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Welcome to the November edition of Microsoft Rewind 🚀 and what a month it’s been. With Microsoft Ignite lighting up the industry once again, we’ve seen a wave of announcements across Microsoft 365, Azure, Copilot and the modern workplace stack.
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Artificial Intelligence
AI once again featured heavily across several areas at Microsoft Ignite we several key improvements. Not to worry we won't covering everything, or we would be here all day - just the key highlights we think are worth mentioning.
SharePoint Admin Agent
The SharePoint Admin Agent is an AI-driven assistant designed to help organisations proactively manage and clean up their SharePoint environment. It continuously scans your tenant for issues that commonly cause governance headaches and flags them for action.
Identifying inactive or stale sites that may be ready for archiving or deletion.
It detects overshared or risky content, helping reduce accidental data exposure.
It highlights permission sprawl, giving admins visibility of where access has expanded beyond intended boundaries.
It can recommend or trigger policy actions, such as archiving sites or tightening permissions.
It operates as a governance and hygiene engine, ensuring your SharePoint estate stays lean, secure and aligned with organisational policies.
A welcome improvement that brings automated insight, risk reduction and governance control to an area that traditionally demands significant manual effort.
Microsoft Agent 365
Microsoft unveiled Agent 365 as the enterprise framework built to govern, scale and secure AI agents across organisations. Rather than managing each agent in isolation, Agent 365 offers a unified “control plane” so you can treat agents like corporate resources - deploying, monitoring and governing them just as you would employee endpoints or applications.
Agent 365 introduces five foundational pillars for managing AI agents: registry, access control, visualisation, interoperability, and security.
Registry: A single inventory of all agents - whether built using Microsoft tools, open-source frameworks or third-party platforms. Offers discovery via the Agent Store and enables quarantining of unsanctioned “shadow” agents.
Access Control: Agents must have unique IDs, and IT can manage creation, onboarding and lifecycle via policy templates. Integration with identity systems (like Microsoft Entra) enforces least-privilege access.
Visualisation: Unified dashboards and analytics show how agents interact with users, data and resources. Role-based reporting helps IT, security and business leaders assess agent ROI, performance and risk.
Interoperability: Agents connect with productivity apps (Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, etc.), use organisational work-context via Work IQ, and support builds across Microsoft, open-source and partner ecosystems.
Security: Built-in security posture for agents, data protection via Microsoft Purview, threat detection via Microsoft Defender, and audit/reporting mechanisms to maintain compliance.
Dynamics 365: MCP Servers
Microsoft is pushing Dynamics 365 firmly into the AI-driven future with two major preview releases: the ERP MCP Server and the Analytics MCP Server. MCP (Microsoft Cloud Programming) servers act as structured, governed endpoints that allow AI agents to interact safely with business systems. Think of them as a standardised interface layer that lets agents read, write, analyse and trigger actions across enterprise platforms without custom integrations or brittle APIs.
ERP MCP Server
The ERP MCP Server modernises how AI connects with finance and supply-chain systems. Instead of fixed, hard-coded actions, organisations can now register or update actions and APIs dynamically without rewriting core logic. This flexibility accelerates automation, enables agents to work directly with live ERP processes, and keeps the system compliant as it evolves.
Analytics MCP Server
The Analytics MCP Server extends this model into reporting and analytics. It gives agents structured, governed access to ERP metrics, dimensions and semantic models. The result is faster, more contextual insights surfaced directly in tools like Microsoft Copilot, helping leaders respond to trends, forecasts and operational changes in real time.
New Copilot Chat Value
Microsoft is making Copilot more accessible than ever, lowering the barrier to intelligent assistance across the organisation. By March 2026 (preview), users without a full Copilot license will benefit from these additional AI features in Copilot Chat:
Outlook: Copilot Chat will work across an entire inbox, calendar, and meetings - not just individual messages. Users can triage emails, schedule and prepare for meetings, and surface insights across their inbox to stay ahead.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint: Agent Mode will be available to all users. It helps automate multistep tasks, refine content, and use web data or referenced files to create high-quality documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Microsoft 365 Copilot SKU Changes
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business: A new Copilot License designed specifically for organisations on Microsoft 365 Business plans with fewer than 300 users. Same Copilot capabilities. Lower barrier to entry. Friendlier price point. Launching at $21 per user per month. Read more here.
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Microsoft Edge
Edge Updated MAM Controls
Edge for Business continues to strengthen enterprise-grade security and manageability:
Contractor & externally managed devices: Starting in January 2026, Microsoft Edge for Business will extend Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) protections beyond BYOD to include devices managed by other organisations. Admins can deploy a managed Edge browser profile on these externally‑controlled devices so that organisational data remains within the tenant boundary - even when the endpoint is managed by a third‑party.
Simplified browser management: Cross-platform policy enforcement across macOS, iOS, and Android; enterprise preview builds distributed within Stable Edge with rollback options.
