Smarter AI Workflows in Microsoft 365 Copilot has been announced on the roadmap: Tools, Source Control, and Agents

Tool Selection in Copilot Chat: Making AI Features More Discoverable One of the most helpful updates in my opinion, is the introduction of the new “Tools” button in Copilot Chat. Users will soon see this button directly in the chat prompt box, offering quick access to a curated set of Copilot features such as Researcher, Analyst, Pages, and image generation.  This will hopefully help users with an easier path to the different tools at their disposal. The feature is turned on by default, with no admin configuration required. This feature is associated with Roadmap ID 497298 , and is expected to roll out in the last weeks of August. Source Control in Copilot Chat: Scoped Responses for Greater Relevance Another user-friendly enhancement coming up, is the ability to scope Copilot Chat responses to specific content sources. This feature will allow users to define exactly which documents, folders, or repositories Copilot should reference when generating responses. It’s a subtle but power...

Microsoft Teams: One-Way Lobby Chat

Being able to communicate with meeting participants in the lobby has been a long awaited feature. And finally it seems it is on it's way. Coming in the June-July timeframe, the one-way chat to users in the lobby is being released to Teams. 

Once this feature is released, both Organizers and co-organizers of a meeting will see a new tab in the chat window. The new tab will be named Lobby, and is where messages can be sent to attendees currently in the lobby. The waiting attendees can not reply, and the message is not sticky. Meaning it will not be available to someone who enters after the message has been sent.

As with most features, also this can be controlled through the global meeting policies. The new setting will be called "Organizers can chat with lobby participants" and can be set to "On for everyone" or "On for everyone but anonymous users".

As an organizer of many meetings and user groups calls, I am really looking forward to this feature. It is always great to be able to acknowledge that you are aware of their presence in the lobby, and at what time you will let them in. 

This feature is related to the Roadmap ID 480716

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