Many thanks to Neat, this month's community Benefactor.
Neat just announced their Neat Board 32. We will be talking about their MDEP integration and new hardware in an upcoming webinar with Yoav Barzilay, Director of Program Management, Microsoft Devices Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) and Microsoft MVP and Neat Director Graham Walsh.
Microsoft Teams Monthly Update Video Briefing
Check out my October Microsoft Teams (and all the Copilot news) update video for October, in under 15 minutes, on LinkedIn or Empowering.Cloud.
You can also catch the audio version on the Teams Insider Podcast.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Updates
Last newsletter, we got Anthropic Claude models in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio. This week, Anthropic is integrating its Claude AI assistant with Microsoft 365 services.
Claude now has a Microsoft 365 connector for Claude Team (from $25 PUPM) and Enterprise plan customers. Much like ChatGPT did, they have a connector to Graph that allows connectivity and search to SharePoint/OneDrive, Teams and Outlook. Technical details, permissions and graph scopes here.
Google has also introduced Gemini Enterprise, its answer to Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT Enterprise, but aimed at Google Workspace users. It's $30 per user per month for the standard Gemini Enterprise add-on for Workspace. Google had begun integrating Gemini into Workspace for free, but the "Enterprise" designation still exists for specific features and add-ons. Sounds like Copilot Chat/M365 Copilot?
It's really interesting to watch the competition here, third-party AI agents coming in via Graph vs Native M365 Copilot. Of course, M365 Copilot has the USP of being tightly first-party integrated and all the data being under one roof (well, apart from the Anthropic models!)
The End of SfB Sever 2015 and 2019, Exchange Server 2019 and Windows 10
Support for Skype for Business Server and Exchange Server 2015 and 2019 ended on October 14, 2025. You now have to move to the subscription edition to stay in support.
Windows 10 support also ended on October 14, 2025. Yes, you can get extended patching support, but remember this does not apply to Windows 10-based Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows; they must move to Windows 11, or if they can't, end of support.
Microsoft Teams Updates
Microsoft has again been named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) worldwide, marking our seventh consecutive year with this recognition. Microsoft blog, Full Gartner Report (via Microsoft Blog). Although it's a "UCaaS" report, it does read very telephony-heavy. Is that the primary decision driver for UCaaS platforms in 2025, I wonder?
Teams Channel Agents are getting support for *select* third-party (3P) MCP servers, such as GitHub, Asana and Atlassian (JIRA). Coming in November.
Audio-only meeting and call recording now available in Microsoft Teams. MC1173926.
A new way to catch up on Teams meetings - Copilot Chat with Video recaps. Coming next month.
Teams APIs are coming and going. This month, we see Microsoft Teams administration APIs in Microsoft Graph (beta). The beginning of a journey. Right now, User Config and Number Management are Retrieve only, Policy includes Assign by API - MC1169072.
But we are also losing the Microsoft Graph beta APIs related to device management under the teamworkDevice resource type. They are being depreciated in November. These are, and always have been, beta, so subject to change, but I know some ISVs and customers do use these today.