A lot happened at Microsoft in November. Numerous updates and announcements about what’s coming in the next few months were driven by the annual Microsoft Ignite conference. During this event, the Redmond Giant introduced Microsoft Places, file summaries within 1:1 chats in Teams, and intelligent summaries for more types of meetings—even those that weren’t pre-arranged. Additionally, there were updates from the world of Power BI and more AI-driven functions enabling faster app creation within Power Apps. All of this is presented in a concise summary as part of our series “What’s New in Microsoft Business Applications?”.
New announcements from Microsoft Ignite in Microsoft Teams
Before discussing the updates showcased at Microsoft Ignite in Microsoft Teams, it’s worth mentioning a solution that, combined with Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, is set to create what Microsoft calls the "AI-powered workplace." The service in question is Microsoft Places, designed to support organizations in the hybrid work model—where in-office and remote workdays are mixed. In combination with Copilot, Places will suggest which days are optimal for remote work based on your calendar data.
With Copilot’s help, Places will assist in managing meeting rooms we have reserved. If a change is necessary, it will suggest the best alternative for the time of our meeting.
Places already helps during the room booking stage, taking into account its key parameters such as location, equipment, and capacity.
For the popular Teams, Microsoft announced that at the beginning of 2025, file summaries using Copilot in chats will be available in public preview. Often, we don’t have time to look at a document that’s been shared with us—whether it’s a Word file, PowerPoint, or PDF. The answer to this is Copilot summaries, which will also be available on mobile devices.
Simplified display of chats, channels, and teams: the new view is significantly simplified to make our daily work easier. Additionally, it allows personalization of what we see: for example, we can disable the “Discover” option, add chats and channels to Favorites, or, if the new display doesn’t suit us, return to the previous one via settings.
Updated calendar view in Teams: it now strongly resembles the view we know from the new version of Outlook.
Multilingual transcription: bginning in 2025, this feature will allow the user to select their spoken language and the language to which it should be translated. Teams supports 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages.
Pronunciation of names: Also expected to arrive at the beginning of 2025, this feature will be especially useful for international companies. When hovering over a person’s details in Teams, a speaker icon will appear next to their name, which, when clicked, will play the correct pronunciation of their name.
What’s new in Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Updates haven’t skipped Copilot, with many tied to Teams. Let's start withe content analysis during meetings. When someone shares their screen, you can prompt Copilot, for example, “Summarize the content of the document currently being shared,” and Copilot will place the summary in the meeting chat. This feature is expected to be available in public preview at the beginning of 2025.
Copilot prompt gallery. Previously known as Copilot Lab, this now includes the ability to save prompts for reuse in BizChat and share them with others.
Increased file reference limit in Word. Previously, queries could reference up to three files. Now, the limit is 10 files, which can be in various formats (e.g., images, PDFs, other Word documents, PowerPoint presentations). Additionally, users can now generate images directly from the Copilot chat and create content more effectively from existing documents in Word Online.
Improved graphic generation in PowerPoint: Microsoft claims that with a simple prompt like “Create a graphic…”, Copilot will handle it effortlessly.
Updates in Power BI
The popular Business Intelligence platform also saw a slew of updates—or rather announcements, as most features are currently available in preview. For example, Copilot is now available in the Power BI mobile app, meaning users can use it to summarize reports directly from their smartphones. However, Microsoft notes that specific licensing requirements must be met—namely, at least the Microsoft Fabric F64 space.
Microsoft introduced the Text Slicer, enabling users to enter specific text that acts as a filter and directs them to the corresponding data field. This functionality (currently in preview) is particularly useful for handling large datasets where quick and precise filtering is essential for efficient analysis and presentation.
What’s new in Power Apps?
In another Power Platform representative—Power Apps—we also find a multitude of AI-driven updates. Available since September 2024 in early access, this feature allows users to initiate IT solution planning based on a prompt. Copilot guides users step-by-step through the planning process, starting from a business problem and building towards a solution.
With Copilot Studio, Power Apps creators can more easily develop agents within existing applications. During creation, the tool provides a preview of suggested instructions based on the app concept. These can be edited or left as-is.
Find out how the changes and innovations Microsoft is introducing in its cloud services can impact your company and improve user convenience—fill out the form below and schedule a free consultation with our advisor!
