Copilot, Microsoft 365, News, SharePoint Online, Teams

Microsoft Ignite 2025 – recap

No Comments
Microsoft Ignite 2025 - recap

Microsoft Ignite 2025 was a huge conference dedicated to all products and services in Microsoft 365 and Azure. Microsoft announced many new features, mostly in the AI area. Let’s check out what’s new and what’s coming in SharePoint, Teams, and Copilot!

During the conference, Microsoft announced and showcased tons of new features and functions across the Microsoft 365 platform. From Copilot and Agents, through SharePoint and Teams, to Planner and Azure services. Of course, most of the updates are related or focused on AI and Agents (but not all!). Here are my top picks from Ignite 2025 – I focused on SharePoint, Teams, and Copilot updates.

There is a Resource section at the end of the articles with links to detailed information about updates.

SharePoint

Copilot can reason over metadata in SharePoint

Metadata is one of the most important aspects of SharePoint information architecture. It contains data about documents, records, files, multimedia, etc. If it’s implemented properly, it gives a fantastic tool for SharePoint users to find the right information. But it’s also one of the hardest parts of any project related to SharePoint.

Microsoft announced that Copilot understands metadata from SharePoint and is able to reason over it. This is great information!

Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Storage

This one is very important but quite a surprise for me. If you want to add additional SharePoint storage, you can simply buy the add-on, and that’s it. You can buy multiple add-ons if you need more storage. It’s not the perfect solution because SharePoint utilization can be dynamic, and you need to keep an eye on storage and react accordingly.

The Pay-As-You-Go scenario will make it easier to manage storage and pay only for the exact amount of space that you need. We don’t have details, but I assume that it will be similar to other PAYGO scenarios in SharePoint (e.g., backup).

Knowledge Agent public preview updates

Knowledge Agent is in Public Preview and gives you AI-powered features for SharePoint sites and document libraries. It’s the most powerful AI for SPO in my opinion.

Microsoft announced 2 important things:

  • GA Licensing model: At general availability, the Knowledge Agent will be fully included as part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot license. That’s very important – you don’t need to buy an add-on, another license, or use the Pay-As-You-Go method!
  • Site-level opt-in now available: Enable Knowledge Agent on specific sites. You can now enable it for a site or two and test it before releasing it for more sites.

On-demand page and list creation

Microsoft 365 Copilot will get a new skill for creating SharePoint Pages and Lists directly from the chat window. If you work and do something in the chat window, and if you want to use that data from Copilot to create something on a site, then you will be able to do that directly from the same place. It’s a natural evolution of Copilot chat skills and features.

SharePoint Agents are now available in Copilot chat and the Agent Store

Most of the data is stored in SharePoint, so that’s also the natural habitat of Agents. Easy to use and close to data sources.

And now, you can open Agents created in SharePoint directly in Copilot Chat! No more switching to a proper site to ask a question. They are also available in the Agent Store.

Small but useful update.

Teams

Meeting recap templates

This is the big one! This feature was available some time ago but was removed from Teams. Now it’s coming back.

 With customizable recap templates, you can shape your AI-generated notes to match your requirements and needs. There are two out-of-the-box templates, a Speaker Summary that organizes insights by participant, and an Executive Summary that highlights key takeaways.

You can also create your own template or templates! Available in public preview on both desktop and mobile in December.

Teams Mode for Copilot [Public preview]

Teams Mode for Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new way to collaborate with your colleagues. You can enable a group Copilot chat in Teams and work together on a specific topic or project. You can also add Copilot experience to an existing group chat to enhance its capabilities. Now, it’s available in Public preview.

Check the interactive demo – https://regale.cloud/microsoft/play/5280/teams-mode-in-copilot#/0/0

Enhancements to Channel Agent [Public preview]

Each channel can have a Channel Agent that helps teams with conversations, files, and meetings. You can use it to flag important deadlines, to summarize project progress, or to plan a new meeting.

The Agent will get more skills:

  • Status report update: mention the agent with queries like “create a status report.” Status reports will now post directly in the channel for all users.
  • Share your objective and deadline with the agent, and they will create a list of tasks with deadlines. You can review them and adjust if needed. Approved tasks will be added to Planner.

Pages in channels

Pages in channels are flexible collaboration pages that use Loop components. You can add multiple pages to your channels. You can also add existing Loop components or pages as dedicated tabs. Small but powerful update!

Channel agents in Teams connect to Asana, Atlassian, GitHub [Public preview]

Channel Agent can connect with Asana, Atlassian, and GitHub via the MCP server to execute workflows on behalf of users. That’s something interesting if you use those specific services. If so, you can ask a channel agent to create a task in Atlassian or get some information from GitHub.

Powerful update!

Enhancements to Facilitator Agent

Facilitator agent helps teams run meetings and stay focused on the content. The agent plays as a moderator and takes notes, keeps an eye on the agenda, etc.

