Modern Work Weekly - Week of 2026-07-07

Top 5

1. Copilot Cowork is GA worldwide. Multi-step, long-running agentic workflows are now production-ready for every licensed org. Plugins, enterprise compliance grounding, and multi-system connectivity are all live. This changes your Copilot deployment conversation from “what can it do” to “what do we enable first.”

2. Claude Sonnet 5 is live in M365 Copilot. Anthropic’s latest model is available now in Copilot Cowork and PowerPoint. If your org has Copilot licensed, users already have access to a second frontier model. Review your AI acceptable-use policy if it references specific models by name.

3. Sales Agent hits GA. CRM-grounded deal intelligence in the flow of work is now generally available. If your org uses Dynamics 365 or a connected CRM, sellers can access customer and deal context directly in Teams and Outlook without admin intervention beyond licensing.

4. Five CVEs published across AI and TLS libraries. Two affect golang’s net/html, onnxruntime, keras, and two TLS implementations. If your org builds or runs any internal tooling on these libraries, patch now. The TLS-related CVEs (CVE-2026-54891 and CVE-2026-55952) carry particular risk for services exposed on the network.

5. Windows settings backup becoming a default resilience baseline in 26H2. Backup is on by default starting with Windows 11 26H2; restore still requires explicit admin configuration. Plan your policy stance now before the release lands in production.

Endpoint & Device Management

• Windows settings backup becoming a new resilience baseline [GA] — Starting with Windows 11 26H2, settings backup will be on by default for eligible devices, covering a recoverable list of settings and Microsoft Store apps. Restore is not enabled by default and still requires explicit admin configuration. Decide now whether your org’s policy should allow or restrict this backup behavior before 26H2 reaches your production rings.

Collaboration & Productivity

• What’s New in Microsoft Teams: June 2026 InfoComm Edition [GA] — June’s Teams update focuses on AI and collaboration space improvements announced at InfoComm 2026. Key themes include bringing AI into meeting flows and enhancing Teams Rooms experiences. Review the full post for any calling or meeting policy changes that could affect your room configurations or attendee experiences.

• Teams Rooms on Android: front-of-room view control for Town Hall [GA] — When a Teams Rooms on Android device is invited as a presenter in a Town Hall, presenters can now switch the front-of-room display between attendee and presenter views from the console without impacting the audience. Available in Teams Rooms Pro; GA is targeted for August 2026. If you run Town Halls from Rooms on Android, plan testing ahead of that date.

• Lessons from building AI skills in the real world with Copilot in SharePoint [GA] — Microsoft’s early access program for Copilot skills in SharePoint surfaces practical results: faster proposal drafting and improved project-status visibility when information is scattered across sites. If you’re scoping a Copilot in SharePoint rollout, this post gives you concrete use-case evidence to bring to stakeholders, plus realistic expectations for what works and what doesn’t.

AI & Copilot

• Copilot Cowork is GA: plugins change what AI can do for businesses [GA] — Multi-step agentic work across connected enterprise systems is now generally available worldwide. Copilot Cowork is designed enterprise-ready from day one: secure, compliant, and grounded in your org’s data across connected systems. Review which plugins you want to enable and scope access via Copilot admin controls before users start experimenting.

• Claude Sonnet 5 available now in Microsoft 365 Copilot [GA] — Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 5 is rolling out in Copilot Cowork and PowerPoint for licensed M365 Copilot users today. The model is positioned for agentic, multi-step work with near-Opus 4.8 performance at lower cost. If your org has AI governance policies that name specific models or model providers, update them to reflect this new addition.

• Sales Agent is now generally available [GA] — Sales Agent surfaces CRM insights and M365 work data in Teams and Outlook so sellers can prep, follow up, and keep CRM records current without switching systems. No complex admin configuration is required beyond licensing, but you should validate your CRM connector permissions and data access scope before broad rollout. This is a meaningful change to how sales data flows through the M365 surface.

• What’s New in Microsoft 365 Copilot: June 2026 [GA] — June’s Copilot update covers GA for Copilot Cowork, expanded citations and reasoning in Copilot Chat, new Notebook references, Outlook customization, and Word editing improvements. Skim the full list to identify features your user base will notice without being told, so you can get ahead of the helpdesk tickets. Several of these changes alter default behavior in Outlook and Word.

Security & Compliance

• CVE-2026-54891: Plaintext APPLICATION_DATA injected during TLS handshake delivered to client post-handshake [GA] — A TLS implementation flaw allows plaintext data injected during the handshake to be delivered to the client application after the handshake completes, potentially bypassing confidentiality guarantees. Any internal service or tooling using the affected SSL library should be patched immediately. Audit your internal build pipelines and containerized services for this dependency.

