Top 5

  1. Entra Tenant Governance is now GA - Multi-tenant environments have historically been a governance blind spot. This GA capability gives organizations a central control plane to manage identity, access, and compliance posture across dozens or hundreds of tenants, which is increasingly relevant as AI workloads span tenant boundaries.

  2. Defender for Identity sensor v3.x now covers AD FS, AD CS, and Entra Connect - These three server roles are high-value attack targets and were previously gaps in MDI sensor coverage. Expanding automatic auditing and sensor support to these roles closes a real detection gap; plan your sensor deployments now.

  3. Copilot Domain Exclusion feature has been rolled back - If your organization deployed or communicated to stakeholders that web grounding could be scoped by domain exclusion, that capability is gone for now. No replacement timeline has been given. Reassess your web grounding governance posture.

  4. Cross-tenant Free/Busy, MailTips, and calendar sharing moving off EWS - EWS deprecation is forcing a migration to Cross-Tenant Access Policy for these Exchange features. If your tenant does cross-tenant calendar sharing today, this requires action before EWS is shut down.

  5. ChainDrop supply chain worm spread via 400+ compromised npm packages - This is a practical threat intelligence item for any team running CI/CD pipelines or Node.js-based tooling. Review your software composition analysis controls and npm dependency posture now.

Identity & Access

  • Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance is now generally available [GA] - If you manage more than one tenant today, this is the capability you’ve been waiting for: a built-in, centralized governance plane for multi-tenant environments. It surfaces identity, access, and compliance posture across all tenants in scope, directly supporting AI readiness requirements that depend on a secure identity foundation. Start by inventorying your tenant estate and scoping which tenants to bring under governance.

  • What’s New in Microsoft Entra: August 2026 [GA] - The August Entra release roundup covers the full breadth of changes shipping this month across identity and network access. Worth reading end-to-end rather than sampling; several items in this digest trace back to announcements consolidated here.

  • DeadLock ransomware: Rust-based encryptor with decentralized recovery infrastructure [GA] - Microsoft Threat Intelligence has published a detailed breakdown of DeadLock ransomware, which uses decentralized infrastructure for victim communications and double extortion. The identity angle is significant: understand the initial access and lateral movement patterns described so you can validate your Conditional Access and PIM configurations against the attack chain.

  • End VPN gaps with identity-first access [GA] - This post lays out the case for replacing or supplementing traditional VPN with Conditional Access and Global Secure Access, covering gaps in continuous evaluation of device posture, location, and user risk. Useful framing for Zero Trust roadmap conversations with leadership or as input to a VPN replacement project plan.

Endpoint & Device Management

  • CVE-2026-68183: stratix10-svc firmware memory leaks and list corruption [GA] - Information published via MSRC. Review your firmware inventory for affected stratix10-svc components and apply guidance per the advisory.

  • Plan for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 end of support [GA] - End of support lands January 12, 2027, after which no security updates will be issued. If you have LTSC 2021 devices in your estate, the migration runway to Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024 is now under six months. Audit your LTSC device count and build your upgrade plan; Extended Security Updates are available if you need more time, but that is a cost and complexity you want to avoid.

  • ChainDrop supply chain compromise: Anatomy of a self-propagating worm [GA] - Over 400 npm packages were compromised and used to automatically republish malicious updates across software ecosystems. If your build pipelines consume npm packages, review your software composition analysis tooling, lock file hygiene, and whether Defender for Endpoint or Defender for Cloud is scanning your CI/CD environments.

  • 128 Seconds to disruption: Microsoft Defender stops ransomware at QNET [GA] - A real-world case study of Defender for Endpoint’s automatic attack disruption isolating a compromised endpoint in 128 seconds before the ransomware payload could spread. Useful validation for stakeholders who question the value of automatic containment; check that your own MDE policies have attack disruption enabled rather than set to audit mode.

  • Microsoft Edge: Updated horizontal tab appearance [GA] - A visual refresh to Edge’s horizontal tab strip with rounded tabs and revised spacing is targeting GA in September 2026. Tab behavior and enterprise data handling are unchanged, but expect user questions about the new look; no admin action is required.

Collaboration & Productivity

  • Cross-tenant Free/Busy, MailTips, and Calendar Sharing moving to Cross-Tenant Access Policy [GA] - EWS deprecation is forcing a migration of cross-tenant calendar features to the Cross-Tenant Access Policy model. If your organization shares Free/Busy or calendar data with external Microsoft 365 tenants today, this requires planning and configuration changes. Read MC1446796 in the Message Center and map out which tenant relationships are affected before EWS goes away.

  • What’s New in Copilot in SharePoint: August 2026 [GA] - Copilot in SharePoint now generates live dashboards directly from SharePoint lists and Excel, producing interactive HTML reports that stay connected to the underlying data source. This is a meaningful productivity capability for teams using lists as operational data stores; worth including in your Copilot rollout or adoption communications.

  • Microsoft named a Leader in KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for CNAPP [GA] - Analyst recognition for Microsoft’s cloud-native application protection platform posture. Relevant context if you’re evaluating or consolidating security tooling around the Microsoft stack.

