New Year, New Momentum: Here are three Copilot updates to get you started into 2026

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It's a new year, so I thought I'd start the year by mentioning three features already released, or soon going to be released. One of the features improves the workflow of sharing files with comments, the other improves the application specific Copilot, and the last feature makes it easer to find the nest available timeslot for a 1:1 meeting. As with all of my other posts, timelines can shift, and the timelines in this post is as written in the Message Center at the time of posting. AI-Summary experience when sharing files. With this new feature, copilot intent to help users share files with clearer context in just a few steps. Users will get the capability to generate a concise summary of a file and include it when sharing from the File Explorer share dialog or the OneDrive activity center. This will make it easier to share the context of a file and giving the receiver a faster understanding of what a document or file contains before they open it. General Availability announced...

Microsoft Teams: One-Way Lobby Chat

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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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