A couple of noteworthy updates on Microsoft Copilot

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Changes to Microsoft Copilot is rolling out with great speed, some are bigger than than others, but sometimes there are minor changes that doesn't really need a separate blog post. Yet many of these changes means a great deal to the end users and how they can use the tool, and we shouldn't forget to mention them. So here are a couple of announced changed and improvements to Microsoft Copilot.  Uploading images: Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot users with an Entra account will soon gain the ability to upload images and ask Copilot to analyze or describe them. This feature will be accessible through the Microsoft 365 app, Outlook, and Teams on web, desktop, and mobile platforms. Users can either take pictures with their mobile cameras or upload images directly from their devices. This feature itself, has been around in the public Copilot, but with this update it will now be available to anyone with an Entra account (not just copilot licensed users) and in both "wo...

Expanding Voice Attribution in Microsoft Teams Rooms

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Microsoft Teams is enhancing the capabilities of Intelligent Speaker Recognition, a feature that will identify and attribute speech to individual speakers in meeting transcripts. Initially this feature was exclusive to Microsoft Teams Rooms, but Microsoft has now announced it will extend this to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) settings as well. 

To be able to benefit from this feature on BYOD rooms, users must have either a Microsoft Teams Premium or a Copilot license. It is also important to make sure the meeting policy allows for recognition. This is configured with the -RoomPeopleNameUserOverride switch, which can turn the feature off or allow for attribution and recognition.

Users can set up their own profile in their own Teams Desktop App. Their profiles are stored within the company tenant. When joining a room, they must remember to sign into the meeting with their own app and selecting "RoomAudio" as the sound option to ensure their profile will be recognized.

It can be worth mentioning that the policies for voice and face enrolment is going through some changes as well. By default, the new voice and face biometric enrollment policy will be enabled, and will  introduce separate settings for voice and face enrollments, which can be individually enabled or disabled. The current settings in csTeamsMeetingPolicy will be replaced with a new csTeamsAIPolicy which includes separate EnrollFace and EnrollVoice settings.

The combination of expanding voice attribution to more room types and the new policy for voice and face recognition will surely improve the experience with meeting transcripts. It will be easier to recognize who is speaking, which can lead to more efficient and productive meetings. 

For more details, refer to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 413708 and ID 417155. The features seems to be planned for a release in the first quarter of 2025.