drag and drop support for rescheduling events, will change how you interact with Outlook, while others are smaller upgrades.

All of the improvements are detailed on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. I've taken five of the most exciting entries from that roadmap and gathered them in the chart below.

Being able to filter messages to only show those with calendar invitations will save me a lot of time. I get a lot of calendar invites from my wife to coordinate our schedules, but I also get a lot of emails from my wife about other things.

After finding those events, I'll be able to move them around in Outlook by dragging and dropping them. Since we have a young child, we often need to move things to different times of the day to align with naptime. I wish drag and drop support was on the way to the web version of Outlook as well, but the roadmap entry only mentions iOS and Android.

Which features would you like to see added to Outlook? Are there any improvements on the way that you're especially excited about? Let us know in the comments!

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AI isn't here to take your job, but it may let you skip a few meetings. The new Microsoft Teams Recap app brings together meeting recaps, recordings, transcripts, and AI summaries. That app just launched last month, and it was one of the biggest additions to Teams in July 2026.

The Recap app within Teams is more about gathering information that Teams already has than creating new content. Having a single hub means that you don't have to jump between chats or other parts of Teams to find all of your recaps.

Content from the last 30 days appears within the Recap app and all of it can be searched and browsed easily.

I joke about recaps letting you skip meetings, but they are genuinely useful. I'd argue that they're one of the best use cases for AI in everyday work. If you find your calendar full of meetings and events, it can be frustrating to keep track of the most important parts of each one.

The meeting Recap app is one of the key features highlighted in Microsoft's roundup of all the new Teams features from July.

Chat and Collaboration

Access Viva Engage communities in Teams 

Staying connected to your communities meant leaving Teams to check Viva Engage. Now you can open and interact with your organization's communities straight from the Teams left rail and get notified in Activity when something relevant happens.

Keyboard Shortcut Dialog has search functionality. 

Long shortcut lists are hard to scan when you just need one. The keyboard shortcut dialog now lets you search by shortcut name or by the key combination itself.

LinkedIn Hiring Assistant integration for Microsoft Teams 

Recruiting teams can now bring LinkedIn Hiring Assistant directly into Microsoft Teams to streamline candidate review and hiring manager collaboration. Recruiters can share candidates in Teams, collect structured feedback, and keep hiring decisions moving without requiring hiring managers to switch tools. The integration helps teams reduce feedback delays, improve alignment earlier in the hiring process, and collaborate where work is already happening. Available for LinkedIn Hiring Assistant customers. Learn more: Hiring Assistant for LinkedIn Recruiter & Jobs

Meetings

Meeting Recaps app 

Stop hunting through chats and calendars for the meeting notes you need. The Meeting Recaps app brings your intelligent recaps together in one convenient, pinned app in the Teams sidebar, making it easier to find and catch up across your meetings. Browse meetings with Recap from the past 30 days and use quick filters to instantly surface the meetings that matter most, like when you were mentioned in the discussion. You can also generate a podcast-style Audio Recap summary across multiple meetings so that you can conveniently catch up on the go.

Teams Phone

Queues app for Microsoft Teams in GCC High 

Government organizations need advanced collaborative call handling without leaving their compliance boundary. Now available in the GCC High environment, the Queues app brings advanced queue management, reporting, and supervisor tools directly into Teams, helping agencies deliver faster, more efficient service to constituents calling government offices and to internal customers, such as employees contacting an IT Help Desk. Queues app is available through Teams Premium. View the interactive Queues App demo for more details.

Teams Phone user multi-line on Teams Mobile (iOS) 

Juggling separate devices or accounts for different roles is a hassle. Teams Phone multi-line now works on Teams mobile iOS: admins can assign up to 10 numbers to one user, each appearing as its own tab, so you can stay organized across roles or regions from a single Teams account.

Speed dial on Teams mobile 

Finding the right person to call should not slow you down. A dedicated speed dial tab in Teams mobile now lets users more easily add, edit, and label key contacts by role or priority, with updates synced across devices for a consistent calling experience. For frontline workers such as nurses, that means reaching the right contact faster to help accelerate patient care.

Workplace - Places and Teams Rooms

AI-powered notes for in-person meetings with Facilitator in Teams Rooms on Android and Windows 

Avoid ending in-person meetings with no record of what was decided. In Teams Rooms on Android, the Facilitator agent captures notes, decisions, and actions for in-person meetings alongside scheduled and hybrid ones. Invite it with one tap of the room console; notes appear on the front of room display or touch board and are available in meeting recap when shared, then deleted if no one keeps them. Nothing stays in the room. Available with Teams Rooms Pro.

Bulk application of app settings to Teams Rooms on Android devices in the Pro Management portal

Configuring rooms one at a time eats up an IT Admins day. Admins can now apply Teams Rooms on Android app settings to multiple devices in bulk from the Pro Management portal. Available in Teams Rooms Pro.

Digital signage support for Teams panels 

Screens sitting dark outside meetings are a missed opportunity. Idle Teams panels can now display digital signage, just like Teams Rooms front of room displays, with source and settings managed in the Pro Management portal. Available with Teams Rooms Pro or Shared space licenses.

Human interpreter listening mode supported in Teams Rooms on Windows 

Multilingual meetings lose nuance when there's no live interpretation. Professional interpreters can now listen in and translate in real time in Teams Rooms on Windows, without disrupting the speaker. Organizers preset the languages, and participants choose and switch among them. Available with Teams Rooms Pro.

Teams Phone devices support for Interpreter (VoIP calls) 

Don’t let language barriers impact calls. With AI Interpreter, Teams Phone devices provide real‑time language interpretation directly within the call experience. Users can participate naturally in multilingual conversations while the device interprets spoken audio, reducing language barriers and supporting clearer communication in everyday calling scenarios.

Entra passwordless resource account support for Teams Rooms on Windows devices 

Shared room accounts with passwords are a security weak spot. Teams Rooms on Windows now support Entra resource accounts for secure, passwordless sign-in that separates device and user identities. A migration wizard and Pro Management portal dashboard make moving over and tracking progress straightforward.

Individual settings page with 2-way settings sync between device and the Pro management portal for Teams rooms on Android and panels 

Not knowing how a device is configured makes troubleshooting slow. A new individual settings page in the Pro Management portal shows how each Android-based device is set up, with two-way sync so changes flow between the device and the portal, for Teams Rooms on Android and panels.

Call quality feedback surveys for Teams Rooms on Android 

Organizations can't fix call quality problems they never hear about. Users can now rate calls and meetings and give feedback on audio, video, and screen-sharing in Teams Rooms on Android, helping your organization keep experiences consistent.

Join Google Meet meetings in Teams Rooms on Windows for GCC and GCC-H 

Cross-platform meetings shouldn't be off-limits for government organizations. GCC and GCC-High now get two-way Direct Guest Join between Google Meet and Teams: Teams Rooms on Windows can join Google Meet, and Google Meet devices can join Teams, with one-click join from the calendar or by meeting ID.

Fundamentals and Security

Choose how Teams on the web handles sign-in 

Teams on the web now honors a user's sign-in preference, giving them the choice to stay signed in across browser sessions or be prompted to sign in again when the browser is reopened. This helps balance convenience on personal devices with security on shared computers.

Platform

Improved request flows for apps and agents blocked by admins 

We're making it easier for users to request access to apps and agents that aren't currently available to them in Teams. A simplified and more transparent request experience helps users understand what action is needed, track the status of their requests, and receive updates when decisions are made. For admins, enhanced request management capabilities in Teams Admin Center and new request notifications make it easier to review and act on requests, helping organizations accelerate access to approved apps and agents.

Frontline Workers

Get Started Faster with Improved Onboarding  

First impressions matter, and the new onboarding experience makes day one in Shifts a breeze. The app adapts to who you are — frontline manager or worker — and surfaces the right next step exactly when you need it. Managers can now spin up a brand-new team and its first schedule in a single action. One-click access to help articles and clear guidance on permissions means no one hits a dead end. Whether it's your team's first day in Shifts or your hundredth, you'll be productive in moments.

Easily Restore Deleted Schedules 

Accidental deletions happen, but getting back on track should not slow your team down. With schedule restore, managers can quickly recover a previously deleted schedule right from the schedule creation flow. Simply choose the version you want to bring back, restore it in a few clicks, and pick up where you left off — no rebuilding from scratch, no lost momentum, and no extra support needed. It is a simple safety net that helps teams move confidently, even when plans change or mistakes happen.

Reach the right people and close the loop with Follow Up 

Frontline managers often spend too much time chasing updates across chats, messages, and meetings. With Follow Up in Frontline Agent, a manager can send a single Teams request, automatically collect responses by a set deadline, and review a consolidated summary in one place. This helps teams quickly confirm task completion, shift coverage, handoffs, compliance requirements, and operational readiness. Managers can also track responses, follow up with non-responders, edit requests, and add recipients, with support for up to 20 people per request.

Run hands-free inspections with voice-driven Site Walkthrough 

Site Walkthrough transforms inspections, audits, and compliance checks into a hands-free, voice-driven experience. Workers can start a walkthrough with or without a checklist, speak observations naturally, and let Frontline Agent capture and organize everything automatically. When complete, Frontline Agent generates a structured report, checks off completed tasks, flags follow-up items, and records timestamps for audits and compliance. This helps teams complete checklists faster, stay focused on their environment, and capture critical insights without manual data entry.

Experience Teams for Frontline with a new interactive demo 

Curious what Microsoft Teams looks like for frontline workers? The new Teams for Frontline demo experience lets you step into the shoes of a retail associate, nurse, or warehouse worker and explore a fully functional frontline environment in just one click. No purchase, trial, or sign-up required. Immerse yourself in the day-to-day experience of frontline work and see how Teams helps employees stay connected, manage schedules, and get work done with AI-powered assistance. Check it out at aka.ms/FLWdemo!

The Recap app is installed by default but is not pinned automatically. It started rolling out in early July, but that rollout has since finished so you should see the app in Teams.

A Microsoft 365 Message Center post details the Recap app (that message is archived by mc.merrill.net).

Some of the features, such as audio recap, video recap, and intelligent summaries require a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you don't have a license, you can still access content that you have permission to view.

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Microsoft will place another meeting feature behind a paywall. Outlook's Meeting Insight feature will be retired by early September 2026. After that date, meeting insights will not appear in event details and Outlook users will not see relevant files and emails brought up by Meeting Insight.

The replacement to Meeting Insight is the "Prepare for this meeting" experience. That feature summarizes relevant content for a meeting, such as tasks and documents.

According to Microsoft, the change is being made to "provide a more intelligent and context-aware meeting preparation experience." That may be true, but it comes with the side benefit to Microsoft of requiring a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Meeting Insight within Outlook did not require a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Microsoft detailed the change through the Microsoft 365 Message Center (archived here):

"Microsoft is retiring Outlook's Meeting Insights by early September 2026, replacing it with Microsoft 365 Copilot's meeting preparation features for licensed users. Meeting Insights will be removed across platforms, with no action required but recommended communication, documentation updates, and user training. No compliance issues noted."

Meeting Insight in Outlook and the "Prepare for this meeting" experience are somewhat similar, but I wouldn't call the switch a one-for-one swap. Meeting Insight brings up the actual files and emails related to a meeting. The "Prepare for this meeting" experience creates a summary of relevant content.

While summaries can be useful, they are not replacements for source material. That's even more the case if users already include summaries in relevant documents and emails.

Curbing Copilot

I thought Microsoft had seen the light when it came to Copilot. The company appeared to be shifting away from the term in some spaces, such as Copilot+ PCs. Several of the latest Windows laptops are not marketed as Copilot+ PCs even if they are.

Microsoft cancelled plans to ship several Copilot-branded AI features to Windows 11 earlier this year.

But the company's near obsession with Copilot still permeates through Microsoft 365, often behind a paywall. Back in April, Microsoft started requiring a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to use Copilot Chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Now, more functionality that was once free will require payment.

With Copilot, it always felt like Microsoft thought it had a good idea and decided to run with it everywhere. There are almost 80 distinct products labeled as Copilot, though that figure is in flux.

Heck, Microsoft had a Copilot OS in the works at one point, though it's not known if that was ever meant to see the light of day.

Now that Microsoft has thrown every type of Copilot against the wall to see what sticks, the company will start squeezing money from users where it can. Over time, I think we'll see more useful features moved behind paywalls and free equivalents removed or stripped down.

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It's hard to find AI optimists these days.

AI-adjacent stocks have taken a battering in recent months, with Oracle and Microsoft particularly hard hit. Microsoft's stock is down over 20% from last summer's highs, as investors increasingly worry that the firm has over-extended and misjudged the opportunities therein.

Wider questions remain about the future viability of the tech. Cheaper Chinese models are pressuring the big U.S. hyper-scalers to find new efficiencies and strategies, as firms like OpenAI, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anthropic struggle to justify their more optimistic valuations. Some of the more dire warnings suggest the rife circular investments and financing could implode, threatening not only the associated companies, but potentially the entire global economy.

