Copilot Actions, rolling out

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Copilot Actions has been available through Copilot Studio for some time, and now, a version of this feature is being rolled out within Microsoft 365. This new integration offers a user-friendly way to automate and delegate common tasks. The term "Actions" varies depending on the application. In Copilot Studio, it serves as a flexible tool for agents. By combining Copilot prompts and conversations, triggers (such as file modifications or scheduled reminders), and user-defined rules, Copilot Actions can generate artifacts that streamline workflows. A similar type of action is teased in the "lightweight" version of Copilot Studio within the M365 agent builder (marked as "coming soon"). The version discussed here is a new out-of-the-box functionality, designed to ensure that even users with minimal technical expertise can benefit from its powerful asynchronous capabilities. To utilize Copilot Actions, users must have a Copilot license (priced at $30). The help...

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.