Microsoft Teams Insider

MVP Tom Arbuthnot shares all the latest Microsoft Teams and Copilot news and announcements in less than 15 minutes for November 2025.
Many thanks to Landis for their continued support.

PowerPoint Deck

• Microsoft-OpenAI Partnership Changes
• Microsoft Earnings Numbers (FY26 Q1)
• Teams Mode for Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Teams Channel Agents
• Teams Chat with Anyone
• 1080p 4Mbps Town Halls
• Copilot Researcher with Computer User
• Microsoft Teams Rooms New Features
• Teams Devices News
• Events

Briefings

• Customer and Agent Assist AI Demos in Landis Teams Contact Center and Attendant Console with Preston Martin and Shannon Martin, Account Exexutives at Landis
• Microsoft Teams Pro Management Portal AI: What’s Possible Today and Roadmap with Alvin Tsou, Product Manager at Microsoft and Andrew George, Principal Eningeering Manger at Microsoft
• Understanding Microsoft Teams Channel Agents: Use Cases, Features, Workflows and Demo with Sandhya Rao, Principal Group Product Manager, Teams Core AI at Microsoft
• Copilot Agents, No-Code to Pro-Code Options - Paolo Pialorsi, Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft

Teams Insider Podcasts

• How IQVIA scaled 650 Microsoft Teams Rooms with Global Standards & Smart Operations with Andre Razzuri, Associate Director at IQVIA
• How Partners can Accelerate Copilot Success – Wesley Budd, Partner Solutions Architect at Microsoft
• The Future of Meeting Rooms with Tormod Ree, Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Neat
• The Importance of Standardisation: Rolling out Microsoft Teams Rooms to 450 Rooms Globally with Andrew Liptrot, Service Owner for AV and Workplace Technology at Haleon
• Making Microsoft Teams Great on Mac, iPad and iPhone with Microsoft Engineering with Hari Krishna Reddy Juturu, Partner Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft and Avinash Prasad, Partner Director of Engineering at Microsoft

Hari Krishna Reddy Juturu, Partner Group Engineering Manager, and Avinash Prasad, Partner Director of Engineering, both at Microsoft, talk through the importance of the Apple Platforms, user experience and new features.

• How the team “sim‑ships” features across platforms while embracing earned, Mac‑native integrations like Menu Bar Extras, AirPods support, and native screen sharing.
• Why day‑zero readiness for new macOS releases matters, and how close collaboration with Apple plus early beta testing protects reliability and performance.
• The update stance: older Teams clients are actively blocked after three versions, with visibility and remediation via the Teams Client Health dashboard for IT admins.
• Advances on iPad including dedicated multi‑window for chats and channels, external monitor support, and keyboard workflows.
• CarPlay improvements for safer commutes: hands‑free replies, notifications that respect system focus modes, and a continued push toward voice‑first experiences as the platform evolves.

Thanks to Crestron, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.

Andrew Liptrot, Service Owner for AV and Workplace Technology at Haleon, shares how a global estate is moving from traditional video rooms to Microsoft Teams Rooms with clear standards, fewer components, and stronger operations.

• Four room archetypes to match business outcomes: Meet, Create, Engage, and Influence
• Consolidation on a lean set of components, with emphasis on reliability, supportability, and lifecycle
• Internal design capability, visual room design, and partner delivery against agreed standards
• Governance and service maturity across policies, SOPs, and continuous improvement
• Proactive monitoring and the push towards “self-healing” rooms at scale
• Broadening from room uptime to overall digital employee experience, including booking, signage, and workspace tools

In this episode, Tormod Ree, Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Neat, shares his view on where meeting room technology is heading and how Neat plans to differentiate while staying simple and reliable for customers.

• AI across the experience: device-side media understanding, and platform features will move meetings from basic framing to experiences that adapt to the interaction in the room.
• Hybrid work isn’t solved: organisations still struggle to give remote participants equal presence for video, audio and collaboration. 
• Rooms must support more than a “video window” and enable local, collaborative and mixed scenarios.
• Neat’s approach to scale: multi‑device architecture for larger and more complex spaces, companion devices like Neat Center, and an App Hub to use devices for more than meetings.
• Platform alignment without losing identity and partnership on Microsoft’s Devices Ecosystem Platform to improve quality, provisioning and integrations, while retaining Neat’s own innovations and simplicity focus.