Recently, I caught up with Ed Zitron, head of EZPR and the Better Offline Podcast, who has become a prominent journalistic voice in AI analysis. Zitron's industry-leading tech newsletter Where's Your Ed At has become a primary source for those navigating the complex (and shady?) financial deals these companies are weaving, cutting through the industry hype with an oft-times scathing dose of reality.

I asked Zitron specifically about Microsoft's bets in this space, as the hype train objectively begins to lose steam.

Microsoft occupies an odd space in the "AI race," if you can still call it that at this point. Why do you think Wall Street and the stock market are rewarding Google but punishing Microsoft this year?

"It’s because Microsoft is uniquely awful at having to prove its worth outside of financials, and is run by some of the most decrepit, disconnected, and directionless leadership I’ve seen in any company I’ve ever monitored.

Whenever this company has to beguile investors, it can usually just throw up big money numbers and raise the price on Microsoft Office. This time it made the mistake of actually spending cash — and man, did AI save its ass from humiliation by distracting from its Activision-Blizzard acquisition! — on something, and doing so in the loudest way possible, because saying “AI” and spending lots of money on AI was all it took to make people buy your stock.

Sadly, $200 billion or more in capex in, Satya Nadella doesn’t really have a compelling answer as to where this money is going. He mentioned on their last earnings that they’d hit a $37 billion run rate for AI - around $3 billion a month in revenue, with the vast majority of that being OpenAI’s compute spend — and it didn’t get anybody hot and heavy, so the stock has kept tanking."

"This is also because Azure has been a much bigger business than Google Cloud.

Sundar Pichai is also better at the financial tricks than Satya Nadella, and worked out a way to make circular financing more conspicuous, selling Anthropic its own chips and then getting those chips put in Google data centers so that it can get the revenue from Anthropic, who it funds, buying compute. That huge bump in remaining performance obligations was, to be clear, mostly from circular financing.

I have no idea why Satya didn’t do this with OpenAI’s spend, and I have to wonder if he doesn’t start being really blunt about how much it’s boosting Azure revenue, even though that’ll probably work to his detriment.

Anyway, Google Cloud is a younger and smaller business and thus much easier to show explosive growth in. Satya is also not very good at marketing."

Do you think Microsoft will realistically see any long-term return on investment from its data center build out? Have they completely misjudged the potential?

"So, this depends on your definition of “ROI.” I think that, long-term, this will be seen as a disastrous, horrifying misallocation of capital, the kind of thing that will potentially get Satya Nadella fired.

In the short-term, Nadella got “ROI” out of AI in that it kept Microsoft interesting, and OpenAI’s compute spend buoyed Azure’s revenues without them ever having to disclose AI’s actual contribution. It was a shiny object to show investors, which gave them a vague sense of growth.

This was always a gamble, and because Microsoft started the era, it will inevitably be harmed the most by it.

No, I do not see any ROI at scale. Microsoft has spent over $200 billion on AI capex and will probably spend anywhere from $300 to $400 billion if it continues its pace past this year. It will need to make more than $500 billion in brand, spanking new revenue, in a very conspicuous way, to make any of this feel worthwhile."

"The problem they face is that the longer this goes on, the less incremental it can be. Showing modest growth in Intelligent Cloud and Business & Productivity isn’t going to make this problem go away.

The other is that the clock starts the second they stop spending on capex, and that includes a cut of anything more than 30%. Maybe they try and spread it out, but at some point they’re gonna have to stop, because this is a ludicrous expense.

But once they do, the street will start asking them to prove that they didn’t just nuke hundreds of billions of dollars and take on a bunch of debt for no reason.

I will say this: Amy Hood is very good at her job, and likely the only reason Satya Nadella hasn’t blown up the entire company."

Microsoft's early investment in OpenAI was initially hailed. In your research, how has that partnership panned out? Reporting suggests it hasn't gone well …

"At first, OpenAI must have seemed like the best thing that happened to Microsoft since it won that antitrust trial because the judge talked to the media. It was the single-most buzzy company in the world, and it had to spend money on Azure.

Satya Nadella could say that he had backed the next big tech titan, all while capturing the entirety of its value and cloud spend. The original deal - owning all the IP, making Azure their only cloud provider, all that stuff was a masterstroke.

Except it’s very obvious that something went sour there in 2024 or early 2025, likely when OpenAI demanded Microsoft build more compute than it wanted to. It must have also become clear that owning all of OpenAI’s IP and models and being able to power their services with it wasn’t actually helping Microsoft enough to justify the capex, so they got desperate and bought Mustafa Suleyman’s crappy little company so he’d bring that DeepMind magic to Microsoft."

"Also, Sam Altman very clearly started making demands that were effectively “change the agreement to our benefit for no apparent reason,” and Microsoft embarrassed themselves making any concessions for him. I think that Satya had assumed he had full control of Altman, and when that wasn’t apparent, I think it weakened both his and Microsoft’s position.

And, if I’m honest, Microsoft has embarrassed itself with AI - substandard models, lots of noise but not a lot of actual stuff, running GitHub Copilot at a massive loss for several years, then turning on token-based billing and creating a bunch of bad blood for no measurable gain?

The partnership was great when Satya had control, and the moment he let Altman buy compute from other companies was the moment he lost it, even though it was absolutely the right thing to do."

Windows users have backlashed pretty hard against some of Microsoft's AI products, including things like random Copilot buttons and Windows Recall. Do you see Microsoft finding any realistically good and viable uses for LLMs?

"Nope! I don’t remember the last time that Microsoft made anything that was both new and good, and every “idea” that Microsoft has is literally somebody else’s! Copilot Cowork is Claude Cowork, GitHub CLI is Claude Code, Scout is Codex or some other agentic crap; it’s all the same thing in the glossy Microsoft wrapper that used to mean “good but expensive” but now means “weird and sterile.”

This is not a product company, and the only thing they seem to be able to do with talent is lay it off. Nobody wants anything they’re selling other than for the products they like to work like they used to. If I surveyed 100 people about what they’d change about Microsoft, I bet at least 30% of them would say “remove Copilot.”

For that to change would require Microsoft to make a completely different product."

What do you think the AI landscape will look like in 5 years, if you had to predict?

"These are all guesses, and I can’t append them to any time period. I’m pulling them out of thin air — I can’t see the future! Nobody can! These are things that could happen far more than they are for sure events.

1. LLMs are gone from the cloud other than for obscure GCP/Azure/AWS instances with AI GPUs for people doing very specific things, all of which cost way too much to do regularly.

Whatever LLMs survive are a boring on-device situation you run on a $100k workstation, and that’s not very common because they’re pretty expensive. That being said, this might also be what happens to the large amounts of GPUs that are left for dead after the bubble pops.

2. Eventually, the big labs have to start doing aggressive cost cuts, which up usage but up costs, or cost increases, which destroys usage. Either way, growth is slowing because of token-minimizing, and it’ll accelerate and eventually break the companies."

"OpenAI dies or gets absorbed into Microsoft, who jacks up the prices and unwinds the business. The same happens to Anthropic, which likely becomes a much smaller company that’s effectively a subsidiary of Google and Amazon.

3. Microsoft does a $5bn-$10bn write-down of GPUs and Nadella is booted in favor of Amy Hood. Maybe more!

4. The software industry enters a prolonged depression within the next few years because growth starts to stumble in one of the major hyperscalers. Remember: Anthropic and OpenAI are currently boosting the revenues of Microsoft, Google and Amazon, to a level that I really should look into!

5. NVIDIA’s revenues eventually return to the 2023 era, single-digit billions of dollars annually. I also expect some sort of write-down on their side too."

A huge thanks to Ed Zitron — now it's your turn

Thanks a ton to Ed Zitron for joining us on this piece. Be sure to check out Ed Zitron's podcast and newsletters here; both are full of incredible research and insights into the AI biz more recently, but also tech in general.

Often when I'm writing about AI, I feel like the big players are gaslighting me into believing that the tech is good enough to solve all of humanity's problems, if we'll just hang on and accept a little bit more (a lot more) compute. While it seems AI does have a role to play in parsing large quantities of data and tracking anomalies humans might miss, the "hyperscale" opportunities increasingly seem far-fetched and vague as we head through the current cycle.

Where it all ends up remains anyone's best guess. Perhaps some kind of incredible breakthrough will give AI the nuance and accuracy it needs to actually be a viable general-purpose assistant — rather than an expensive mimicry and content theft machine.

Perhaps its pairing with robotics will enable real opportunities that have so far eluded the big corps. Or perhaps the simple truth is: there's no real room for optimism here. Perhaps we've all been conned by something that seems suspiciously capable on the surface, until you actually put it to any form of real work.

What do you think? Hit the comments, let's talk.

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Microsoft Forms just got a major upgrade thanks to Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot chat now lives within Microsoft Forms, adding a familiar tool to those who use AI in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Copilot in Microsoft Forms can suggest improvements to your polls and forms and present insights from responses.

The Copilot integration is available now to users with Microsoft 365 commercial Copilot licenses.

Microsoft listed all the changes to Forms in a blog post:

• Smarter suggestions & refinements: Get targeted recommendations to improve your form’s structure, clarity, and effectiveness. Copilot can also apply refinements directly to the form, so you can save time making edits – just describe what you want, and watch Copilot make it happen.
• Deeper analysis: Copilot can now analyze your results in-depth to provide clear insights and actionable takeaways for you and your team. You can even ask follow-up questions to help parse and summarize your data and unlock your next step.
• More settings: Review and update form settings with ease, such as applying custom thank-you messages and close dates, so your form is ready to send. You can also adjust question settings in bulk, such as making questions required.
• Open-ended chat: Copilot chat gives you access to a broad world of capabilities, whether you’re seeking inspiration on survey topics or consulting on how to configure your form – the possibilities are broad with Copilot at your fingertips.
• Basic branching: Apply basic branching logic directly through the agent. (Note that some complex scenarios are not yet supported, and you should continue to review your branching logic prior to sending your forms.)

I use Microsoft Forms to gather feedback from my American football team. I admit that I first tried it because my job centers around knowing Microsoft products. But after using Microsoft Forms for a while, I grew to prefer it over Google Forms.

Microsoft Forms can sync with Excel documents, making it much easier to stay on top of responses. I'm deeply entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem, so anything that works seamlessly with the rest of my workflow gets bonus points in my book.

I also prefer some of the features of Microsoft Forms, such as question-level branching. That feature makes filling out forms feel smoother when a poll includes branching questions because it keeps you on the same page.

The layout of Microsoft Forms also presents results quicker because if you want to look at a chart, you don't need to open a separate spreadsheet.

The new Copilot experience in Forms could also be a boon to the platform, though I'll have to see it in action to judge. In my experience, Copilot as a general tool is good at suggesting improvements, performing bulk edits, and creating summaries, so it should thrive within Microsoft Forms.

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Two of the best Microsoft 365 deals of the year just dropped, but they're only available for a limited time. Right now, Microsoft 365 Personal is discounted to $59.99 and Microsoft 365 Family has been slashed to $89.99. Both deals get you 12 months of access.

If you know you need a Microsoft 365 subscription, stop reading and just see if the deals below are still live. Woot discounts run out of stock quickly, especially when they're on a popular software suite like Microsoft 365.

Why subscribe to Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is a massive software suite with several must-have programs. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are perhaps the best known, but a subscription also comes with 1TB of OneDrive storage per user.

Microsoft 365 subscribers also get access to extras like Microsoft Defender for security, Microsoft Editor, and premium tools in Clipchamp for video editing.

I've subscribed to Microsoft 365 since it launched, and had an Office 365 subscription before the suite was rebranded over a decade ago.

For years, Microsoft kept the price of Microsoft 365 Personal (was $69.99) and Microsoft 365 Family (was $99.99) the same. That changed when prices increased at the beginning of last year.

At the time, that price increase was met with severe pushback. But considering the state of the global economy right now, maybe we judged Microsoft too harshly.

The temporary discounts through Woot cut through all of that and slash Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family to prices that would be discounts back in 2014.

FAQ

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Microsoft rolled out a bunch of new features for Microsoft Teams in June. Calls, meetings, and Teams Rooms have all received updates. As usual, Microsoft gathered together all the new features in a blog post.

Here are the highlights from June, though the item missing from this list is more interesting than anything listed in the blog post:

• New calling agents
• Brand impersonation protection
• Redesigned in-meeting controls
• Bot detection
• Facilitator in Teams Rooms
• IntelliFrame people labels

Interestingly, Microsoft did not mention the controversial feature in Teams that allows your boss to see where you are when connected to Wi-Fi networks at work.

That feature drew criticism when first announced. Microsoft offered clarification and delayed the rollout, but "workplace check-in via Wi-Fi" is now generally available. The feature was previously known as "Automatic Update of work location."

