Copilot Weekly3 to 11 September 2026

Status change: Rolling out → GA. Viva's topic assignment pipeline for survey comments now runs on Copilot, which Microsoft says improves categorization accuracy; the 18 August roadmap update set rollout for end of August through early September 2026, worldwide multi-tenant. Survey owners should spot-check topic groupings on the next cycle before reporting them upward.

Microsoft 365 Copilot learns from a user's previous communications to shape later responses; memories are private to the user; listed for worldwide, GCC, GCC High and DoD with target GA September 2025, still rolling out; the roadmap entry was updated on 9 September 2026 with no change stated. Review how memory is explained in the acceptable-use guidance and privacy notice.

Status change: In development → Rolling out. Microsoft Copilot surfaces model-driven Answer Cards for weather, sports, finance, images, video, places and news queries, for Entra and Microsoft account (MSA) users on Copilot surfaces worldwide. GA is targeted for September 2026; preview the cards on a pilot account and update user guidance if the chat layout changes.

The Microsoft 365 Insider blog rounds up seven recently released features, opening with the new Import Functions for bringing data into Excel. Useful as a ready-made list for Insider-channel pilot groups; check each feature's release channel before promising it to production users.

Users can start a Copilot video from the Clipchamp Start page: a prompt or an existing document becomes a draft script, visuals, narration and an assembled video to review and export, listed GA April 2026, worldwide multi-tenant. Decide whether this belongs in the approved content-production flow. The roadmap entry was updated on 4 September 2026 with no change stated.

Copilot-generated video projects in Clipchamp gain AI voiceover, sound effects and improved audio mixing for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, worldwide multi-tenant, listed GA June 2026; the roadmap entry was updated on 8 September 2026 with no change stated. Tell communications and L&D teams who produce internal video that the audio layer changed.

Video projects generated with Copilot pick up updated layouts and text animations, listed GA since May 2026, worldwide multi-tenant; the roadmap entry was updated on 8 September 2026 with no change stated. Refresh internal how-to screenshots that show the older layouts.

Declarative agents can carry packaged skills: a folder with a SKILL.md instruction file, added in Agent Builder (up to eight per agent, 50 MB per package) or the Agents Toolkit. Preview for Frontier Preview organizations; scripts run in a sandbox, sensitivity labels are honored, admin governance is available. Decide who may upload skill packages.

GPT-6 Astra joins the model choices in Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio, rolling out from 4 September 2026; availability varies by region and organization. Work IQ grounds it in files, meetings, chats and business data within existing permissions. Admins control access in the Microsoft 365 admin center, so set the model policy as part of the rollout.

Cowork's /app skill builds business apps from natural language and is available through the Frontier program; App (Preview) in Copilot Studio does the same and rolls out in public preview over the week following 10 September 2026. Apps use connectors and Work IQ, follow Entra and connector policies, and show in the admin center inventory once published. Building and running apps follows the usage-based billing model.

The September partner update restates that multi-tenant agent management in the Microsoft 365 admin center is in public preview: one inventory across governed tenants, install or block agents, per-tenant risk and activity insights. It needs a GDAP or Entra Tenant Governance relationship; viewing and managing need no extra license, while risk and activity views need Microsoft Agent 365. Trial it on a test relationship.

Status change: rolled back → rolled out again. Microsoft says the web-grounding control is available once more: admins can exclude up to 1,000 external domains from Copilot's web grounding, off by default and configured through the provided PowerShell script. Organizations that had planned to use it can proceed with configuration and re-test the exclusion list.

Purview DLP extends to Microsoft Cowork so one policy covers Microsoft 365 Copilot and Cowork: blocking labeled knowledge sources, prompts containing supported sensitive information types, and sensitive prompts going to Bing web search. Preview is set for September 2026 and GA for October, worldwide multi-tenant; line up the Copilot DLP policy owners now.

The Agent 365 Dashboard in Viva Insights (Copilot Analytics) adds value insights: estimated assisted hours from agents and the types of work behind them, on top of the existing adoption view. Preview is slated for September 2026 and GA for October, worldwide multi-tenant; treat the hours figure as an estimate when it reaches leadership decks.

The Copilot Dashboard will add an export of row-level Copilot metrics aggregated by day, for fresher reporting at day level. Preview began in May 2026 and the roadmap now targets GA for November 2026; adoption analysts should plan reporting refreshes around that date.

The Consumption Dashboard in Viva Insights now reports Cowork assisted hours and value, a directional estimate built by grouping activity into tasks and eight work types, from analysis and research to coding. Microsoft itself calls it a conservative proxy, so present it as such in any business case.

Security Copilot in Purview DLP will summarize policies so DLP admins can prompt for coverage across locations, classifiers and notifications, on all or selected policies. Target GA is September 2027 and the roadmap lists only GCC, GCC High and DoD, so there is nothing to plan yet outside those government clouds.

Users will add files and links to a Teams meeting, shared automatically with all participants, and meeting AI such as the Facilitator agent grounds its answers on those files. Target GA October 2026, worldwide multi-tenant; a grounding source worth adding to the Facilitator agent's governance review.

Outlook will add an inline Copilot chat inside the compose window so drafting no longer requires opening the Copilot sidebar. Target GA October 2026, worldwide multi-tenant; no action beyond updating Outlook Copilot training screenshots when it lands.

The SharePoint FAQ web part becomes a manual, non-AI editor while AI-assisted FAQ creation and import move into the Copilot in SharePoint authoring experience, saving to the same web part; existing FAQ web parts keep rendering without migration. Target GA October 2026 for worldwide multi-tenant and GCC; tell site owners where the AI option moved.

Users will talk with Copilot in real time about the open document or presentation. Microsoft says it will re-release the feature with updates in October 2026 (roadmap note dated 9 September), so hold training material until it reappears.

Copilot Chat will match search results against text inside images embedded in Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, such as scanned contracts, screenshots of tables or whiteboard photos. Target GA October 2026, worldwide multi-tenant; records and DLP owners should note that image text becomes findable.