  • Microsoft named a Leader in 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service [GA] - Eighth consecutive year as a UCaaS Leader, positioned highest on Ability to Execute. Useful for licensing and vendor consolidation conversations; no technical action required.

  • Teams Phone Agent and custom voice agents built in Copilot Studio [GA] - Teams Phone Agent enables AI-powered voice agents to handle customer calls, including after-hours and overflow scenarios, built on Copilot Studio. If your organization runs a call center or customer-facing phone queue on Teams Phone, this is a concrete deployment candidate; review the licensing requirements and Copilot Studio governance controls before piloting.

  • Workplace check-in via Wi-Fi for Microsoft Places and Teams [GA] - Employees can opt in to automatic workplace location updates based on connection to configured company Wi-Fi networks, reducing manual status management. Admins need to configure the relevant network identifiers; consider whether this aligns with your organization’s location data and privacy policies before enabling.

  • Making Microsoft Teams more responsive, reliable, and ready for work [GA] - The Teams engineering team has published details on recent performance investments covering startup time, chat responsiveness, and meeting join reliability. No admin action required, but useful context for help desk teams fielding performance complaints and for setting user expectations.

  • What’s New in Microsoft Teams: May 2026 Build Edition [GA] - The May release roundup covers Teams Platform features announced at Microsoft Build, with a focus on developer-facing capabilities including agents, extensibility, and AI integration points. Review if your team manages Teams apps or custom integrations.

  • What’s New in Microsoft Teams: April 2026 [GA] - April’s release summary covers collaboration intelligence, calling improvements, and hybrid team features. Worth reviewing if you haven’t caught up; several items may already be live in your tenant.

  • Teams Phone user multi-line: up to 10 phone numbers per user [GA] - Admins can now assign up to 10 phone numbers to a single Teams Phone user, enabling one person to represent multiple lines of business or regions within a single Teams account. This eliminates common workarounds involving multiple accounts or complex call routing; evaluate against your current multi-line user scenarios.

  • New Frontline Innovations at Microsoft 365 Community Conference [GA] - New frontline capabilities include a guided deployment wizard in Teams Admin Center for scaling pilots, smart scheduling for automatic shift filling, a Communicator App for operational updates, and hands-free site walkthroughs via Frontline Agent. If you manage a frontline workforce deployment, these are worth evaluating in your next sprint.

  • Intelligent call delegation for Teams Phone [GA] - An AI-powered experience that can answer incoming Teams calls and schedule follow-up appointments on a user’s behalf is available through the Frontier program. This is an early-access capability; check Frontier eligibility if your organization has executives or high-call-volume users who would benefit.

  • Microsoft Teams at the 2026 Microsoft 365 Community Conference [GA] - Session and announcement overview from M365CC covering meetings, calling, collaboration, and agent integration in Teams. Useful as a reference for what was announced at the conference if you missed it.

  • Public Preview: New Microsoft Teams VDI Optimization for Omnissa [Preview] - A tech preview of the new Teams VDI optimization for Omnissa Horizon environments is now available, aiming for feature parity and performance consistency between physical and virtual desktops. If you run Teams on Omnissa Horizon, enroll in the preview and validate against your current VDI workload before broader rollout.

  • Copilot context menu PDF review on OneDrive iOS [GA] - Selecting text in a PDF on OneDrive iOS will surface an Ask Copilot option for summarization, translation, or custom questions, targeting GA in October 2026. No admin action required; ensure Copilot licenses are in place for mobile users who will benefit.

  • Teams Queues app: Intelligent call recaps for recorded calls [GA] - AI-generated summaries, key discussion points, and follow-up actions will be available in the Recap tab for recorded call queue calls, targeting GA in September 2026. Relevant for contact center and support queue admins; verify call recording is enabled for the queues where you want this to apply.

  • OneDrive: Dedicated Shortcuts folder when adding shortcuts [GA] - OneDrive now offers a dedicated Shortcuts folder as a destination when adding shortcuts, keeping them separate from root-level files. The folder is auto-created on first use with a distinct icon; already GA as of July 2026. No admin action required.

  • Copilot Notebooks: Outlook emails as knowledge sources [Preview] - Users can now add Outlook emails as references in Copilot Notebooks, grounding agent outputs in email conversations and decisions alongside files. Currently in preview; confirm your Copilot license scope covers Notebooks if you want to pilot this.

  • Teams meetings: Connect to existing Planner plans [GA] - Rather than auto-generating a new Planner plan per meeting, users can now connect a Teams meeting to an existing plan, consolidating tasks for long-running projects. GA targeting September 2026; no admin configuration required, but worth communicating to project-heavy teams.

  • Microsoft 365 Apps Cloud Update: Simplified Channel Management [Preview] - Admins can now use Entra ID groups as device selection criteria in Cloud Update profiles, combining channel assignment and profile assignment in a single step. Currently in preview as of May 2026, GA since June 2026; if you manage Microsoft 365 Apps update channels at scale, this simplifies the workflow significantly.

