Tom’s M365 Perspective NewsletterMany thanks to Neat, this month's community Benefactor. I really appreciate all their support of the community. Graham and I recently took a look at their new Neat Board 32. It's been a busy start to Microsoft's new financial year. We've not had the year-end numbers yet (coming 29th July), but plenty has already landed: Microsoft has launched the Microsoft "Frontier" company, Copilot Cowork is generally available with full consumption pricing, GPT-5.6 arrives in Copilot, and Teams, calling and devices news off the back of InfoComm. On a personal note, I've also been renewed as a Microsoft MVP for my 16th year. Thanks to the community and the organisations who support it — it's the whole reason any of this happens. Microsoft 365 AI Workplace 15 Minute Update — July 2026Everything you need to know in 15 minutes or less. Watch on YouTube or read it on Empowering.Cloud, or listen on the Podcast. 🏢 Microsoft Frontier Company — a new $2.5B company with ~6,000 "embedded" forward-deployed engineers to help enterprises actually adopt AI. 🔄 The Microsoft AI-first reorg for FY27 💳 Copilot Cowork is GA — and it's consumption-only 🤖 Copilot Updates roundup — New models and new features 📞 Teams Phone Agent — an AI auto-attendant for your main lines, trained on FAQ docs (no IVR scripting), extend with Copilot Studio. 🎙️ Teams meetings and calling updates 🏢 Rooms & devices — 1.5M+ active rooms, all the news from InfoComm Microsoft 365 and Copilot NewsMicrosoft Frontier — a new $2.5B AI deployment companyMicrosoft has stood up Microsoft Frontier Company, a new $2.5B company with a reported ~6,000 embedded engineers whose job is to sit inside customers and help them actually adopt and change with AI — part solutions engineers, part change-makers. It's a clear signal that getting enterprises to adopt AI and new ways of working takes a consultative engineering approach, not just making the tools available. We've already seen the other frontier labs strike similar consulting partnerships. Copilot Cowork is GA — understand the costCopilot Cowork is now generally available and is fully consumption-based: you pay in Copilot Credits every time you use it at $0.01 per credit, with the amount determined by the model, scenario, tokens, and runtime (MC1393471). Microsoft's own examples run from about $1 to $7+. GPT-5.5 (Hopefully soon GPT-5.6) sits in the family via Frontier and the EU data boundary if you're not ready to enable the Anthropic models, and there's a new Cost Management dashboard for budgets and alerts. That "+" doesn't really make it clear how high it can go. In Frontier Preview, I got one task/prompt up to $237 - granted, it was a huge task where I was deliberately pushing it. It ran for about 30 hours with 72 sub-agents, and I actually consider it good value for what it did for me (went through my whole inbox all time, grabbed unique email, sorted by company, showed me when last engaged, etc.), but how does a typical user understand what the potential cost could be before running a task? Admins, note that you have to enable usage billing for users to use Cowork at all, and that reporting moves off the Viva Insights Agent Dashboard (MC1413306). Some useful links:
The real story is the shift to consumption billing for knowledge work. Like developers before us, we now have to think about what a sensible per-user spend looks like, and what good versus bad consumption spend looks like. Alev and Femke did a great session on Cowork use cases and pricing if you want to go deeper. GPT-5.6 with Work IQ becomes the preferred model in CopilotGPT-5.6 with Work IQ is rolling out as the preferred model across M365 Copilot — Chat, soon Cowork, the Office apps and is available in GitHub and Foundry. Given Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, the day-zero turnaround isn't a surprise, but the pace is notable. It is a shame we can't see exactly which models and reasoning efforts we are getting. There isn’t one GPT-5.6 model, there are 3:
I'd like to know which one we are being given in which scenarios. A quick sweep of the other news: Claude Sonnet 5 is now selectable in Copilot; Work IQ can reason over Power BI reports and semantic models; new vision capabilities are arriving; and Copilot Notebooks is rolling out to Copilot Chat. Fable is back in Claude as of last week but hasn't yet returned to Copilot or Foundry — I'd expect it back soon, but on consumption. Microsoft leans on its own MAI models inside CopilotAt the same time, Bloomberg reported Microsoft is quietly routing more scenarios to its own first-party MAI models. We knew this was coming — Microsoft talked about it at Build — and the logic is twofold: cheaper tokens on the non-consumption scenarios Microsoft foots the bill for, and resilience from owning an option alongside OpenAI and Anthropic. We're also hearing about a native Teams transcription model, and Microsoft say their image model is competitive with Nano Banana 2. I wonder how much transparency we will get into this, or will models just be switched out as Microsoft see fit, that would be my bet. Sales agent and Service agent reach GATwo more agents cross the line. Sales agent is now GA and included in the M365 Copilot licence, alongside Sales in Copilot going multi-channel across web, voice, SMS and email (MC1412480). The Service agent is GA within the Dynamics 365 Contact Center. Look out