I'm not sure why the feature was omitted from the post recapping everything that shipped to Teams in June. I thought I may have had my dates mixed up, but the Teams blog post from June 12, 2026 states (emphasis added):

"We’re introducing workplace check-in via Wi-Fi for Microsoft Places and Teams, designed to help employees coordinate in-person work by keeping their workplace location up to date when they’re in the office."

Based on Microsoft's phrasing, it seems like Automatic Update of work location should be included in the roundup.

My favorite new Microsoft Teams features 💬

Advanced file discovery and filters are the biggest addition to Teams for my workflow. The improved contextual search in Teams indexes every file uploaded to a channel. You can then filter for file type, sender, and date within a channel.

Slack has similar functionality and I use it often. I'm happy to see improved filters and file searching in Teams.

I also love the new Quick Share option in Teams. Sharing options can be accessed by hovering, right-clicking, using overflow menus, and using shared tabs. The fact that OneDrive and SharePoint content shared through Quick Share retains permissions helps ensure privacy.

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Late yesterday, the United States Department of Defense announced a new agreement with Microsoft and Dell, aimed at consolidating and streamlining Microsoft software licenses across a huge variety of services and systems.

If you've ever worked in a big government department or corporation, you might know how complicated IT policies can be. Furthermore, you might be aware of how, over time, interweaving systems can become tangled and messy, as decades of technical debt accumulate and pile up. We might all be up to date running the latest version of Windows 11 at home, but your local airport, hospital, or bank might still be rocking Windows 7, or even older in some cases.

Few governmental departments are as complicated as the United States military apparatus. And Microsoft has long held contracts within the famed Pentagon for delivering things like Windows, Microsoft Office, and cloud services. Over time, the disparate cacophony of different provisions, license models, and service level agreements has become a tangled web of needless complexity and ongoing maintenance requirements. The Pentagon is taking action to cut costs, at least in theory.

The U.S. DoD announced that over the next five years, Dell will be tasked with consolidating and streamlining Microsoft services and software spread across the U.S. military apparatus, including its intelligence services and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Pentagon (via CNBC) says the deal will save U.S. taxpayers $422 million annually, despite the $9.7 billion upfront cost of the cleanup operation.

Dell has a long-standing partnership with Microsoft, as one of the largest PC makers on Earth and third-party suppliers of Microsoft services and licenses. Despite the contract ultimately going to Dell, it still further entrenches Microsoft in the United States government as its primary software and cloud provider.

Dubbed the "Microsoft Department of War Enterprise Software Agreement II Core Enterprise Technology Agreement," the funds reportedly come from existing budgets already allocated for Microsoft software purchases, covering Office suite and Azure servers and things like Active Directory. The goal is to centralize software purchasing into a single, more efficient vehicle, as opposed to the existing system of disparate and conflicting processes.

Dell stock reached an all-time high in after-hours trading on the news, hitting $305. Dell's stock price has risen by 129% in just six months, and follows comments from U.S. President Trump urging people to "go and buy a Dell," alongside Michael Dell's $6.5 billion donation to a Trump-backed charity investment fund for American children.

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Microsoft is making it easier to access Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps. But instead of adding a bunch of ways to access the AI assistant, Microsoft is giving users just two options.

The two main ways to access Copilot will be an icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen and through a contextual entry point like selecting text.

The streamlined approach keeps Copilot consistent across apps.

Copilot will also offer proactive suggestions from the Copilot button. Those actions will be accessible through keyboard shortcuts or hovering your cursor over the Copilot icon.

"Before you know it, Copilot will be editing your content directly from conversation," promises Microsoft in a Tech Community post.

Microsoft also updated the keyboard shortcuts that open the Copilot pane. Rather than having to press Alt + H, F, or X to open it, you can press F6. That shortcut moves focus to the Copilot button. You can then use the up arrow to navigate between suggestions.

Copilot shortcuts are being unified across Microsoft 365 apps, though the change is only rolling out to Outlook and Word at the moment. Eventually, the Microsoft 365 apps will support the below shortcuts.

People will have to wait a bit to use the Alt + C and Cmd + Control + I shortcuts in all Microsoft 365 apps. But the new Copilot button and other shortcuts are rolling out to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and will become generally available in June.

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Microsoft Teams supports real-time collaboration and communication with its messaging and video conferencing features for meetings, file and app sharing, and more. Microsoft usually does a great job at keeping the platform up-to-date with sophisticated features designed to make communication seamless.

However, it's hard to ignore the users lodging complaints about the app's presence feature. For context, it's designed to let other people in your organization know your availability: Available, Busy, In a meeting, In a call, Do not disturb, Be right back, Away, and Offline.

Over the past few days, users have complained about how Teams' presence works, with some claiming that the status indicator will change from green to yellow after barely a few minutes of inactivity. Green means you're available for work, while yellow means you're away.

As a result, you need to go back and forth to the platform to avoid instances where it mistakenly marks your availability at your workplace as Away. Otherwise, a more permanent Out of Office status can automatically be set if you enable automatic replies: "If the user is using Teams during these periods of time, the user's presence is shown alongside the Out of Office indicator," Microsoft added.

Technically, this shouldn't be a big deal as long as you're still working. These kinds of collaboration tools are often susceptible to downtimes anyway, which can impact productivity significantly.

This opens up another discussion about an overreliance by organizations on collaboration tools, but that's a story for another day.

A quick look at the r/remotework subreddit on Reddit reveals that some bosses have seemingly turned into the Teams Status Police, constantly checking employees' availability.

"Microsoft Teams is the worst way to track someone! It changes your status to Away after just 5 minutes of no mouse movement, even if you are deep in work," another user lamented. "This hurts focus for millions of remote workers every day."

"Look away from your laptop for 1 second and MS Teams will say u left the country," another user joked.

"Teams sees you step away for water and immediately files a missing persons report," the jokes keep writing themselves. "Two minutes is insane… like sorry I blinked, and suddenly I’m “away”?" another user complained. "At that point, it’s not a status indicator, it’s a surveillance tool with trust issues."

I've reached out to Microsoft for a comment about the topic, and I'll update this post once more information is available. Elsewhere, Teams was on the spot again, specifically about its "Automatic Update of work location" feature, which was misconstrued as a micromanagement and employee surveillance tool.

However, Microsoft dismissed the claims, revealing that the tool is designed to foster collaboration. "Work location is an extension of the online-presence signal in Microsoft Teams and of the working hours control in the Microsoft 365 calendar," Microsoft clarified. "By bringing together working hours, work location, and online presence, users can more easily find out where their coworkers are working from in addition to whether they're available to connect."

More recently, Salesforce and Slack filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the company of anticompetitive practices over bundling Teams with its Office suite.

Have you had a similar experience with Teams' status indicator? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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On April 23, Salesforce and Slack filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in London’s High Court, accusing the company of anticompetitive practices related to its Microsoft Teams app.

Speaking to Reuters, a Salesforce spokesperson indicated that "Microsoft's practices harmed ⁠competition, using tying and bundling of Teams to ​limit customer choice."

Per Salesforce's lawsuit, Microsoft bundling Teams with its Office suite is described as a calculated move designed to limit customer choice and restrict fair competition in the workplace collaboration market.

A Microsoft spokesperson dismissed Salesforce's claims, further indicating that the antitrust case against it lacked merit:

"Salesforce’s complaint lacks merit, and we’ll make our case before the Court in due course. Slack's lackluster growth, compared to Zoom and Teams, was based on inferior capabilities when COVID-19 hit in ​2020, and had nothing to do with Microsoft." (via Salesforce Ben)

This isn’t the first time Salesforce has raised concerns about Microsoft’s business practices. Back in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of abusing its market dominance by bundling Teams with its Office suite to stifle competition.

The complain further alleged that millions were forced to install Microsoft Teams without the ability to remove it. However, Microsoft dismissed the allegations, arguing that Slack’s struggles originated from its lack of integrated video‑conferencing features rather than any anticompetitive behavior.

But Microsoft caved to antitrust regulatory pressure, making some changes...

In 2025, Microsoft unbundled Teams from Office 365 in an attempt to dodge EU antitrust fines. For context, the European Commission launched a formal investigation into Microsoft for bundling Teams with Office 365 in 2023.

Microsoft made several commitments to the European Commission, including drastic changes in pricing for its core services. For context, it committed to offering Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams at a lower cost, at around $2.20 (€2) less per user each month. As such, it started offering Teams as a standalone service for about $5.50 (€5) per user per month.

The tech giant also committed to improving how Teams works with competing platforms, making it easier for rival apps to integrate with Teams and other Microsoft services.

This is a developing story. I'll keep tabs on it as it unfolds and equally keep updated as new information becomes available.

Elsewhere, Microsoft is also facing a separate class‑action lawsuit, alleging that it set wholesale prices for Windows Server software higher on rival cloud platforms than on its own Azure service.

Do you think Microsoft is engaging in anticompetitive business practices by bundling Teams with its Office suite? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Salesforce and Slack just filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over anticompetitive business practices, specifically bundling Teams with Office. However, Microsoft dismissed the antitrust claims, citing that Slack's "lackluster growth" is centered on a lack of video-conferencing support, further indicating that it has nothing to do with Microsoft.

And now, Microsoft appears to be using a clever new way to get Teams users to subscribe to the long-established Teams Premium plan. It's an add-on license that allows organizations with Microsoft 365 subscriptions to enhance their user experience on the platform with extra features, including more personalized and intelligent meetings, enhanced protection, and more.

Now, Microsoft has integrated a prompt to buy Teams Premium in the app's title bar. For context, the Teams title bar, which features the three-dot menu where you'd ordinarily access settings like pinning, feedback, and even zoom level, now includes a new option to unlock Teams Premium (via Neowin).

The title bar usually goes unnoticed, but Microsoft’s new “Unlock Premium” banner beside the three‑dot menu has made it far more conspicuous, sparking controversy and backlash over the company’s design choices. According to Neowin, clicking on the option triggers a pop‑up showcasing its benefits. Users are also offered a 60‑day trial that doesn’t require a credit card.

Users have strongly expressed their thoughts about the recent change, saying "STOP ALL POP UPS AND DISTRACTIONS." Others have implied that, "This is just bad UX that leads to mistrust. Most importantly, this advertisement makes settings very hard to discover - who would think to click "unlock premium" if they want to change notification settings?"

Many have expressed their reservations about the change because it's often not within their purview within a business environment to make the change and unlock Teams Premium. Instead, it requires management or IT privileges to enable the add-on license. According to one frustrated user:

"As everyone else has said, the majority of us are not in a position within our organization to authorize a premium subscription, so please remove it from the interface/allow it to be dismissed. It makes it difficult to find teams settings, because the "..." menu is attached to the unlock premium button. Delete delete delete."

Microsoft was already accused by Mozilla of using "dark patterns" and deceptive tactics to force services like Copilot on Windows 11 users. It'll be interesting to see how the company handles more user enterprise-level complaints about this largely unwanted change in Teams.

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Microsoft 365 and Outlook are down. Microsoft confirmed the outage today and has shared a couple of updates on the official Microsoft 365 Status account on X.

Downdetector also shows a spike in outages and issues that began around 4:50 AM ET. Outlook, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft web experiences all seem to be affected.

It's not clear at this time how widespread the outages are or how many people are experiencing issues.

The timing of the issues is poor, since many are starting their work at the moment and are unable to use essential services such as Teams or Outlook.

Below are the most recent X posts about the outage, including an update clarify that things are improving and that Microsoft is monitoring the situation to "ensure the service fully recovers."

This is an ongoing news story and we will update this piece as more information becomes available. Microsoft also has a status page that is updated regularly.

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Much has been made of Windows 11 coming along with hardware requirements that leave many, many older laptops out in the cold. But not being able to upgrade to Windows 11 doesn't have to mean you need to toss a perfectly usable piece of hardware on the giant e-waste pile.

Did you know that you can recycle your old laptop or desktop PC into a fully functional home server that could also help you reduce how much you're spending on subscriptions to cloud-based services?

Anyone can do this, and while you'll be ditching Windows, there are countless resources online to help you get where you need to be. A good starting point would be to set up Debian Linux on your machine for some of these projects.

Before you begin...

A few things to point out before we go any further.

Firstly, this isn't a comprehensive guide to setting up these projects. Merely suggestions on things you could do.

The other thing that needs to be remembered is that there are good and bad points to recycling an old laptop in this way. On one hand, you have a built-in UPS thanks to the battery; you have ports to connect drives to; and of course, a built-in display, mouse, and keyboard for accessing and troubleshooting your setup.

With a battery, though, comes the inevitability that batteries will go bad over time, and keeping one plugged in, charging 24/7, isn't advisable. So perhaps if you are using a laptop, consider shutting it down at night when you don't need it or, if you can, limiting how much the battery is charged.

With that out of the way, let's have a look at some fun projects you can reuse an old Windows PC or laptop for, with the added bonus of perhaps reducing your reliance (and spending) on cloud services.

