New Copilot Updates for Outlook Scheduling, Word Agent Mode, and PowerPoint Agent Mode

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Microsoft has announced Copilot enhancements across Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint that improve scheduling, document creation, and presentation building. Here is a summary of some of the features I think can come in handy. Be aware that timelines may change as deployments progress, some of these have already been pushed back a couple of months. All of the following features requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and will be enabled by default for users with such a license. Automatic rescheduling of 1:1 meetings Automatic rescheduling of flexible 1:1 meetings and personal events in Outlook with Copilot, helping users resolve conflicts with minimal manual effort is coming soon. This will be in addition to the already released auto rescheduling of meeting rooms. Originally this feature was planned for mid‑November 2025 to mid‑January 2026, but is now hopefully coming between to mid‑February 2026 and the end of February 2026. A Microsoft Copilot license is required to use the capability....

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.