Thanks to Neat, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.

Wesley Budd, Partner Solutions Architect at Microsoft, explains how partners are driving real-world impact with Microsoft 365 Copilot.

• The role of partners in readiness, security, adoption and change
• Why agentathons are gaining traction and what they mean for Copilot Studio
• How partners are using AI Builder and Copilot Studio to build tailored solutions
• How the Copilot Jumpstart programme is helping partners accelerate customer success
• Opportunities for partners to unlock business transformation with Copilot 

Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support. 

Microsoft Teams Monthly Update - October 2025

• Copilot Chat (free) in Office Apps
• Unified Copilot Chat in Teams
• Agent Mode in Excel and Word
• Teams Channel Agents
• Anthropic Claude Models Come to Copilot
• Office Agent (Anthropic)
• Bring Consumer Copilot to Work?
• New Teams Features
• Teams Devices News
• Events

Thanks to Neat, this month's benefactor, for your support of Empowering.Cloud and the community.

Note that this is an audio-only version of the update, so if you would like to see the accompanying slides, please watch the video version on Empowering.Cloud

Andre Razzuri, Associate Director at IQVIA, explains how IQVIA rolled out Microsoft Teams Rooms to 650 rooms globally, creating standards and managing a global environment.

• Why IQVIA standardised on Lenovo Windows 11 MTRs for cost, supportability, remote management and user experience
• Deploying 200 rooms per year with a small core team through strict global standards and robust remote tooling
• Where they partnered with AVI-SPL for boardrooms and global rollouts, and how responsibilities are shared
• Getting leadership buy-in using usage data and trusted internal champions
  
  Thanks to AVI-SPL, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud

Simon Dudley, independent consultant and with extensive former experience at Polycom, Lifesize, and Logitech, examines how customers, OEMs and resellers can navigate the increasingly commoditised video conferencing market.

Simon and Tom discuss:

• Why most video bars are “good enough” and what that means for differentiation
• How ESG, financial transparency, and global distribution are becoming key buying factors
• The importance of understanding your A/B/C brand status as a vendor or reseller
• Why customers should look beyond specs and prioritise reliability, support, and management tools
• Lessons from the PC industry and how they could apply to the future of MTR devices

Thanks to Pure-IP, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support.

Find Simon’s website here: Excession Events 

Irena Andonova, Head of Product for Teams Devices at Microsoft, discusses the evolution of Teams Rooms, Phones and Devices

• AI is transforming physical meeting spaces—supporting speaker attribution, voice isolation, and real-time summarisation, even in unscheduled in-person meetings.
• Voice and face enrolment enables accurate transcript attribution across Windows and Android platforms.
• AI-powered features in Teams Phones
• How AI is being embedded into the Pro Management Portal to support large-scale operations, automate issue resolution, and deliver actionable insights.
• The importance of usage analytics for facilities planning—e.g. identifying underused or overbooked rooms by floor and day.
• Ongoing investment in cross-platform scalability, including Autopilot for Windows and Android, and integration with MDEP (Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform).

Microsoft Teams Monthly Update - September 2025

• Malicious URL Protection for Teams
• Improved Organization Chart in Profile Card
• Control External Access by Domain for Specific Users and Groups
• 5 Unify Certified Contact Centers
• New Teams Desk Phone Transfer UI
• Touch Console Support for MTRoW Boards
• Browser Support for MTRoW Boards
• Sales, Service, and Finance Copilots now included with Microsoft 365 Copilot License
• Improved Copilot Chat in Office Apps
• Events

Thanks to Ribbon, this month's benefactor, for your support of Empowering.Cloud and the community.

Note that this is an audio-only version of the update, so if you would like to see the accompanying slides, please watch the video version on Empowering.Cloud