1. Replace Microsoft 365 with Nextcloud

Nextcloud is a fantastic piece of software if you live inside the Microsoft 365 environment, but would love to not pay for it and have all your data under your own control.

There could be an entire article on what you can do with Nextcloud, but at its core, it's a self-hosted office suite where you can store files, create documents, get your email, host video calls, organize photos, keep your daily notes and to-do lists, and so much more.

Community-created plugins further expand what Nextcloud can do for you, and with apps for Android or iOS, you can access your files from any of your devices.

The whole point of Nextcloud is to create your own personal, private cloud. There are several ways to get set up, and you can find out everything you need to know from the Nextcloud website.

2. Home media server with Plex or Jellyfin

A home media server is the obvious choice, especially for reusing an old laptop since you don't need to run it 24/7. It also makes a ton of sense in the age of multiple different streaming services, and said streaming services continually losing content.

Plex and Jellyfin are but two options, but they're both popular for their own reasons and both really easy to use. In essence, you run the server from your computer, point it at a location that's hosting your media files, be it on the same device, another PC, or a NAS, and then watch said content on your PC, TV, smartphone, or tablet.

The most time-consuming aspect is collating the media. But you can easily rip your collection of Blu-ray and DVD discs and digitize them to view through Plex or Jellyfin.

It's worth it in the end, though, because nobody can take away your favorite movies and shows if you have a local copy. Why rely on Netflix when you can build your own?

3. Network-wide adblocking with Pi-hole or Adguard Home

I wouldn't recommend using an old laptop solely for the purpose of creating a network-wide adblocker. A Raspberry Pi is a far more efficient way of doing that.

But, if you're dabbling with projects and creating a little home server, then setting up Pi-hole or AdGuard Home is something easy to do.

Both have their fans, and I've used both, but I personally lean more towards AdGuard Home, as it's always felt a little more beginner-friendly. In essence, both of these act as a DNS server that will intercept ads on any device you point at it.

There are limitations to exactly what can be blocked, so don't expect a magic wand, but both are highly customizable. Find out more about Pi-hole and AdGuard Home at their respective GitHub repos.

4. Build your own NAS to back up your files

Nextcloud is a decent way to share files, but that's not what it's built for. If you've ever wondered if you really need a NAS in your life, you can recycle an old PC and just build one yourself.

Why even bother? How much are you spending on cloud storage every month? Do you really need to if you can build your own solution?

A couple of platforms you could try are TrueNAS and OpenMediaVault, both of which are installed as an OS rather than on top of something else. But both are capable of turning your old PC into a NAS to use at home.

Whether it's your media library, backing up photos, or just a place to store your files, you don't necessarily need to buy a NAS to have one if you already have an old PC lying around.

5. Host your own password manager

If you're paying for a password manager such as 1Password, have you considered that you could host it yourself?

One increasingly popular way to do this is using VaultWarden, an open-source, self-hosted tool that is compatible with BitWarden apps and browser extensions.

Everyone should use a password manager, and it should be secure, but that also doesn't mean you have to pay for it. Maybe hosting your own is a better idea?

You'll still get the same end result but without paying, and you have total control over some of your most sensitive data.

There are countless different things you can do with an old laptop to give it a second life, and these are just some suggestions that might set you on the right path.

Other useful places to check out are r/homelab, which is stacked with enthusiasts for this type of thing, and of course, YouTube. Building a server at home is becoming more and more popular, and there are so many resources at your disposal.

This video by YouTuber Tech by Matt is also worth a watch if you're thinking of reusing your old laptop in this way. He takes a slightly different approach, but it's an extensive walkthrough that you could find helpful.

If you've done something similar to this already, be sure to share your own tips and tricks in the comments below!

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Microsoft Teams has a slew of new features to improve communication and reduce clutter. Clearing your notifications, finding unfinished drafts, and entering text in messages are all easier thanks to the latest batch of updates to Teams.

As always, Microsoft broke down all the new features and Teams devices in an extensive blog post, so I'll highlight the biggest changes following a quick list of everything that's new.

What's new in Microsoft Teams in March 2026

• View and manage activity in other accounts and organizations
• Enhanced organization chart in profile card
• Easily find unsent drafts
• Live meeting indicator for threaded channels in Teams
• Simplified controls for managing external collaboration in Teams
• Teams image viewer improvements
• Control the Enter key in Teams chat
• Keyboard shortcut to mark all as read in Teams chats and channels
• Teams Action in Spotlight on Mac
• Share files and Loop components in external chats
• Annotations on single shared window during meetings
• Audio Recap — Expanded Language Support
• Copilot in Teams Phone live calls, powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
• Voice and face profile enrollment dashboard for admins
• Teams shared display mode and peripheral detection available for GCC-H
• Stay Available When You're Active: Accurate Presence in Teams on the Web
• EXIF data will be removed from images shared on Teams
• New Workflows app experience in Teams

Clearing notifications in Microsoft Teams

If you're in a bunch of Teams chats and channels, you're likely used to a cluttered feed of unread notifications. Some notifications are important, but others can be brushed off or cleared away since you caught up elsewhere.

A new shortcut in Microsoft Teams lets you mark all Teams chat and channel messages as read by pressing SHIFT + ESC.

Control the Enter key in Microsoft Teams

It only took a decade, but Microsoft finally lets you choose how the Enter key behaves. You can now toggle between sending a message or starting a new line in the settings.

It's a small change that should reduce how many messages are sent accidentally.

If you set Teams to start a new line when you press enter, you can still send a message with a keyboard shortcut by pressing CTRL + ENTER or CMD + ENTER depending on if you're on Windows or macOS.

Finding drafts in Microsoft Teams

You no longer have to dig through chats to find unsent drafts in Microsoft Teams. The app now gathers all your drafts into a single location, making it easier to follow up and finish messages.

Best new Microsoft Teams features 💬

Since I work remotely, I appreciate, and loathe, a crowded inbox. I also hate digging through chats and channels to find unsent messages. The latest changes to Microsoft Teams ease those pain points for those on the platform.

Microsoft also released a bunch of other features last month. I'm curious to see if any of those stand out more than the ones I highlighted above. Let me know about your favorite new Microsoft Teams feature in the comments.

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Microsoft is actively hiring to improve the user experience for consumers, including changes to Microsoft 365 and Windows 11. For example, Microsoft's Rudy Huyn shared last week that he's building a new team to improve Windows apps.

And now, Omar Shahine, known for product reviews and artificial intelligence newsletters, has been hired by Microsoft. In the post on X announcing the new job, Shahine indicated that he'll mainly focus on bringing OpenClaw and personal AI agents to Microsoft 365.

He explains that he plans to usher in a new generation of proactive workplace assistants, designed to help users get work done more effectively and efficiently and "lighten your load by taking on tasks end-to-end."

"As part of this mission, I’ll be partnering with the OpenClaw and M365 community to bring the energy of this work to our customers," added Shahine. "We’ve already hit the ground running with a fully integrated Teams plugin for OpenClaw, and I can’t wait to help usher in the era of personal agents at work."

Is more AI in Microsoft 365 a good idea?

While Microsoft announced plans to end the dreaded "microslop" in Windows 11 by reducing where Copilot and its integrations appear across the operating system, it doesn't seem like the exact same principles will apply across its entire stack, especially Microsoft 365.

This week, Microsoft announced that "Copilot Cowork" is now available via its Frontier program, making it an opt-in experience for Microsoft 365 users before it ships to broad availability.

That said, I'd argue that Copilot Cowork is a clear attempt by Microsoft to deliver more value to its new 365 E7 AI subscription tier for $99/user/month. Investors have raised concerns about the tech giant's exorbitant spending on AI and infrastructure (and its planning to spend an additional $146 billion in 2026) as it could be well on its way to the worst quarter since the 2008 financial crisis.

Despite Microsoft's massive investment in AI, only 3.3% of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 users who interact with Copilot actually pay for it. However, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella insists Copilot's daily user base has grown “nearly 3x year-over-year.”

Perhaps more concerningly, some investors have openly voiced concerns that AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic could potentially develop AI agents that could one day replace established productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 for free.

Just like Clawdbot, OpenClaw is a personal AI assistant that leans heavily on large language models (LLMs) to handle tasks such as clearing your inbox, sending emails, managing your calendar, and checking you in for flights.

At the beginning of the year, Clawdbot burst onto the scene, touted as a productivity booster in corporate settings. However, there were critical security concerns and complaints lodged by users, indicating that it's prone to malicious prompt injections and other vulnerabilities.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft will handle the security concerns when integrating OpenClaw into Microsoft 365 and what user reception will look like.

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Microsoft isn't just scaling back Copilot in Windows 11, it's also reducing access to Copilot Chat for certain Microsoft 365 commercial customers. Starting April 15, 2026, Copilot Chat users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will not be able to access Copilot in Office apps, at least directly.

At the moment and until the change takes effect next month, those with a work or school account and a qualifying Microsoft 365 business subscription can use Copilot Chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote without an additional license.

After the cutoff in April, that functionality will be limited to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app for those without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Notably, Copilot in Outlook will sill work with inbox and calendar grounding for Copilot Chat users after April 15.

The change is explained in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center (MC1253858) and was first highlighted in a Discord channel.

"Starting April 15, 2026, Copilot will no longer be available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Copilot Chat users. To ensure a high-quality experience, we are reserving the full Copilot experience in these apps—with advanced reasoning and model choice—for users with a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you would like users to access these experiences, you can provide a Microsoft 365 Copilot license."

Copilot Chat forms a unified chat experience across Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft Edge, and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. The tool can be used to analyze data, create content, and help you interact with supported apps.

Microsoft will have to update its support page and record a new video. At the moment, the Copilot Chat in Microsoft 365 support page specifically states that you can access Copilot Chat in Microsoft apps "all at no extra cost, and you don't need a Copilot add-on license."

The company lists everything you can do with Copilot Chat even if you don't have a Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on. Admittedly, those options are limited compared to those paying a premium, but they are more than nothing (at least for now).

If you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, you won't see any changes. Those with a license will still be able to interact with Copilot Chat in apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

To reduce confusion, Microsoft will add in-product labels for users and admins. Those without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see "Copilot Chat (Basic)." Users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see "M365 Copilot (Premium).

💬 Are there too many Copilots?

Microsoft seems to have a different version of Copilot for each of its apps. Even within specific apps, there are often multiple different versions of Copilots.

Even reading Microsoft's message about the upcoming change to Copilot Chat requires thorough reading to make sure that don't mix up Copilot Chat, Copilot Chat (Basic), and M365 Copilot (Premium).

I believe that for years, Microsoft has tossed the term "Copilot" at the wall to see what sticks. Recent changes made by the tech giant suggest the term carries little weight.

Does the term "Copilot" mean anything to you? Do you use any Copilot tools? Let us know in the comments.

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The second Tuesday of each month is known as Patch Tuesday. Windows 11's Patch Tuesday update included a bunch of good upgrades — a welcome change from the issues that plagued the OS recently. But another flagship Microsoft product, Office, had a pair of vulnerabilities flagged.

Codenamed CVE-2026-26110 and CVE-2026-26113, the vulnerabilities could be used to execute code locally. Both vulnerabilties require local access, making them harder to exploit.

If an attacker gain local access to your PC, they have a better chance of being able to do damage or steal data. While Microsoft notes that "local access" makes them harder to exploit than a typical web-based attack, there is a major catch for the average user.

When 'Local' isn't really local

Microsoft titling these as "Remote Code Execution" while requiring "Local Access" seems like a contradiction. Microsoft explains the distinction this way:

"The word Remote in the title refers to the location of the attacker... The attack itself is carried out locally. This means an attacker or victim needs to execute code from the local machine to exploit the vulnerability."

In other words, an attacker could send you a file remotely but the file would need to be processed locally.

The catch is that since the Office Preview Pane is a valid attack vector for these vulnerabilities, a local user does not need to double-click a file or "Enable Macros" to be at risk. Simply clicking an email to see its preview in Outlook is enough to "locally process" the file and let the attacker in.

How to stay safe

Microsoft has already released patches for all supported versions of Office. If you’re still running Office 2013 (which is now past its end-of-support date), you won't be receiving this fix.

To secure your system:

• Open Windows Update and check for the latest updates.
• Ensure the latest Microsoft 365 or Office 2016/2019/2021 updates are installed.
• If you can't patch immediately, consider disabling the Preview Pane in Outlook and File Explorer (this can be done through the View menu).

If you head over to the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), you'll see hundreds of security advisories that were published on March 10, many of which are marked as "Important."

The Office vulnerabilities highlighted here are among a much smaller set that are marked as "Critical."

It's worth updating to address all the vulnerabilities, of course. To make sure your PC is secure, ensure that Windows and Office have been updated to their most recent versions.

🗨️ How do you handle security updates?