Watermarking and protected clipboard: Visual overlays for sensitive content and controlled copy/paste boundaries to reduce risk without disrupting workflows.
These updates give IT teams control, flexibility, and security, while enabling AI-assisted productivity in a managed, enterprise-ready environment.
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Security
Microsoft Defender
Microsoft is rolling out an update that gives organisations far more control over how Entra Identity Protection alerts surface inside Defender XDR - and it’s designed to cut alert fatigue without reducing visibility where it matters.
The big change is that alert ingestion will now map directly to Entra’s risk levels. Instead of taking everything by default, you can choose exactly what Defender XDR ingests:
High-risk alerts only (this will become the new default)
High + Medium-risk alerts
All detections, if you want the complete picture
Alongside this, Microsoft is refreshing the UI to make the configuration clearer and easier to manage.
Because the default is shifting to High-only, most organisations will see a reduction in alert volume straight away and some lower-severity alerts will simply stop appearing unless the setting is broadened.
Security Copilot comes to M365 E5
Microsoft is making a major move for security-first organisations: Security Copilot is being included at no extra cost for all Microsoft 365 E5 customers.
This brings agentic AI directly into the security workflow, helping teams respond faster, investigate deeper, and automate repetitive tasks with far more intelligence.
The rollout begins 18 November 2025 for customers already using Security Copilot alongside M365 E5, with all other E5 tenants following over the next few months. Each organisation will get a 30-day advance notice before the feature is activated.
If you're already an E5 customer and using Security Copilot today, there’s nothing to do you’ll simply gain the entitlement automatically. This update strengthens the E5 value proposition considerably and places powerful AI-driven security tooling directly in the hands of existing teams without any additional licensing spend.
Microsoft Baseline Security Mode
Microsoft has introduced Baseline Security Mode (BSM) - a new built-in way to harden your Microsoft 365 environment using secure-by-default settings, all managed centrally through the Microsoft 365 admin center.
BSM is designed to remove the complexity from tightening security. With just a few clicks, you can disable legacy configurations, enforce modern protections, and run simulations to see the user and app impact before pushing changes live. It’s a practical way to modernise security without risking disruption.
The initial rollout includes 18 security settings across Office apps, Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint/OneDrive, and the identity layer. These focus on strengthening authentication, blocking outdated file behaviours, and improving the security posture of Teams Rooms and similar devices.
BSM means faster adoption of strong defaults, clearer visibility into where legacy settings are still in use, and a structured, low-risk path to raising security standards across the estate.
Overall, it’s a significant step toward secure-by-default operations in Microsoft 365, making it easier to deploy the protections you’ve always wanted without the usual complexity.
Teams
Simplified External Collaboration Settings
Microsoft is rolling out a simplified external collaboration experience in the Teams admin center, making it far easier for IT teams to control how users interact with external organisations.
The update introduces three clear collaboration modes:
Open – Fully permissive. Allows chats, calls, meetings, and shared channel collaboration with any external domain, including Teams personal accounts and B2B/B2B Direct Connect partners.
Controlled – The new recommended default. Still allows chats, calls, and meetings with all external domains, but blocks shared channel collaboration for a more restricted posture.
Custom – For organisations with specific requirements. Admins can manually configure every external collaboration setting across chats, calls, meetings, Teams, and shared channels. These changes apply only to global org-wide policies, leaving custom policies untouched.
This simplified model makes it easier to apply the right level of external access while reducing misconfiguration risk - giving organisations clearer, more predictable control over how their users collaborate beyond their tenant.
Native Polls when booking Meetings for Outlook/Teams
Microsoft is adding native polling directly into the New Outlook calendar compose window, making it much easier to find a time that works for everyone.
With this update, users can propose multiple time slots and instantly collect attendee preferences - ideal when coordinating with external participants or anyone with limited availability. It removes the back-and-forth and helps meetings get booked faster with far less friction
A welcome update for many!
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Microsoft 365
Updated Experience Pages
Microsoft is rolling out some refreshed experience pages across Microsoft 365, giving users a cleaner, more intuitive interface when they need to request access to documents, SharePoint sites, Teams meeting recordings, and other protected resources.
The new design makes it easier for users to understand why access is blocked and submit a request with far less confusion, reducing helpdesk noise and speeding up approvals.
This update forms part of a wider visual modernisation across Microsoft 365, including the recently updated MFA registration and sign-in pages, which now follow the same streamlined, consistent look and feel.
Together, these changes create a clearer, more predictable experience for users navigating security prompts and access workflows.
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Do any of these updates spark your curiosity?
If you’re interested in any of these exciting Microsoft updates and want to see how they can improve your organisation’s security, management, productivity, or overall efficiency, don’t hesitate to Get in touch! Our Microsoft experts are here to guide you through these new features and help you make the most out of them. Let’s work together to ensure your business is ahead of the curve!
0800 640 4258