AI & Copilot

  • Domain Exclusion for Microsoft 365 Copilot has been rolled back [GA] - The web grounding domain exclusion capability that allowed admins to block specific domains from Copilot’s web search has been pulled back with no replacement timeline. If you communicated this control to stakeholders or built governance processes around it, revisit those commitments and document the gap. Watch the Microsoft 365 Copilot blog for updates.

  • What’s new in Power Platform: July/August 2026 feature update [GA] - The data grid modern control is now GA for canvas apps, delivering a Fluent UI-based grid with search, sorting, selection, and rich column types. Review the full post for additional GA and preview items shipping this cycle; makers using data-dense canvas app views should evaluate migrating to the new control.

  • Microsoft Entra Agent ID for Dataverse: GA [GA] - Each AI agent built on Dataverse can now be assigned a dedicated Entra identity with appropriate security roles, giving you audit trails and least-privilege access control per agent. If your organization is deploying Power Platform or Copilot Studio agents that touch Dataverse, this is the identity governance model you should be building to from day one.

  • Partner Blog: From AI curiosity to Copilot adoption in 30 days [GA] - A 30-day adoption framework for SMB Copilot rollouts targeting CSP partners. Useful reference if you’re supporting SMB customers or running an internal Copilot pilot and need a structured adoption playbook.

  • Advance Zero Trust for AI: New tools and guidance for AI agents and DevSecOps [GA] - Microsoft has expanded its Zero Trust for AI strategy with new tooling and prescriptive guidance covering AI agent security and DevSecOps environments. If you’re building or governing agent deployments, review the guidance to align your security architecture with current Microsoft recommendations.

  • Copilot Studio: Dataverse as a native knowledge source [Preview] - Dataverse is entering preview as a native knowledge source in Copilot Studio, allowing agents to be grounded directly in structured business data including customer records and operational data. Preview starts August 2026, GA targeting September 2026; if you’re piloting Copilot Studio agents against Dataverse, this replaces more complex custom connector approaches.

  • Copilot Vision: Analyze desktop screen and mobile camera in real time [GA] - Vision in Microsoft 365 Copilot now supports real-time analysis of a shared desktop screen or mobile camera feed during voice sessions, delivering context-aware spoken answers. This was GA in June 2026; if you haven’t reviewed the data handling implications of screen and camera sharing with Copilot, do so before promoting this capability widely.

  • Copilot mobile app: Proactive push notifications for productivity workflows [GA] - The Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app will proactively push notifications for workflows like “Your Day at a Glance” and “Items waiting for you,” targeting GA in September 2026. Requires Copilot licenses; these notifications draw on Copilot Memory, so confirm your organization’s Memory governance stance before this rolls out to users.

Employee Experience

  • Viva Glint: Export Heat Map report to editable PowerPoint slides [GA] - Managers can now export the default sections of the Glint Heat Map report as editable PowerPoint slides rather than static screenshots, already GA as of July 2026. Communicate this to Glint admins and managers who regularly share engagement data with leadership.

  • Viva Glint: Configurable data retention policy [GA] - Glint service administrators can now configure a data retention policy governing how long past survey cycles are retained or deleted, covering engagement surveys, always-on surveys, lifecycle surveys, and 360s. This was GA in June 2026. If your organization has data retention or privacy requirements that apply to survey data, review and set this policy now if you haven’t already.

Security & Compliance

Action Required

  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 end of support: January 12, 2027 [GA] - Deadline: January 12, 2027, now under six months away. Run a Intune or Endpoint Analytics report to quantify your LTSC 2021 device count, build a migration plan to Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024, and get leadership sign-off on timeline. Extended Security Updates are an option but add cost; decide now rather than closer to the deadline.

  • Cross-tenant calendar and Free/Busy features moving off EWS: Plan your migration [GA] - EWS deprecation drives this change. Review Message Center post MC1446796, identify which tenant relationships use cross-tenant Free/Busy, MailTips, or calendar sharing, and begin configuring Cross-Tenant Access Policy for those relationships before EWS is shut off.

  • GitHub CLI CVEs: Immediate update required for CVE-2026-64652 and CVE-2026-64653 [GA] - Two GitHub CLI vulnerabilities published this week: partial token disclosure in gh auth status output and path traversal via unescaped URL components. Update the GitHub CLI on all developer workstations and CI/CD runners immediately, and rotate any auth tokens that may have been captured in terminal output or logs.

  • Defender for Identity sensor v3.x: Deploy to AD FS, AD CS, and Entra Connect now [GA] - With sensor v3.x support now GA for these server roles, there is no reason to leave them uncovered. Add AD FS, AD CS, and Entra Connect servers to your MDI sensor deployment queue, and run Find-MdiAuditingGpoConflicts.ps1 to surface any GPOs that will undermine automatic auditing before you deploy.

  • Copilot Domain Exclusion rollback: Reassess web grounding governance [GA] - The domain exclusion control for Copilot web grounding has been removed with no replacement timeline. If this was part of your Copilot governance story or was communicated to compliance stakeholders, update your documentation and stakeholder communications. Monitor the Copilot blog for when a replacement capability is announced.

Documentation Updates

Identity & Access

Endpoint & Device Management