• CVE-2026-55952: TLS 1.3 server DoS via malformed ClientHello pre-shared key extension [GA] — A malformed ClientHello message with a crafted pre-shared key extension can cause a denial of service on TLS 1.3 servers using the affected library. Network-exposed services built on this library are at risk. Identify any internal TLS 1.3 endpoints using the affected library and prioritize patching or mitigation.

• CVE-2026-25681: Incorrect handling of character references in DOCTYPE nodes in golang.org/x/net/html [GA] — A parsing flaw in Go’s x/net/html package could be exploited through malformed HTML input. If your org runs any Go-based internal tools or microservices that process user-supplied HTML, assess your exposure and update the dependency. Check your software inventory for golang.org/x/net usage.

• CVE-2026-14647: onnxruntime out-of-bounds in convPoolShapeInference_opset19 [GA] — An out-of-bounds vulnerability in ONNX Runtime’s convolution/pooling shape inference affects any environment running model inference workloads on this library. If your org has ML inference pipelines, custom Copilot extensions, or AI workloads using onnxruntime, patch to a fixed version. Verify your AI platform team is tracking this.

• CVE-2026-12480: Arbitrary HDF5 file read via virtual dataset bypass in keras [GA] — An attacker can exploit a virtual dataset bypass in Keras to read arbitrary HDF5 files, potentially exposing model weights or training data. If any internal ML workflows use Keras with HDF5 model files, assess whether untrusted inputs can reach file-loading paths and patch the keras-team/keras dependency.

Action Required

• CVE-2026-54891 and CVE-2026-55952: TLS library vulnerabilities, patch immediately [GA] — Immediate action: Both TLS CVEs affect network-exposed services and carry confidentiality and availability risk. Inventory all internal services and build artifacts using the affected SSL library, apply vendor patches, and verify no exposed endpoints remain on the vulnerable version before end of week.

• CVE-2026-14647 and CVE-2026-12480: onnxruntime and Keras AI library CVEs [GA] — Within 14 days: If your org runs any ML inference workloads, custom Copilot extensions, or AI pipelines using onnxruntime or Keras with HDF5 files, coordinate with your AI platform team to patch both libraries. These vulnerabilities could expose model data or allow out-of-bounds reads in production inference environments.

• Windows 11 26H2: plan your policy stance on default settings backup before it ships [GA] — Before 26H2 reaches production rings: Backup is on by default; restore requires admin configuration. Determine whether your organization wants to allow, restrict, or manage this behavior via policy before the release lands in your update rings. No action needed today, but waiting until 26H2 is in production without a decision means you’re accepting the default.

Documentation Updates

Identity & Access

• New article: Transfer Microsoft Authenticator to a new phone - A new how-to article walks users through transferring Microsoft Authenticator to a new phone, a common support scenario worth linking from your helpdesk documentation.

• Migration Policy Analyzer how-to article added - A new how-to article covers the Migration Policy Analyzer tool, useful if you’re planning a hybrid-to-cloud identity migration.

• GSA external user access subscription linking documented - New documentation covers subscription linking for external user access in Global Secure Access, relevant if you’re extending GSA policies to guest or partner users.

• SCIM multi-valued attributes processing details corrected - SCIM provisioning documentation now correctly describes multi-valued attribute processing, worth a re-read if you’ve built custom SCIM integrations against the previous guidance.

• Migration Hub: Amazon Cognito to Entra External ID migration guidance added - New guidance covers migrating from Amazon Cognito to Microsoft Entra External ID, relevant if you’re consolidating customer identity platforms.

Endpoint & Device Management

• Minimum role corrected for Microsoft Graph secret key renewal - The Azure services wizard documentation now lists the correct minimum role required to renew a secret key (2409 Microsoft Graph) — the previous guidance named the wrong role.

• Terminology updated: ‘Apple Business Manager’ renamed to ‘Apple Business’ - Documentation now consistently uses “Apple Business” instead of “Apple Business Manager,” reflecting Apple’s current naming.

• MDM compliance partner onboarding details removed from what’s new documentation - Onboarding details for MDM compliance partners have been removed from the what’s-new documentation, reflecting a scope change in how that content is maintained.

• Audit logs documentation: date range filter behavior modified - Audit logs documentation now reflects modified date range filter behavior, worth checking if you script against audit log queries.

Security & Compliance

• GPO setting name corrected - Documentation now references the correct GPO setting name — the previous name in the docs could have led to a misconfiguration if followed literally.

• Config file reference updated: MDEConfig.txt renamed to DefenderDTconfig.txt - Documentation now references the updated config file name, worth checking if any of your deployment scripts still reference the old filename.