Microsoft 365 Copilot: New Navigation, Voice, and Context Enhancements Arriving Soon

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Here are three new updates to the user interface of Microsoft Copilot. These releases improve usability, expand interaction options, and streamline how users incorporate work content into prompts. All three of these features were actually announced "a long time ago", and the initial release started almost 6 months ago. But I guess the setup is complicated, as the rollout hasn't completed yet. This only proves the importance of paying attention to the official roadmap and the tenant message center in order to understand when features are being implemented for your organization. Timelines may continue to evolve as deployments progress, and this summary includes the official reference IDs and documentation links for verification. Refreshed Navigation Experience There is a redesigned navigation experience for the Microsoft 365 Copilot app heading your way, delivering a cleaner, more efficient layout. The update flattens the menu structure and groups related components to help...

New Microsoft Teams Experience: Chats and Channels are being consolidated into a single app

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Already available in targeted release, Microsoft Teams has been "streamlined" into putting chats, teams, and channels into a single app. Here’s what you need to know about the new features and how they can benefit you.

Previously, users had to navigate separate Chat and Teams views, which could be cumbersome and time-consuming. With the new update, all conversations whether they’re individual chats, group chats, or team channels are now unified in a single Chat view. This means you can easily switch between different types of conversations without losing context.


The application also has a couple of new features like: 
  • Custom Sections: Organize your projects and topics with custom sections that can include individual, group, and meeting chats, as well as channels.
  • New Filters: Focus on what’s important with filters for Unread, Chat, Channels, Meetings, and more.
  • @Mention View: Quickly access all your personal @mentions in one interactive list.
You can tailor the new chat and channels experience to suit your preferences. By default, the combined Chat view is enabled, but you can choose to keep chat, teams, and channels separate if that works better for you. Simply go to Teams Settings to make these adjustments (there are no admin controls for this). Additionally, you can turn on message previews in Settings if you prefer to see a snippet of each message in your list.

As mentioned, this is already available for users in the targeted release, but it looks like it might take some time for the feature to reach all tenants. The latest Message Center message is indicating GA in January. This is related to the following Roadmap Item.