Announced updates:

  • Facilitator can now recognize an agenda shared directly in the meeting chat. Based on it, the agent automatically builds a live progress tracker at the top of the meeting.
  • If someone who’s invited hasn’t joined yet, and their name comes up twice in conversation, the agent pings them in chat and nudges them to join the meeting.
  • Facilitator can draft documents in Word or Loop based on what was said in the meeting. You can use it to make whatever output you need, a blog post, a format for meeting notes, a project brief, etc.
  • The agent captures tasks and assigns them.

Trust Indicators:

Trust indicators are labels that help users quickly assess who they’re working with. Group chats and Meeting chats that have external users are marked as External to make it clearly visible that there is someone from outside of your organization. Labels include external-familiar, external-unfamiliar, guest, or unverified.

Branded reactions [Private preview]

Branded reactions are coming!. You will be able to upload your own custom reaction icons reflecting brand elements or event themes, and they will be available for meeting participants. Clap, thumbs-up, or whatever you need!

Branded reactions will be available in private preview in December.

Copilot

Introducing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot

The new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents are dedicated companions that help you create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations directly in the Copilot chat. This is the natural evolution of Office apps skills.

You can start projects in Copilot Chat using natural language to quickly gather or generate context for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Agents guide you with clarifying questions, helping shape outputs that match specific goals and use cases.

Once the draft is ready, Copilot moves into Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for deeper editing and customization. Inside each app, Copilot assists you and helps you refine content, apply formatting, etc.

Updates to Copilot in Outlook help streamline emailing, scheduling

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Outlook has many new updates that will support you in everyday tasks.

  • Copilot in Outlook mobile now gives you an interactive voice experience that summarizes your emails and guides you through actions like drafting replies, deleting, archiving, pinning, or flagging messages.
  • Copilot in Outlook is making it easier to catch up and perform tasks using one-tap prompts. They are simple but powerful prompts that make it easier to get work done, such as “Triage my inbox,” “What needs my reply?” and “Summarize and reply”.
  • You can schedule meetings directly from chat! Ask Copilot to schedule a meeting with colleagues, and it will find available times, book rooms, draft agendas, and send invites. I love that idea, but I must test it out.
  • Copilot will also be able to help resolve scheduling conflicts for 1:1 meetings and personal events. You can set your preferences, and Copilot will automatically reschedule when double-booked, notifying users of changes.

Work IQ adds Copilot and SharePoint enhancements.

Work IQ is a new intelligence layer powering Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents in Microsoft 365. It’s designed to understand your work. It connects to organizational and personal data such as files, emails, and meetings while building memory from your preferences, habits, and workflows. Now it’s not only about your data, but also about your behaviors and actions.

Copilot delivers insights, anticipates your needs and requirements, proactively executes tasks, and can be fine-tuned to reflect your company’s knowledge.

Conversational memory will allow Copilot to retain context and specific details across your sessions. By combining information such as work profile, custom instructions, and saved preferences with insights from previous chats, Copilot will offer more relevant and personalized responses. You will have full control over data and conversational memories.

Reasoning over structured metadata in SharePoint document libraries enables more accurate, context-aware, and precise answers. While connectors provide access to SharePoint content, Copilot goes further with an understanding of SharePoint.

There are a lot of things to understand and test in real-life scenarios, and I’m curious to see them in action.

Voice in Microsoft 365 Copilot is available for commercial customers

Voice in Microsoft 365 Copilot is now generally available. It makes interacting with Copilot more natural and easier. You can speak to Copilot, interrupt it, and easily move from voice to text on both mobile and desktop.

Tap “Start a new voice chat” or say, “Hey, Copilot” to get instant, personalized insights. This capability will first roll out to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents with availability in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more apps to follow.

Copilot Notebooks enhancements improve collaboration

Microsoft announced a few updates for Copilot Notebooks.

  • Copilot will proactively recommend new Notebook topics based on recent activity and priorities.
  • Copilot will suggest relevant references in Notebooks to ensure the project has the most current content. The new overview page will surface live updates and insights as content changes.
  • The new Video Overview feature will provide quick summaries for your Notebook.
  • Last but not least, you will be able to share Notebooks across an organization for co-authoring and contribution across the team. YES!!

Resources

Summary

Well, it’s hard to write a short summary of such a conference. Microsoft announced so many features that it’s not possible to do that. Some of them are small and cosmetic, but some are huge and will change the entire service or product.

The main focus was put on AI and AI Agents – new layers, new SKU, new features, new names, etc. For me, it’s clear that Copilots is becoming a mature product with more advanced features.

The best update – the one for SharePoint Knowledge Agent. It will be available withing the existing M365 Copilot license! It’s very important because it can be a powerful tool for every SharePoint user.

You may also like

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *