New Year, New Momentum: Here are three Copilot updates to get you started into 2026

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It's a new year, so I thought I'd start the year by mentioning three features already released, or soon going to be released. One of the features improves the workflow of sharing files with comments, the other improves the application specific Copilot, and the last feature makes it easer to find the nest available timeslot for a 1:1 meeting. As with all of my other posts, timelines can shift, and the timelines in this post is as written in the Message Center at the time of posting. AI-Summary experience when sharing files. With this new feature, copilot intent to help users share files with clearer context in just a few steps. Users will get the capability to generate a concise summary of a file and include it when sharing from the File Explorer share dialog or the OneDrive activity center. This will make it easier to share the context of a file and giving the receiver a faster understanding of what a document or file contains before they open it. General Availability announced...

Teams to Skype for Consumer federation is coming

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Here is a feature many of my customers have asked for ever since switching from Skype for Business Online to Teams: Teams/Skype Consumer chat and calling interop. 
The feature is listed as Roadmap ID: 53935

According to the message center, the feature will be rolling out in a disabled state, and admins will have to log into the Teams Admin Center to configure it under "external access":


Once configured, users can search the external directory, the same way they can search for internal chat users:

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Once set up, users can chat, call by audio or video, just as they can with other Skype for Business or Teams users. There are a couple of limitations in this initial release, such as no rich formatting, no mentions or emojis. It also looks like you can't search for a Skype ID or phone number, but it is all documented in the interop description found at docks.

And just like that, the world became a little smaller.....