for a podcast soon where I dive into Dynamics 365 Contact Center and the different agents and use cases with Alpana Bajaj, Microsoft Partner Group Product Manager. Watermarking AI-generated contentNew org policies let you watermark AI-generated audio and video, aligned with the EU rules on being clear when content is AI-made (MC1221451). We flagged this was coming a few months back; now it's here. Claude Tag — and what it signals for TeamsOne to watch from Anthropic. Claude Tag is essentially Claude-as-an-@mention, starting in Slack: you @mention Claude, it has the context of the chat, and it can act via your MCP connections. It's early days in terms of compliance and control, but I'd fully expect them to bring it to Teams as they have with their other Office Plugins. Microsoft already has variants of this — we @mention Copilot in chats and channels today — and with the Teams and Bot SDKs maturing, and autopilots like Scout potentially getting their own Entra identities, we're heading towards talking to agents as first-party users you can pull into chats, channels and meetings. Microsoft is particularly focused on trying to make the channels experience great for agents, including chat, files and meeting transcripts. Microsoft Teams and AI-Powered WorkplaceLast newsletter I went through all the InfoComm news; you should also check out Ilya's InfoComm keynote; Auto-block third-party bots from Teams — Phase twoThe bot-management story moves on. Phase one sent uninvited note-taker bots to the lobby so you could dismiss them; the new policy auto-blocks them before they even hit the lobby, and there are further admin controls being added to transcript access (MC1393806). On our own large public sessions, the lobby approach already blocks tens of bots, with only a few sneaking through, so a hard block is very welcome. Teams Rooms and Devices NewsVoice in Facilitator — AI in the roomFacilitator is becoming a proper AI presence in the room. Rolling out off the back of InfoComm (What's New in Teams — InfoComm Edition): you can now invoke Facilitator by voice in Teams Rooms — speak to the room to join a meeting or ask for help, and it answers out loud. It acts as a persistent room expert (from the room's name to how to share wirelessly), pulls trusted answers from the web to settle in-the-moment questions, and room readiness checks catch camera obstructions, clutter or too few seats before anyone walks in. Also coming: Facilitator proactively detecting and answering knowledge gaps in meetings, rolling out through August — off by default, and someone with a Copilot licence has to enable it per meeting. We've talked about the potential of voice as the room systems interface for years; it finally feels like AI might make it a credible one. AudioCodes C456HD — a native Teams desk phone, now certifiedGood to see a new native Teams desk phone: the AudioCodes C456HD, built on MDEP and Android OS 13, is now Microsoft certified. AudioCodes are also joining the Teams Devices AMA on 21 July to run through their device news. Shure IntelliMix Bar Pro and Touch Panel — Teams certifiedCongratulations to Shure — the IntelliMix Bar Pro and IntelliMix Touch Panel are now Microsoft Teams certified. Teams Rooms on Android — Gallery view refreshA small but welcome one: Teams Rooms on Android is getting a proper Gallery view refresh (roadmap 567468). Android devices move into the Pro Management PortalThe big management news: Android devices are moving into the Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal, rolling out to the earliest customers now, with Android management leaving the Teams admin center (device management in TAC retires in September). One home for all Teams devices, with faster and fuller actions (MC1227622). Also check out this session from Microsoft: Manage and Monitor Teams Android Devices within the Pro Management Portal. Neat Pulse MCP server and Intelligent FramingBack to Neat, this month's Benefactor, with two things I'm genuinely excited about. First, the Neat Pulse MCP Server (beta) — manage your devices, rooms and sensor data in plain language. Lots of people have been talking about MCP and API connectivity into the OEM tooling, and Neat are first out of the gate; I expect others to follow. Do watch Graham's video walking through it. Second, Neat Intelligent Framing (beta, H2 2026) — the camera follows the conversation in bigger rooms. I've got one of their cameras on the way, so expect some demos soon. New on Empowering.Cloud
Teams Insider Podcast
The Teams Insider Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube. EventsFarewell Commsverse — the last oneA bittersweet one. This year's Commsverse was excellent — a proper UK heatwave, but a well-attended event with great sessions and sponsors — and sadly we learned it will be the last. Mark, Randy, Martin and the team are stepping back after seven years. The impact they've had on this community is enormous, and I'm hugely grateful for the chances to speak and be involved. Thank you. We ran a great customer roundtable there, and we'll be doing another end-users-only roundtable at UCX London — get in touch if you'd like to join. Online events
In-person events
As always, if you have any questions, corrections, thoughts, or feedback, please reply. I read all the replies. I really do want to hear your thoughts. Thanks Tom |
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