Microsoft’s automatic update system is the unsung hero of Windows security, handling thousands of fixes like this every year behind the scenes. Do you trust the "set it and forget it" approach, or do you still prefer to manually check your update history just to be sure everything landed correctly? Let us know in the comments!

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Yes, Copilot is still here, and Microsoft 365 (Office) is now expanding it with 'Wave 3'. If you missed the concept of its waves in the first place, they essentially refer to the batch rollouts of major features for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Wave 1 was the initial introduction of Copilot in Microsoft's Office apps, with the AI assistant first appearing in documents, emails, and presentations. Wave 2 expanded Copilot across Microsoft's ecosystem, introducing new collaboration tools like Copilot Studio and deeper integration across Microsoft 365.

Now Microsoft is moving into Wave 3, which allows users to build their own AI agents directly within Microsoft 365 apps to help with their specific daily workflows, alongside new capabilities in apps like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook (via Microsoft).

The company is also introducing Microsoft 365's premium 'E7' bundle — the "First Frontier Suite". It bundles the existing top-tier 'E5' enterprise subscription with advanced security, analytics, and compliance tools, alongside Copilot, and a new Agent 365 offering into one package.

What’s new in Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 3?

This update brings improvements to Copilot’s chat features, allowing users to easily modify documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and emails directly from the chat interface. Plus, Microsoft is introducing Work IQ, a new intelligence layer that uses an organization’s data, collaboration history, and internal content to help Copilot better understand the context of your specific workplace.

Copilot is also adding support for additional models, including Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT. Eventually, we'll see an introduction to Copilot Cowork, which is currently in preview, allowing AI agents to carry out longer, multi-step processes over time rather than responding to single prompts.

And finally, there's that new Agent 365 addition, which is essentially a management platform for organizations to monitor and govern their tailor-made AI agents. Agent 365 will release on May 1, 2026, and will cost $15 per user — that "Frontier Suite" E7 bundle will also launch on May 1, 2026, at $99 per user, including Agent 365, Microsoft Entra, Defender, Intune, and Purview.

🗨️ Will your business use these new Copilot additions?

Whether you like Copilot in Windows (Microsoft has at least eased off consumers and is no longer pushing it quite as aggressively), it's definitely here to stay on the Microsoft 365-led business side.

At least this latest software expansion could prove useful for some businesses eager to adopt agentic AI, potentially easing tedious, repetitive workloads and freeing up time for more important, human-driven tasks.

With all that said, let me know your thoughts in the comments, and make sure to take part in our poll below:

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Last week, it looked like Microsoft was getting ready to ship a new AI-powered software bundle for Microsoft 365, dubbed E7, which would include Microsoft Copilot and a new AI agent hub — Agent 365.

Well, Microsoft has now confirmed that the rumored AI-centric E7 subscription tier does exist and is slated to launch on May 1. Plus, the Agent 365 platform for managing AI agents across Microsoft 365 and third‑party services is also slated to ship to broad availability on the same date, priced separately at $15 per user per month.

The software giant describes the complete E7 bundle as "the First Frontier Suite," which will cost $99/user/month. Previously, I had described Microsoft's new AI-powered package as "the E5 enterprise tier, but with AI offerings on top."

Since Microsoft’s AI‑powered E7 subscription tier includes both Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent 365, the $99 price point might feel like a bargain, or, as The Register's reporting on Gartner's research puts it, “priced below purchasing these capabilities à la carte.”

💬 Will the new tier offer value to Microsoft 365?

According to business research firm Gartner, the discount on Microsoft's new E7 subscription tier isn't as impressive as it might seem, as it only trims 13.2%. Its analysts believe that "bigger bundles should get bigger discounts."

Perhaps more interestingly, it says that Microsoft 365's E3 and E5 subscription tiers give more value for money with better discounts regarding what they have to offer.

In that, Microsoft seemingly shipped Microsoft 365's new AI-powered subscription tier to meet the need for a plan "with multiple tools stitched together" over what Microsoft 365 E5 has to offer.

Microsoft 365 E7 ships with productivity and security apps, Microsoft Copilot, and its new AI agent hub right out of the gate. Still, skepticism surrounds the subscription tier, particularly the Agent 365 offering, which Gartner calls "a work in progress with limited net new functionality to justify its $15 pupm [sic] price point."

Microsoft’s $99 E7 premium tier launches May 1. Do you think it’s worth the price? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Microsoft is replacing classic Outlook, gradually, and now even more gradually if you can believe it. The long-running desktop Outlook app is being replaced with a newer client called Outlook for Windows, with the goal of unifying Outlook across Windows, web, and mobile.

However, that transition does not appear to be going as smoothly as Microsoft hoped. It was recently revealed that the opt-out phase of the migration has now been pushed back by at least another year.

Now you might be wondering what the opt-out phase actually is, or where the opt-in phase fits into all of this. Well, that is where the migration timeline comes in.

The Microsoft’s Outlook migration timeline

Microsoft began the transition to the new Outlook for Windows back in 2022 with a private preview for testers. A public version followed in 2023, allowing users to try the new client if they opted in, and, honestly, I did not realize it had already been that long.

By late 2024, the new Outlook for Windows reached General Availability. That effectively meant it was ready for broader commercial use, and by December 202,4 Microsoft retired the Windows Mail app and replaced it with the new Outlook.

In 2025, Microsoft began pushing the transition further by automatically moving personal Microsoft accounts and some businesses to the new app. That rollout continued throughout the year as Microsoft tried to accelerate adoption.

Now in 2026, Microsoft has extended the deadline for enterprise users to prepare for the next stage. The opt-out phase will now begin in March 2027 instead of the original April 2026 target.

Microsoft says adoption of the new Outlook is picking up pace, according to TheRegister, but pushing the opt-out phase back another year suggests plenty of organizations are still not ready to make the jump.

That is not too surprising either. Outlook sits at the center of many business workflows, and when tools like that change, even small differences can create issues for people unfamiliar with the new software.

With support for classic Outlook continuing until at least 2029, it looks like this transition is going to remain a slow and gradual one for quite some time yet.

🗨️ Do you like the new Outlook app for Windows?

Have you or your business made the transition to the new version of Microsoft Outlook for Windows yet or are you still holding off?

Let me know in the comments and make sure to take part in the poll below:

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At this point, it's hard to have missed Apple’s reveal of the $599 MacBook Neo, which definitely targets laptop buyers on a budget.

With a price tag like that, it should be an appealing package to macOS users (and those who never tried it). That, and it might put real pressure on the Windows laptop market, lighting "monstrous fire" for competition, as our Senior Editor Zac Bowden predicts.

Then again, maybe Microsoft needn't worry too much, because even Apple couldn't resist a shout-out for iconic Office apps in Microsoft 365 during a video demo of the MacBook Neo.

In a brief look at the laptop's recently used apps in macOS, Microsoft Word appears before being on the Start menu equivalent's dock, where it stays. Apple’s own equivalent, Pages, is notably absent. Score.

Did Apple say the quiet part out loud?

Now I have to make a small, possibly terrifying self-admission. I generally prefer Apple's hardware, especially compared to many Windows laptops. However, for software, I still use Windows 11 as my main operating system. Yes, I understand the hypocrisy, considering I'm part of Windows Central — I get it.

That being said, seeing Microsoft’s apps in the spotlight during Apple’s MacBook Neo demo was certainly something to behold, and it isn't the first time Apple has highlighted Office either. If you didn't know, Apple has its own "iWork" suite, which includes Pages (like Word), Keynote (PowerPoint), and Numbers (Excel).

Adding a fun touch of irony to the situation, three of the most-used apps shown on the MacBook Neo were Microsoft's, including the very same trio of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Can it be implied that Apple acknowledges how more people use Microsoft Office's suite of apps over their own iWork? Maybe.

I mean, Apple even shows Microsoft Word being dragged onto the dock, where it will presumably live permanently, quietly taunting Pages over what will likely never be.

So, despite Apple offering direct competitors, many still rely on Microsoft’s long-established Office apps. Universities and broader education also play a role here, as many provide students with free access to Office, which is the exact audience Apple is targeting with the MacBook Neo.

In the interest of fairness, Apple shifts things slightly in its shorter 35-second TV spot. In that version, the MacBook’s dock shows Apple’s full iWork suite instead, with no Office apps in sight. Microsoft gets the feature-length slot.

🗨️ A quiet admission or just standard marketing?

Did Apple really show how dominant Microsoft Office apps are, or was the MacBook Neo simply showing that it can run the apps students are familiar with? Does it put the Windows laptop market in any danger for the same reason?

Let me know in the comments!

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A few months ago, we learned that Microsoft Teams was on the verge of shipping a controversial tracking feature to its video conferencing tool. Initially, it seemed as though it would act as a kind of lapdog for your boss, automatically reporting your exact live location when connected to your company's Wi-Fi, for better or worse.

Well, the software giant has now updated how this tracking works in its Microsoft 365 Roadmap, specifically highlighting that it will ship as an opt-in experience, which means it'll be disabled by default. Plus, it clarifies how it works with its prerequisites and limitations, and how organizations can configure it (via PCWorld).

It's a small relief, particularly as the feature sparked backlash among most users, particularly those in our community. Claims that "Microsoft is blurring the lines between coworker collaboration and IT oversight" came alongside others suggesting hyperbole like “There must be a team at Microsoft tasked with making Teams worse.”

I even previously speculated how its exact-location tracking feature aligned closely with Microsoft's return-to-office plan, questioning whether it is merely coincidental or a deliberate effort to maximize workplace efficiency through surveillance and micromanagement.

According to Microsoft:

What's more, Teams users will be able to decide whether they want to share their location with coworkers. Microsoft categorically stated that it won't have access to this data, as locations can only be shared within the users' organization.

The company indicated that the feature supports two distinct location signals:

• Planned work location. User-entered intent. Users can create a recurring work plan in the Outlook or Teams calendar Settings, and one-off plans directly in the calendar grid.
• Actual work location. System‑detected or manually set location, based on check‑in.

So, as Microsoft describes it, "Automatic Update of work location" is a Teams-specific feature that helps its users "spend less time manually updating their status and more time enjoying in‑person collaboration."

Teams will clear a user's location at the end of their working hours, and shouldn't be updated if they connect outside of their designated work hours. Plus, it only works if your buildings are set up for it, using compatible devices and wireless access points to pinpoint particular rooms. If this isn't the case, it'll only show whether a user is working remotely or, indeed, in the office.

🗨️ Teams' tracking isn't for keeping tabs, but for collaboration?

Finally, Microsoft has made it clear that "Automatic Update of work location" is not a tracking tool and will not be used to track employee attendance. "The feature is designed to facilitate collaboration, not compliance or oversight," it says, which certainly seems reasonable.

Importantly, it shouldn't deter users from manually setting or clearing their work location, nor will it give admins access to historical location data. Its rollout has been delayed several times, and it now seems the launch timeline has been pushed from this month to April 2026 again.

What are your thoughts on the new Teams location feature being advertised as a collaboration booster? Let me know in the comments!

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Microsoft has had many nicknames over the years, but few have stuck quite like “Microslop.” The term gained traction as it invested heavily in AI, with some users growing concerned about the direction of Windows and the increasing push to ship AI features without much user choice.

Now, in the official Copilot Discord server, it appears Microsoft has had enough. The company has blocked the term “Microslop,” preventing users from posting it in the community, if only briefly.

Microsoft blocks “Microslop” in Copilot Discord

Thanks to reporting by WindowsLatest, we have seen proof that Microsoft, or at least someone on the Copilot team managing the newly launched Discord server, had blocked the term “Microslop.”

After joining the server myself, it appears that since WindowsLatest reported on the situation, the term has been re-enabled. However, the server remains in chaos, with users spamming a range of content, including material that is not safe for work.

While “Microslop” is currently no longer blocked, many users had already attempted to bypass the filter using variations of the word during the time the term was blocked anyway.

This ultimately led to the server being temporarily locked down. Although it now appears accessible again, the community feels largely unusable in its current state, and it is difficult to see that changing any time soon.

When the server first launched in December 2024, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), promoting the server, users were initially engaging in far more constructive discussions, according to WindowsLatest. Now it seems to have attracted the attention of people frustrated with AI’s growing presence in Windows, and it is not hard to understand why.

Copilot does not appear to be seeing the level of adoption that Satya Nadella and Microsoft might suggest. Despite billions being invested into AI, and other areas of the company such as Xbox facing pressure, reports indicate that only 3.3% of Microsoft 365 users actively use Copilot.

Satya maintains that usage is growing, claiming nearly three times year-over-year growth. However, growth figures can sound impressive in isolation, and tripling a small base does not necessarily translate into widespread adoption.

I have made my thoughts on AI clear since it became a standard part of daily life. While I recognize there are genuine use cases, particularly in medicine and science, its broader utility outside those fields still feels largely unproven, at least to me.

🗨️ So where do you land? Have you joined to riot or are you a quiet bystander like myself?

Are users overreacting, or is this a sign that frustration with AI in Windows is reaching a tipping point?

