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Many thanks to Logitech, our October community Benefactor, for supporting Empowering.Cloud. Good timing too: on 8 October Logitech announced its next generation of Teams Rooms devices with MDEP, more on that in the devices section. If you are at UCX London this week, Martin Boam and I are presenting What's New in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams on 14 October, and the Copilot & Cloud User Group London is doing a takeover the same day. I also have an enterprise roundtable with a couple of spots left. Hope to see you there! The week after, on 20 October, I'm hosting a small invite-only Teams Voice and Phone roundtable at Pure IP's new London office: ten enterprise Teams Phone service owners around a table, no slides, just discussion. If that is you and you'd like to be on the list for the next one, reply and tell me. Microsoft Teams Enterprise Update — October 2026Everything you need to know in 15 minutes or less. Watch on YouTube or read it on Empowering.Cloud. Teams Phone Agent GA, ACS retiring, deepfake detection coming to meetings, who gets what in Teams events licensing, and 24 quick-hit updates across Teams, Teams Phone and intelligent spaces. Upcoming EventsOnline events
In-person events
Microsoft 365 and Copilot NewsThree Copilot admin defaults flip this month — memory and agent uploadsNow: communication memory is on by default. Copilot memory, which learns from a user's chats, emails and meetings and stores summaries in their mailbox, is being enabled for licensed users as the GA rollout runs through to late October (MC1469852 · MC1158329). The org-wide off switch is under Enhanced Personalisation in the admin centre, and Purview retention for memory items is arriving alongside it (MC1478965). 25 October: advanced agent and plugin uploads open to all users. Declarative agents with actions, and MCP servers, can be uploaded by everyone unless you change the setting to "None" or a specific group before then (MC1472007). The setting has been in the admin centre since 25 September. If your agent governance plan assumed uploads were locked down, check it. Copilot Business credits update: the CSP date slips to 1 December with a 4,000-credit default capA follow-up to last issue. MC1476200 was updated on 1 October: usage-based billing is still on by default for new Copilot Business purchases direct from Microsoft from 19 October, but the CSP date slips to 1 December, with a default cap of 4,000 credits per user per month (Partner Center, October). Two related controls landed in cost management. Spending policies now auto-apply to newly released usage-based services unless you turn auto-apply off (MC1470425), and the FinOps for AI update adds model-family access per group, a Graph API for spending policies, and brings Copilot Studio agents under Microsoft 365 cost management from October. I'm having a lot of conversations about managing usage-based billing for Cowork and the upcoming Code and Autopilot. It is also required for Teams Phone Agent. If you are digging into this, or have questions, let me know. Interesting Microsoft 365 Changes
Microsoft Teams and AI-Powered WorkplaceTeams Phone Agent is GA — an AI receptionist, billed with Copilot Credits: 5 Things to knowTeams Phone Agent started rolling to GA on 30 September (MC1482800 · Teams blog). It sits in front of call queues, answers from your knowledge base, books appointments, transfers with AI notes and works in 60+ languages. Billing is now official: "charged with usage-based billing through Copilot Credits … including call duration and the capabilities invoked". We recently had a Teams Fireside Chat on Phone Agent with Mahendra Sekaran and Michael Harbut from Microsoft. 5 key points from the session:
Deepfake detection is coming to Teams meetingsTeams will let certified third parties analyse meeting media for synthetic audio and video and "send detection signals to Teams" for in-meeting controls, GA November (roadmap 573451). Microsoft's caveat is that detection is done by a certified third-party provider. I expect we'll hear more at Microsoft Ignite. It lands alongside impersonation protection warnings on deceptive participants (roadmap 573157) and granular Conditional Access for sensitive meetings (roadmap 571879), all dated November. Key Teams Changes
Teams Rooms and Devices NewsLogitech's next-generation Teams Rooms, built on MDEPLogitech announced its next generation of Teams Rooms solutions built on MDEP on 8 October: Rally Bar 2, the successor to Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini with built-in occupancy sensors; Rally System 2 Pro for large, multi-camera and divisible rooms; Rally Speaker 2 Pro and Max front-of-room speakers using Sound Shape; and refreshed Tap IP 2 and Tap Scheduler 2. Rally Bar 2 and the Tap devices are rolling out now; the Pro system and speakers are slated for summer 2027. Also certified this month: the boomless Zone Vibe Pro for Business headset, including the Premium Microphone for Open Office designation. Zero-touch provisioning for MDEP devices — "similar to Autopilot for Windows"The first big MDEP-specific feature. In the Pro Management Portal you add devices by MAC address (or CSV, up to 500), generate a 24-hour six-digit code, the installer types it on the device and you sign in the device account remotely (Learn · MDEP.2026.15.1 release notes). Requirements: Rooms on Android, panels and phones; Admin Agent 855 or later; SIP devices stay in the Teams admin centre for now, and there is no bulk remote sign-in yet. OEMs confirm readiness per product, so check with your vendor. I haven't had hands-on with it yet; if you have, reply and tell me how it went. Rooms and Intelligent Spaces Updates
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