Two new updates to Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word: Smarter Creation and Researcher agent

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What’s New in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word Microsoft continues to evolve its Copilot capabilities in Word, bringing powerful new features that enhance productivity and streamline workflows. Two newly announced updates are rolling out this fall: First out of the gate is the integration of the Researcher Agent, allowing great content generation within Word itself. The second update is bringing more of the search and creation capabilities we have in Chat directly into Word. These updates represent a meaningful step toward closing the functionality gap between Copilot in Word and Copilot Chat. For me, this is a most welcomed improvement, making it easier for end users to get the results they want even faster, with less friction and more flexibility. Deep Research with the New Researcher Agent in Word Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced the Researcher agent in Copilot Chat, but moving and editing that content required copy/paste and jumping between applications. With this coming update...

Microsoft Authenticator lite generally available

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Microsoft Authenticator Lite has been made generally available (post). This is a feature allowing Microsoft Outlook to work as the authenticator app for a user. This is a nice feature for users who are not using MFA, or maybe still use SMS MFA for their login and don't want to install the authenticator app for some reason.

I would of course, recommend to use the authenticator app itself, but admit this can simplify things for users. The feature isn't "brand new", but it has not been supported for the legacy "per user mfa" a lot of organizations are still using. 

If you do not want this new feature available to users, you would have to turn it off, as it seems it will automatically made available to everyone. There is a good description of how to do so in this article. This will be rolling out from late september and for a couple of weeks.