Let me know in the comments, and make sure to take part in our poll below:

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Microsoft is one of the world’s most sought‑after companies, boasting a market capitalization of $2.92 trillion at the time of writing. That prominence stems largely from its innovations and investments in software, particularly through the Microsoft 365 suite and Windows as an operating system.

While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that Bill Gates' software factory vision for Microsoft has helped guide the company for decades, he indicated that "it's no longer enough." He indicated that the tech giant was now doubling down on security, quality, and AI transformation as its core business priorities.

And now, the company's plans are taking shape, at least according to a report by Business Insider's Ashley Stewart, as Microsoft is considering releasing a new AI-powered software bundle for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft offers two enterprise tiers, E3 and E5, which provide businesses with a variety of services, including productivity and security apps. But as it now seems, the tech giant is getting ready to ship a long-rumored "E7" bundle, which could include Microsoft Copilot and its new AI agent hub, Agent 365.

We could think of it as the E5 enterprise tier, but with AI offerings on top. According to sources with close affiliations and knowledge about Microsoft's plan, the company is exploring both per-seat and consumption-based pricing models for E7, with potential charges reaching up to $99/user/month for its E7 AI software bundle.

💬 What do you think about AI being bundled into Microsoft 365?

It remains unclear when Microsoft plans to actually make its new offering broadly available. Interestingly, the company recently announced that it will reevaluate its AI strategy in Windows 11, potentially streamlining or even removing features that users find less valuable, such as Copilot integrations in apps like Notepad and Paint.

Following Microsoft’s FY26 Q2 earnings report, investors remain cautious about committing further capital to the company’s costly AI initiatives. Despite revenue growth, concerns persist that Azure and Microsoft 365 application growth fell short of expectations, while heavy AI infrastructure spending weighed on margins.

For context, the company spent $88.2 billion on capital expenditures last year. The executive indicated that most of the capital has been channelled to serve AI to enterprises and major AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic.

Last year, a report by The Information claimed that Microsoft's internal AI efforts were taking an unexpected turn with projected cuts and sales goals for its Azure AI products across the board.

The report further claimed that Microsoft's salespeople were struggling to meet goals, primarily due to the lack of demand for its AI products. While market share trends told a different story, Microsoft denied the claims.

CEO Satya Nadella indicated Copilot AI is seeing massive use, growing "nearly 3x year-over-year," but a separate report claimed that only 3.3% of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 users who interact with Copilot Chat actually pay for it.

It'll be interesting to see whether Microsoft's reported E7 tier for its Microsoft 365 offering will attract interest among users if/when it ships.

Do you think an AI-powered Microsoft 365 bundle will help Microsoft drive more user interest and Copilot sales? Let me know in the comments.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Microsoft is introducing an AI watermark policy for Microsoft 365, controlled through its Cloud Policy service. In a post-AI world, that is not necessarily a bad thing. More transparency is generally a positive move.

Right now, the feature applies to just audio content generated or altered using Copilot and other AI tools within Microsoft 365, with watermarked videos set for next month.

For now, the policy must be manually enabled by administrators. The watermark also cannot be customized, so its wording and placement will remain fixed.

Even if you decide to leave the watermarking feature disabled, the content will still contain metadata indicating that Copilot was used.

How Microsoft’s AI watermark policy works

The policy itself is managed through the Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365, and can be found under the “Include a watermark when content from Microsoft 365 is generated or altered by AI.” That gives organizations control rather than leaving decisions up to individual users.

For watermarking to apply, administrators must manually set the policy to Enabled. It is not switched on by default.

If the policy is set to Disabled or left as Not configured, no visible or audible watermark will be added to video or audio content.

The scope is also specific. It applies only to video and audio content generated or altered using AI within Microsoft 365. It does not extend to every file type.

There is also little room for customization. Admins cannot change the wording or placement of the watermark, so what Microsoft provides is what users will see or hear.

It is also important to clarify that this policy does not apply to images, that’s its own separate thing. Image watermarking is handled separately and is controlled at the user level instead.

Even if an organization chooses not to enable visible or audible watermarks, Microsoft still embeds additional details into the content's metadata, but this is just for images as of now, and they’re working on doing the same for audio and video.

That can include which AI model was used, which app generated the content, and when it was created.

Audio watermarking is already available. Video watermarking is expected to roll out in March 2026.

I don't personally rely on Copilot, and my own experiments with AI have occasionally produced some odd results. Just recently, I was told the AMD RX 9070 XT was not a real GPU when asking a hardware question, despite having one sitting inside my computer.

Still, these changes make sense. In a world where AI-generated content is becoming increasingly common, more transparency is hard to argue against. Oh, and it also does not yet apply to Government cloud contracts, and I don’t know how I feel about that admission.

💬 Passing it over to you!

Do you think AI-generated content should always be clearly labeled in tools like Microsoft 365? Let us know in the comments and make sure to take part in our poll below:

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Last year, I reported on a new Microsoft Teams feature, which raised controversy and privacy concerns among most users. The feature in question automatically updates a user's work location when their device is connected to an office Wi-Fi network — becoming your boss's lapdog, by snitching on your live location.

Shortly after the post became viral, Microsoft quietly changed how the feature works, as highlighted below:

"When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in."

While this might be a long shot, I speculated that the feature incidentally aligns with Microsoft's return-to-office (RTO) plan. For context, Microsoft employees working within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be expected to work onsite for at least three days per week by the end of this month.

To that end, it's anyone's guess whether Microsoft's controversial Teams feature shipping to broad availability around the same time its RTO plan is taking shape is a mere coincidence or a deliberate attempt to intensify workplace surveillance and micromanagement.

But as you may know, Microsoft has changed the rollout timeline for the controversial Teams feature multiple times. It was initially expected to ship in December 2025, but the software giant changed the rollout to January 2026.

More recently, the company changed the rollout time for the controversial Wi-Fi location tracking feature to mid-March this year. The company didn't provide any details about the reason behind the delayed rollout of the feature.

Windows Central conducted a poll to gauge readers’ opinions on the controversial feature. The results showed that nearly half of the respondents (47%) believe the feature should be removed entirely.

27% of the participants indicated that the feature felt invasive and like surveillance, while just 12% said it's useful for workplace efficiency and safety.

Teams' new Wi-FI location tracking feature feels almost comical, blurring the line between useful and invasive

It's apparent that the new Teams feature is unpopular among most users if the sentiments shared across social media are anything to go by. According to mister_empty_pants on Reddit:

"Microsoft is blurring the lines between coworker collaboration and IT oversight.

IT wise, yes the info was always there. But nobody is asking IT to snitch on you. The entire point of this is that your boss just has to click your name on Teams and now they know where you are. No IT requests, no privacy/ethics concerns, no breach of trust. It's just right there at any time.

What's the next step? The same tracking but for your phone? Microsoft letting your boss look at your screen? Sending your boss daily reports on click rates, words typed, program usage, etc?"

Interestingly, some users seem unfazed by the change, claiming that most Microsoft products and services already ship with this feature in some shape or form. "Most Microsoft products already meet the criteria for what we'd normally call spyware. What's another drop in a flooded bucket?" a Reddit user indicated.

Some users came up with some interesting ideas on how to bypass the new Teams feature's invasive nature, suggesting using a wired connection at the office instead of Wi-Fi. "I just won’t install teams on my phone then, and when I’m working remote they can’t find me anyway they can just message me and I’ll answer from the laptop," another Reddit user indicated.

On the other hand, some users suggested that Microsoft's efforts were seemingly misplaced and indicated that it should redirect them to fix some UI and UX elements in its Windows operating system. "God forbid they spend time to make the Windows search actually search my computer again," a user indicated.

After reviewing hundreds of comments, it’s clear that users either want the feature scrapped entirely or simply don’t care, since many work remotely. "I swear there must be a team at MS that is just tasked with making Teams worse," a user indicated on Reddit.

💬 How do you feel about Teams’ new Wi‑Fi tracking feature?

Teams’ latest Wi‑Fi tracking tool has raised real questions about privacy, boundaries, and how far workplace software should go. We want to hear your take. Does this cross a line, or is it just another “productivity” feature in a modern office?

Drop your thoughts below and join the discussion!

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Microsoft is going to remove Contact Masking, a feature that allowed users to hide suggested recipients from appearing when composing emails or adding people to the Cc field.

When you typed a name or email address, Outlook would suggest contacts based on your previous interactions. If you clicked the X next to a suggested name, Outlook would “mask” that contact, preventing it from appearing as a suggestion again

Admittedly, this is a feature I did not even know existed. That is probably because I quietly left Microsoft Outlook behind, partly due to frustrations I know many others share, and moved over to Thunderbird instead. For the most part, it has been a far more enjoyable experience.

Still, as tempting as it is to throw shade, I will hold back, just a little bit anyway. Instead, let’s take a closer look at the feature Microsoft is removing, what it actually did, why it is going away, and a few other Outlook annoyances worth mentioning.

Why Microsoft is removing contact masking

On the surface, it sounds harmless enough. The problem is that the change did not just affect Outlook. Masking a contact also removed it from suggestions across other Microsoft 365 services, including Teams and Microsoft 365 Search, which is where much of the confusion began.

While users could undo hiding a contact, the option only appeared briefly after masking it. According to Microsoft, that short window added to the confusion, and there are currently no plans to replace the feature or add anything similar.

Outlook has had its fair share of missteps lately. Just last month, it became “completely unusable” for some users, and the month before that, it somehow let spam overrun Sean’s inbox, our own news writer here at Windows Central.

Contact Masking is set to be removed on March 31, 2026, for all Outlook users across desktop, mobile, and the web (via Neowin).

Did you ever use Contact Masking in Outlook?

What do you think? Was Contact Masking a useful feature, or did it cause more problems than it solved? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to take part in the poll below:

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Generative AI has evolved from mere chatbots that generate text and images based on prompts. The technology is now more sophisticated, and its impact can already be seen in the job market, with executives from top AI research labs like Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei claiming that it's on the verge of phasing out entry-level white-collar jobs as soon as 18 months from now.

However, AI hasn't completely reached its prime time, primarily due to reluctance from some users to adopt it into their workflows, citing privacy and security issues. The latest example comes from Microsoft itself, where it has identified a bug impacting 365 Copilot Chat, allowing the service to access and summarize confidential emails without consent since late January.

According to Microsoft: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot 'work tab' Chat is summarizing email messages even though these email messages have a sensitivity label applied and a DLP policy is configured. Users' email messages with a confidential label applied are being incorrectly processed by Microsoft 365 Copilot chat." (via BleepingComputer).

Microsoft began rolling out Copilot Chat across its productivity tools, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, for users with a Microsoft 365 license, aiming to make Copilot a personal AI assistant for work.

The bug, tracked under CW1226324, impacted Copilot Chat and allowed the service to incorrectly access, read, and summarize emails saved in a user's inbox, across their sent and draft folders, which included messages explicitly labelled as confidential to restrict unauthorized access by automated tools.

Microsoft has narrowed down the issue to an unspecified code error, indicating that it already began rolling out a fix for the bug at the beginning of February 2026. "A code issue is allowing items in the sent items and draft folders to be picked up by Copilot even though confidential labels are set in place," the software giant added.

The company is monitoring the situation closely and is even reaching out to affected users to establish whether the fix is working. It's still unclear when Microsoft will complete the rollout of this fix. What's more, it hasn't categorically indicated how many users were impacted by this issue.

So, my take is that AI might seem like a productivity booster, alleviating the effort factored in to handle repetitive and redundant tasks, but it still feels too half-baked to be fully implemented into our workflows with the trust to maintain a high standard of professionalism (and confidentiality).

Over to you

Microsoft admits Copilot exposed confidential emails due to a bug. Do you still trust AI? Let me know in the comments.

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Microsoft's Exchange Web Services (EWS) API has been on its way out since an initial retirement announcement in 2018, but we now have some concrete dates as to when it will officially disappear forever.

Beginning October 1, 2026, Microsoft is rolling out a "phased, admin-controllable disablement plan" that will eventually wrap up with a complete EWS shutdown in Exchange Online on April 1, 2027. Microsoft highlights the fact that these EWS changes only apply to Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online; no changes to EWS are expected in Exchange Server.

That leaves users and admins six months to prepare for the disablement plan, and Microsoft offers some advice to help make the transition as smooth as possible. The plan is to disable EWS one tenant at a time via the EWSEnabled property. A new AppID Allow List is also expected in early 2026, which is essentially an admin whitelist for app access to EWS.

Three values are supported in the EWSEnabled property:

• True: Starting October 2026, only apps in the new Allow List are allowed to access EWS.
• False: Starting October 2026, all EWS is blocked.
• Null: Starting October 2026, all EWS is allowed and the Allow List is ignored.

Microsoft confirms that any tenants with their status still set to Null in the EWSEnabled property on October 1, 2026, will be automatically changed to False, blocking any applications in the tenant.

