M365 Copilot Teams Mode

Teams Mode for M365 Copilot is a new feature about to be released for public preview. It offers an engaging option that lets users start a M365 Copilot Chat as a private conversation between themselves and Copilot. When they want to include others, they can simply choose “start a group chat” within M365 Copilot Chat. This action brings everyone, along with Copilot, into a Teams group chat so they can all continue discussing with Copilot.

For instance, a business analyst might begin researching with Copilot Chat and later invite colleagues to join. Together, they can keep the conversation going and ask Copilot questions based on their varying expertise.

Reference: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/introducing-teams-mode-for-microsoft-365-copilot/4463259

M365 Copilot Research with Computer Use

A new feature, M365 Copilot Researcher with Computer Use, is being introduced. Computer Use enables secure access to public, gated, and interactive web content via a virtual computer acting on behalf of the user. When utilizing the Researcher Agent for analysis, Computer Use can retrieve premium and authenticated information as necessary, actively navigating and interacting with data sources. The retrieved information is then incorporated to deliver comprehensive insights.

The underlying process involves Copilot orchestrating the creation of a virtual sandbox machine instance. Subsequently, an AI-powered browser is launched to access website data on the user's behalf in a controlled environment.

Reference: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/introducing-researcher-with-computer-use-in-microsoft-365-copilot/4464766

September 2025 Microsoft Teams Updates

Microsoft Teams had several import releases in the month of September 2025.  Here are the top ones that caught my attention:

• Agents in channels (Public Preview): Each channel can now have a Channel Agent that becomes an expert on information within that Teams Channel.  The Agent will be named after the Channel, and will help with common tasks such as identifying important deadlines buried in the conversations, summarizing status, assigning tasks and answering questions.
• Threads in Channels: I was really happy to see this.  You now have the ability to reply to specific messaging, while keeping conversations grouped together preserving the flow and context of a conversation.
• Enhanced AI thread summary in Channels: Now there are AI-generated thread summaries available in a post/reply and threaded channels.  This really helps with lengthy conversations.  Now you do not have to scroll around to read information; you have a summary right there for you to scan before you post something.
• Meeting Facilitator Agent is now GA.  This Agent helps keeps meetings focused and organized.  The agent will set an agenda based know the invitation and inferred goals from the discussion, it will keep conversations on track with visible timelines and reminders, it will capture real-time notes, answer questions within the context of the meeting, records and assigns tasks, etc.  
• Enhanced Meeting Protection – Prevent Screen Captures: This requires Teams Premium. This prevents users from taking screen captures.

Reference: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftteamsblog/what%E2%80%99s-new-in-microsoft-teams--september-2025/4457965

M365 Copilot Agent Store and Marketplace

Back in May 2025, it was announced that the Agent Store and Marketplace were under development.  As of October 2025, the Agent Store and Marketplace is now launched.  The Agent Store is a centralized location where agents built by Microsoft, partners and customers can be published.  All third-party agents go through rigorous validation process to meet enterprise security, compliance and performance standards.  Customers and also use the Agent Store as a distribution tool to make their own agents available to their end users.  IT admins have full control and governance over the Agents that are available in the Agent Store.

References:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2025/09/25/empower-your-workforce-with-agents-in-microsoft-365-copilot/

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/introducing-the-agent-store-build-publish-and-discover-agents-in-microsoft-365-copilot/  

Microsoft 365 Apps Icons to be Refreshed

It was announced that all the Office Icons are being refreshed. I liked this picture showing the evolution of the Office icons since 2001.

Reference: https://microsoft.design/articles/fluid-forms-vibrant-colors/

New Agent Mode in with M365 Copilot

A new experience called vibe working is being launched within M365 Copilot called Agent Mode within Office Apps.  If you are not familiar with the term “vibe working”, it is a new agentic, collaborative workflow where users and AI iteratively refine content together.  It is really slick.

When running in Agent Mode, users will have an interactive, conversational experience with Copilot for creating and modifying content and data in solutions like Microsoft Word and Excel.  For instance, when you are in Word, you just ask Copilot that you need it to create content like “Please create me a report about XYZ customer, along with recent market trends influencing customers decisions and what solutions they should consider”.  Copilot will write this content.  You can then ask Copilot to iterate on by asking to more emphasis on a particular solution, and it will go through modifying it; pretty amazing.

Same for Excel, when running in Agent Mode, you can ask Copilot to do a full analysis of data a spreadsheet, and ask for Copilot to provide specific insights that that you need to have.  Copilot will then create formulas and data visualizations to provide you that insight.

Additionally, there is a new Office Agent that is available in Copilot Chat.  This enables users to create Word and PowerPoint documents inside of Chat without having to open the Office App.  Copilot Chat will do deep research and reasoning to produce high quality content.

Reference: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/09/29/vibe-working-introducing-agent-mode-and-office-agent-in-microsoft-365-copilot/

M365 Copilot and Anthropic Opus 4.1

There was an important announcement this week.  M365 Copilot will now allow users to leverage Anthropic Opus 4.1 with the Researcher agent.  This was exciting to see because up till now, M365 Copilot could only work with ChatGPT model.  Frankly, I had been telling customers that model selection was not feature of M365 Copilot, however now it is, and it is super exciting to see.

Reference: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/09/24/expanding-model-choice-in-microsoft-365-copilot/