That's fine if you want to leave EWS blocked, but if not, you should take some proactive measures. Admins who change EWSEnabled to True and create an Allow List before the end of August 2026 will not be included in the automatic rollover to EWSEnabled False on October 1.

Failing to do anything and re-enabling EWS after it's blocked will result in a service interruption. And once April 1, 2027 rolls around, EWS will be permanently disabled, and the EWSEnabled property will be removed.

Microsoft also claims that it might perform scream tests where it turns off EWS temporarily in order to sniff out any missed dependencies before the final shutdown. The company says it will release more info in "the coming weeks."

Why is Microsoft retiring Exchange Web Services (EWS)?

Microsoft's EWS is a cross-platform API that makes it possible for a wide range of apps to access Exchange mailbox data, including messages, calendars, and contacts.

EWS has been around for almost two decades since it got its start in 2007, and it was indeed a useful tool. However, as Microsoft states, "it no longer aligns with today's security, scale, or reliability requirements." In 2023, the company announced it was going forward with its plan to retire EWS, but didn't provide a clear roadmap for the process. That's now changed with this update.

Replacing EWS is Microsoft Graph, a more modern API that provides access to Windows, Microsoft 365, and more. Its feature list is nearly on par "for the vast majority of EWS scenarios," and Microsoft urges users to begin migrating apps to Graph now.

Do you regularly use Microsoft EWS? Are you concerned about the migration process? Have you already made the switch to Graph? Let me know in the comments section!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Microsoft Teams kicked off 2026 with a wave of updates. While much of the news focuses on high-end hardware for conference rooms, there are three specific features that arrived last month that will change your daily workflow.

Microsoft outlined the new features in a recent blog post, though some of the highlights are "coming soon" rather than immediate additions. That is because the company is focusing on features being shown off at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 conference in Barcelona, Spain.

For example, Microsoft highlighted Express voice enrollment, which isn't arriving until March. That feature will eventually make it easier to register your voice profile for AI features like voice isolation and speaker recognition. However, there are plenty of tools you can use today. Here are the best new features currently available in Microsoft Teams.

Best New Microsoft Teams features

I've highlighted the biggest changes below, plus some shortcuts or small features you should try.

1. Pin Teams window on top

It is now possible to pin Microsoft Teams on top of your other apps, allowing you to keep it visible even if you click a different window. This improves multitasking and removes the need to use a third-party app, such as PowerToys, to pin windows on top.

Without the option to pin Teams on top of other apps, clicking into a PowerPoint presentation, notes app, or other program would hide your Teams call. The new option is especially useful for those on laptops or in single-monitor setups.

Screen and Windows sharing on macOS through native picker

2. Teams channels Shared tab

Microsoft renamed the Files tab in channels to the Shared tab. The newly named tab shows current files as well as previously shared files from channel posts. But the big change is the inclusion of links.

The Shared tab now includes both shared files and links from channel posts and conversations.

You can sort those files and links by date.

Previously, locating a file could be difficult within Teams unless you knew where you initially received the file. Searching is now simplified with the introduction of the Shared tab.

3. Screen & Window Sharing via macOS Native Picker

Microsoft Teams now includes the option to use native macOS screen sharing functionality. The feature, which requires you to opt-in, presents an experience for screen sharing that will feel more native on macOS and align with the operating system. It is also a more secure method of screen sharing.

Screen sharing using the native picker on macOS does have limits. Notably, it prevents giving away or taking control of meetings within Teams. Because of that, some will likely consider the new option to be a downgrade.

Luckily for those who prefer the older method of screen sharing, that option remains available.

Tips and shortcuts to try

The following tips and tricks help you take advantage of new features and options within Teams to streamline your workflow:

• Try this shortcut: Press Win + Ctrl + T to pin your next meeting.
• Check out reactions: You can now see reactions and more types of notifications in messages without having to open the Teams app, just view the notification.
• Type without stress in Teams compose: Teams can now autocorrect messages within the compose box. Just type and see the app fix typos.

Which new Microsoft Teams feature are you most eager to try? Let us know in the comments! 👇

Meta just released a Surface Keyboard and Touchpad that could transform work within virtual reality. A new feature for the Meta Quest 3 allows you to use a virtual keyboard on any flat surface, such as a desk or table.

The new feature has nothing to do with Microsoft Surface, but it is a handy feature for those who want to get work done within VR.

It's currently in testing in Horizon OS v85 PTC (Public Test Channel). The feature is limited to the Meta Quest 3, meaning you cannot use it on the Meta Quest 3S or other headsets from Meta.

Many think of gaming first when the topic of a VR headset comes up, but the Meta Quest 3 can also be used for work. Windows 11 integrates with Meta Quest headsets, allowing you to extend a PC to a set of virtual monitors. You can also stream Windows 365 through the cloud to a Meta Quest headset.

Working on a PC inside VR did not technically require a physical keyboard, but one was needed in practicality.

Virtual keyboards are fine in a pinch, but they do not provide a great typing experience. It's not like the movies where you can type at full speed while tapping at the air. Holding your hands up can also be tiring, so much so that extended typing sessions are impractical.

A physical keyboard will still be better for typing in VR. The tactile feedback and ergonomics of a physical keyboard will beat typing directly on a desk or table in almost all circumstances. But the Surface Keyboard is a solid middle ground between a physical keyboard and an awkward floating digital one.

I would argue the touchpad functionality will make a bigger difference for those working in VR. Navigating the web or a virtual desktop by pinching your fingers in the air or swiping around your hands can be quite frustrating.

A video shared by Yoon Park, Principal Designer at Meta Reality Labs, shows smooth scrolling on the web with a gesture and navigating within Microsoft Word using the touchpad.

For context, take a look at the video below shared by my colleague Nicholas Sutrich. It was taken a couple of years ago to demonstrate the web versions of Office working on a Meta Quest 3.

Sutrich's setup from back then had a physical keyboard on a desk. Near the end of the video, you'll see a floating keyboard pop up.

Here's how to sign up for Meta Quest PTC, as outlined in a Meta support document:

1. On your phone, open the Meta Horizon app.
2. Tap Menu at the top of your Horizon Feed.
3. Tap Devices.
4. Select the headset you want to find to join Meta Quest PTC with.
5. Tap Headset settings, then tap Advanced settings.
6. Tap the toggle next to Public Test Channel to try to join Meta Quest PTC.
   1. If the toggle doesn't work, Meta Quest PTC is currently full and not available.

The Quest 3 is arguably the best consumer headset for gaming, but Meta is clearly pushing to make it a legitimate workstation. Does a virtual "Surface Keyboard" make you more likely to strap on a headset for work, or is VR destined to remain a gaming-only platform for you? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft Excel has a new AI tool for productivity. Agent Mode in Excel, which is part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, is now generally available on Windows and macOS. It was already available for the web and will roll out soon to macOS as well.

Agent Mode in Excel is an AI tool designed to be your partner. It supports multi-step workflows, and you can chat with it using natural language. The tool applies changes to your workbook directly, so you don't need to copy and paste suggestions.

Microsoft outlined several scenarios for Agent Mode in Excel when announcing the web version of the tool:

• Create workbooks: Generate new content directly in Excel, grounded in both existing workbook data and web search results to bring in relevant context.
• Scenario modeling: Run what-if analyses for revenue, budgets, or forecasts and model advanced scenarios with adjustable assumptions.
• Data analysis: Generate analyses of large datasets, highlight anomalies, and surface trends with formula-driven analysis.
• Formula generation: Fix broken formulas or and generate dynamic formulas that connect across your workbook data, including explanations for complex calculations.
• Data visualization: Create pivot tables, charts, and dashboards—all through natural conversation. Generate native Excel artifacts that recalculate and update based on changes to the underlying data.

Agent Mode in Excel entered public preview in September. Following feedback from those who participated in the preview and those who have used the web version, Microsoft has made several improvements to Agent Mode in Excel.

Most notably, Agent Mode is now supported in Excel for Windows and macOS. The feature is integrated into Copilot in Excel, so it should be easy to locate without much of a learning curve.

Microsoft also integrated web search into Agent Mode in Excel, which allows the tool to bring in up-to-date information from the web.

Users also have the choice to use models from OpenAI (GPT-5.2) or Anthropic (Claude Opus 4.5).

The default for Agent Mode in Excel is to have Copilot choose the best model for you, but you can also select to use a specific model for any prompt.

To use Agent Mode in Excel, you need to have one of the following: Microsoft 365 Personal, Microsoft 365 Family, Microsoft 365 Premium, or a commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Agent Mode is not available in the EU or UK at this time.

Do you use Copilot professionally? How does it change your workflow? Let us know in the comments!

An Austrian privacy regulator has ruled that Microsoft illegally set tracking cookies on a school‑issued device used by a child, even though the issue stemmed from how the school deployed Microsoft 365 services rather than anything Microsoft directly controlled. The decision argues that because Microsoft’s services delivered the content that placed the cookies, the company still shares responsibility for the consent failure — a finding that could have far‑reaching implications for cloud providers operating in tightly regulated environments.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools rapidly shifted to online platforms like Microsoft 365 Education and Google Workspace for Education to ensure students weren't held back from learning.

In June 2024, None of Your Business (noyb), a European Digital Rights non-profit organization based in Vienna, Austria, filed two complaints concerning Microsoft's 365 Education in schools with the Austrian DSB.

The digital privacy group claimed that Microsoft was illegally tracking students via its 365 Education platform, further claiming that the company had attempted to shift responsibility for access to local schools.

The first complaint was decided in October 2025, marking a significant victory for the digital privacy group, as the Austrian data protection authority (DSB) ruled that Microsoft had violated the right of access under Article 15 of the GDPR.

Microsoft was ordered by the authority to provide more information about the data transmitted. It was also required to provide clear explanations of what it meant when using the terms "internal reporting," "business modeling," and "improvement of core functionality."

And now, the authority has decided on the second complaint about Microsoft's alleged use of unlawful tracking cookies in its 365 Education platform. The authority established that Microsoft had acted unlawfully by placing tracking cookies on the devices of a minor using its 365 Education platform.

While speaking to The Register, a Microsoft spokesman indicated that:

"Microsoft 365 for Education meets all required data protection standards and institutions in the education sector can continue to use it in compliance with GDPR. We are reviewing the Austrian data protection authority's latest decision and will decide on next steps in due course."

To that end, Microsoft has four weeks to comply and stop using tracking cookies on the devices of the minor. The school and the Austrian Ministry of Education claimed that they weren't aware of Microsoft using tracking cookies on minors before "noyb" raised the issue.

The ruling underscores a growing shift in how regulators interpret platform responsibility: cloud vendors are increasingly expected to enforce compliance even when customers misconfigure their deployments. As privacy enforcement becomes more expansive and less tolerant of configuration mistakes, cloud providers may need to rethink how they design consent flows, documentation, and safeguards to avoid being pulled into similar disputes.

Should Microsoft be punished for tracking kids? Share your thoughts in the comments and cast your vote!

Microsoft has confirmed a major outage is impacting its Microsoft 365 services in the North America region, taking out apps and services such as Outlook, Purview, and Defender

"We've identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected," Microsoft confirms. "We're working to restore the infrastructure to a healthy state to achieve recovery."

That was a statement issued by Microsoft over two hours ago, with the latest updates stating that the company is "rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure to ensure the environment enters into a balanced state. We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this approach will help us identify any additional actions needed for recovery."

• Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
  • Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
  • Collecting message traces.
  • Searching within SharePoint Online and/or Microsoft OneDrive.
  • Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
  • Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be unable to create breakout rooms
  • Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
  • Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
  • Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.

Many users are continuing to report service outages in the North America region, which is stopping people from accessing their emails and more. The company has identified the problem and is rolling out a fix, meaning services should be restored soon.

There's a good chance that if you open your email inbox and check your spam messages, you'll see a phishing attempt centered around someone impersonating a company. Among all the phishing messages sitting in your spam folder (and potentially your normal inbox), you'll probably see one alleging to be from Microsoft.

According to Check Point, 22 percent of all brand phishing attempts in 2025 had an attacker imitating Microsoft.

It's easy to make a joke along the lines of, “Everyone is safe from those phishing attacks because they know there's no way in hell they use Copilot." But the reality is that phishing attacks often center around impersonating tech giants, and it's safe to assume they're effective, or attackers would swap away from that method.

People rely on companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple. The amount of data those companies have is alluring to bad actors. If someone were able to gain access to your main accounts, they could likely obtain personal information, financial details, and more.

One of the easiest ways for a malicious actor to gain access to your accounts is to trick you into entering your details.

"The continued dominance of Microsoft and Google reflects their central role in identity, productivity, and authentication workflows—making stolen credentials particularly valuable to attackers," said Check Point.

In the final months of last year, Check Point Research identified a campaign designed to trick Roblox users. The campaign utilized a malicious site with a "lookalike domain" with links that led to another site that looks almost identical to the official Roblox page.

Similar campaigns are used to mimic Netflix, Facebook, and other popular sites, including Microsoft.

Out of the top ten imitated brands, only one is not a tech company:

• Microsoft – 22%
• Google – 13%
• Amazon – 9%
• Apple – 8%
• Facebook (Meta) – 3%
• PayPal – 2%
• Adobe – 2%
• Booking – 2%
• DHL – 1%
• LinkedIn – 1%

Microsoft even gets a bonus percentage point since LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.

Phishing attacks appear convincing and build on people's trust and familiarity with certain companies, according to Check Point. "Attackers increasingly rely on polished visuals, subtle domain manipulation, and multi-stage flows that closely mimic legitimate user experiences—often leaving victims unaware that their credentials have been stolen," said the cybersecurity company.

While some older advice, such as keeping an eye out for typos, is still a good idea, phishing scams have become more convincing over the years.

Here are some rules to help you reduce your risks:

• Do not click links marked as urgent or that emphasize they are "about to be deleted."
• Check the actual email address of the sender, not just their sender name.
• Use an authenticator app or some method of multi-factor authentication.
• Keep an eye out for "lookalike" characters. Attackers can use characters from different alphabets that look like normal letters but appear a bit "off."
• Don't respond to pressure. If an email uses aggressive or pressuring language, it is likely a scam.
• When in doubt, throw it out: If you think something feels off or looks suspicious, delete it. You can always get in touch with companies in other ways.

Make sure to report any phishing attacks or scams to Microsoft or your email provider. Companies improve their security models based on information received.

What's the most obvious scam you've seen in your inbox? Let us know in the comments!

With the lost art of physical albums and printed photographs, everything has seemingly gone digital. Right now, you can simply take a photo on your phone and upload it to the cloud, then delete it from your phone's storage for extra space.

In a perfect world, the process should be as simple as I just described, but unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Over the past few years, multiple people have run to social media to express their frustrations after losing access to their fondest memories and even confidential work information.

In June 2025, a OneDrive user took to Reddit to express their frustrations, indicating that Microsoft had randomly locked their account without any warning. The user revealed that they lost access to their account after moving 30 years' worth of photos and work.

The user submitted 18 compliance forms in an attempt to have the issue resolved, but the efforts were rendered futile. While it's still unclear whether the user ever got any assistance, the issue seems to be persistent.

A Windows Central reader facing the same predicament recently reached out to me, expressing his frustrations:

"Two days ago I was stung by this very same issue losing decades of purchased content (mainly Xbox and subscriptions), documents, emails, access to third party services at the whim of an AI.

On NYE I took a photo of my kids watching a film while in silly positions in our living room without even thinking about it. The next morning my OneDrive was blocked for potential child abuse. My email was still working (I checked) so I launched an appeal using my MS email. A few hours later, I found out that email was also disabled. I immediately reappealed the same day with an alternative email. It quickly became clear that the photo from the night before was the culprit, as it was the only thing not synced to my other devices."

The user says that the photo wasn't inappropriate. "I think the AI scan was triggered because the angle showed one child wearing pink clothes slightly overlapping the youngest child, who also has pink clothes and arms behind their head," he added.

While the user admits that the composition of the photo is slightly confusing with poor lighting, "any human looking at the image for more than a second would see there is no issue."

They made an appeal to have the account restored, but the ban was upheld. "There are no other routes for me to contact MS at present, phone numbers are all AI bots with no escalation path, contact forms all require a sign in."

This case isn't unique; there's a ton of videos and posts across social media about this specific issue. "I think they should have to go to jail for this," another user lamented on TikTok. "If you're unaware, for last few years, Windows has come with a piece of malware called OneDrive." The user claimed that if you're not careful, the app will spontaneously delete files from your computer.

Microsoft lack of transparency about OneDrive Backup's changes is to blame for the confusion

Microsoft shipped Windows 11 version 25H2 to broad availability on September 30, 2025, with a new Start menu and improved gaming experience. But what you might have missed is that the OneDrive Backup feature is also enabled by default when you sign in with a Microsoft account on a new PC (via ZDNet).

As such, your folders like Documents, Pictures, and Desktop are moved into OneDrive, which is why some users have been complaining that they can't access their data and files directly from their PCs.

Prior to Microsoft's recent changes to its OneDrive Backup feature, users had to locate files and manually transfer them back to their designated folders when disabling the feature. However, the recent changes have made the process a tad easier, allowing users to automatically move files to where they should be in their local profiles.

According to the outlet, when adding an account to an existing Windows 11 installation, Microsoft's Out of the Box Experience (OOBE) will include an option to "Only save files to this PC," though it is easy to miss, especially if you are rushing through the setup process.

This gets a bit complicated when using a Microsoft account to sign in during a Windows 11 clean installation, regardless of whether it's a new or existing account. However, when adding your Microsoft account, you'll be notified that "We'll also back up your files and photos on this device to OneDrive to help keep them safe."

You won't get the option to save your files locally during the setup process. As such, this changes your settings and backs up files from your local Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders to OneDrive.

The new changes aren't limited to Windows only, either. If you're using a pre-release version of Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, new files create on Word or any other productivity app will be automatically saved by default in OneDrive.

It's worth noting that if you're saving your files locally, you can access them in the usual location across your default folders in your user profile. However, if you have enabled the OneDrive Backup feature, the files are moved to OneDrive. The files will remain on your local PC and are synced to the cloud.

As a result, the local folders (even though they are empty) remain on your Windows PC despite being moved and backed up to OneDrive. This is the issue being flagged up by most users across social media. It's not that Microsoft has deleted your files from your local folders; they have just been relocated and synced to OneDrive because the backup feature was enabled by default when upgrading to Windows 11, version 25H2.

While it's easy to look at this whole situation as an opportunistic business strategy by Microsoft to bolster its cloud services, the recent changes also protect you against the absolute loss of your data to malware or when your device fails or gets stolen.

What are your thoughts on Microsoft's new changes to OneDrive's sync system? Let me know in the comments and cast your vote in the poll!

What you need to know

• The Windows app for Sway will be retired on June 1, 2026.
• Sway users will continue to be able to use all of the app's features through the web.
• Sway is a free app that gains enhanced functionality when you are subscribed to Microsoft 365.

Despite incorrect reports, Microsoft did not rebrand its Office apps this month. But the tech giant is about to retire the desktop version of one. On June 1, 2026, the Windows app for Sway will no longer be available.

Sway will continue to be available as a service after that cutoff date, but users will need to use its web client. No Sway content should be affected by the switch, and the feature set of Sway remains unchanged.

The news was shared recently through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center (archived here):

"To streamline and modernize the Sway experience, Microsoft is retiring the Sway Windows desktop application (Win32 client) effective June 1, 2026. This change aligns with our efforts to simplify app management and encourage use of the web-based version, which offers the same capabilities with improved accessibility and support. Users can access all current and future Sway features, as well as their content, through the browser interface at sway.cloud.microsoft."

Even if you've used Microsoft 365 for years, you may not be familiar with Sway. It's a lesser-known application for creating presentations, newsletters, and reports.

Above is an example Sway presentation shared by Microsoft. It's a shame so few people know about Sway, since it can be used to create dynamic presentations.

Sway serves as more of a companion to PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps than a replacement. It's a cloud-first application that supports embedding a wide range of content.

While Sway is a free app that anyone with a Microsoft account can use, you get more options with a Microsoft 365 subscription. The main difference is that Microsoft 365 subscribers have significantly higher limits for items, such as images, videos, and embeds.

Oddly, Microsoft does not mention Sway on its product page for Microsoft 365. Even clicking around to see more details fails to make any mention of Sway appear. But I promise you that Sway does exist. I've used it.

I think it's fair to say that Sway is a bit of a forgotten product from Microsoft. The official website for Sway still says "Do more in Sway with Office 365" despite the link below that text taking you to the buy page for Microsoft 365.

Then again, the Office 365/Microsoft 365/Microsoft 365 Copilot branding has always been a bit muddled.

Have you ever used Sway to make a presentation? Let us know in the comments below!

The internet can be a tricky place sometimes. This week, you've likely seen stories or Reddit posts about Microsoft Office being rebranded to Microsoft 365 Copilot. While a rebrand did happen, it was an app that was rebranded and that change occurred a year ago. So, what gives?

First, a quick refresher. In January 2025, Microsoft made the decision to rename its Microsoft 365 app as "Microsoft 365 Copilot." That was the second major rebrand for the app. It was known as "Microsoft Office" for years before it shifted to the Microsoft 365 moniker.

The new name is awkward and doesn't reflect the main reason people use Microsoft. While a Microsoft 365 subscription now includes Copilot and a bunch of other services, many still associate the service primarily with the Office apps.

The change was made more awkward when it became clear the Microsoft 365 Copilot app icon was difficult to distinguish from other Microsoft apps.

Our Executive Editor Jez Corden commented on the change at the time and his comments hold true today:

"The rebrand of Microsoft Office was dumb to start with, trampling on a legacy spanning decades. The second rebrand attaching Copilot is even more dumb, and follows the Copilot+ PC thought process of firmly putting the cart several miles before the horse. Copilot hasn't earned the right to be showcased alongside a technological cultural milestones like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word."

Corden's comments are warranted. Microsoft's obsession with AI is hurting the experience of general consumers. "Microslop" is trending on social media following a blog post from Satya Nadella that asked people to stop calling AI "slop."

Microsoft's leaders were snubbed by TIME, suggesting people do not view the tech giant as an innovator in AI. The company is also getting outpaced by Google and other competitors.

But there's one major difference between Corden's comments and the comments shared on social media over the last few days — Corden said what he said when the news was... new.

While I can't claim the following is the original source of the trending topic this week, it appears to be one of the first mentions of the Microsoft 365 Copilot rebrand this week to gain traction (pardon the language):

That information is true, but it lacks the context that the change happened a year ago and that the rebrand was of an app. Microsoft Office is still a term used by the tech giant. Once people caught onto that fact, a surge of corrections occurred, such as the Reddit post on the topic being removed.

I'm not defending Microsoft. I think the rebrand exemplifies the company's obsession with AI. I also agree with Steven Sinofsky — yes, that Steven Sinofsky — that Microsoft made the change to increase Copilot usage metrics.

I just think people should know the change is almost 12 months old at this point.

Should Microsoft promote Google products in ads? Do you think Chrome's inclusion was a mistake? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft 365 is about to go up in price, and users in the UK are getting a friendly reminder of that fact. Earlier this week, Microsoft sent an email to some subscribers about the price hike.

This increase has been known for quite some time. I first got an email about it in July (my subscription renewed in August). But it seems Microsoft wants to make sure people know about the change, so it is sending out a reminder.

I believe this email may be sent out to those who are about to have their plan renewed, since the text refers to the price increase on February 14, 2025.

The new price has been live for new subscribers for months on Microsoft's website.

Here's what the email says:

"Thank you for being a valued Microsoft 365 subscriber. To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade, address rising costs and enable us to continue delivering new innovations, we’re increasing the price of your subscription.

Effective 14 February 2025, the price for Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase from GBP 79.99* per year to GBP 104.99* per year. To continue with the new price, no action is needed—your payment method on file will be automatically charged. To make changes to your subscription plan or turn off recurring billing, visit your Microsoft account at least two days before your next billing date.

By maintaining your subscription, you’ll enjoy secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices and cutting-edge AI-powered features, along with all your other subscription benefits. Experience a whole new life for your favourite apps with Microsoft Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook, plus create stunning designs and edit photos in a flash with Designer. Thank you for choosing Microsoft."

The company also shared links on how to cancel Microsoft 365 and how to switch your Microsoft 365 subscription.

Discounts on Microsoft 365 in the UK are not as good as deals in the US. I have found some small discounts that can help you save a few quid.

You can stack Microsoft 365 for up to five years, meaning you can extend your subscription by purchasing codes at a discount. If you know you need Microsoft for a long time, it's worth stacking.

If you're in the US and received a similar warning, you can check out my roundup of the best Microsoft 365 deals.

Canceling Microsoft 365

I've subscribed to Microsoft 365 since before that was even the name of the subscription. I've had some form of Microsoft 365/Office 365 since Microsoft shifted to a subscription-based model. The upcoming price increase is enough for me to genuinely consider other options.

I use Microsoft 365 daily. I rely on Word, Excel, and OneDrive in both my professional and personal lives. But subscription fatigue is real and the cost of living keeps going up.

When Microsoft's latest reminder about the price increase hit my news desk, I spoke with my wife about how much she uses Microsoft 365. I use it the most out of anyone in our family, but I wanted to double-check I wouldn't hurt anyone else's workflow by canceling or changing our plan.

I have some time to decide since the new price increase won't go into effect until February 14, 2026 (Happy Valentine's Day from Microsoft). Between now and then, I'll look into iCloud storage plans, using the web version of Office exclusively, and turning a computer into a NAS.