M365 Roundup, October 2024: Copilot Agents Go GA
TL;DR
- Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot reached general availability in October 2024, letting users build no-code agents in BizChat with natural language and SharePoint grounding documents.
- Teams begins screening first-time external chat messages for brand impersonation risk in mid-November 2024, adding a high-risk warning to the accept-or-block flow.
- Support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 ends October 14, 2025, with no further updates, security fixes, or technical support after that date.
- A unified Teams and Outlook calendar experience starts rolling out in mid-January 2025.
- Microsoft Places becomes generally available in Q4 2024, with Places core backfilled into Business and Enterprise SKUs.
October 2024 is the month agents stopped being a demo: the no-code agent builder in Microsoft 365 Copilot hit general availability, and SharePoint-grounded agents became something any licensed user can spin up. Beyond the AI news, Teams picked up an anti-impersonation check for external chat, a unified calendar got a January date, and Office 2016 and 2019 officially have one year to live. Here is everything that matters, grouped by product.
First, news of our own. October 2024 marked the soft launch of CloudCapsule, our automated tool for assessing Microsoft 365 tenants against the CIS Controls. We built it to streamline tenant assessments to a trusted standard, raise the tide of security across the space, and help MSPs understand the why behind every policy configuration being put in place.
Beyond automated evidence collection for the CIS Controls, it detects tenant misconfigurations against security best practices, and you can run your first assessment against a tenant free. (Note: it does not work against M365 dev tenants.)
Microsoft Teams: an impersonation check and a new calendar
External chat gets brand impersonation screening
Before this rollout, organizations with Teams external access enabled let users receive messages from any external domain with no impersonation scanning; recipients could accept, block, or preview the message (previewing carries no risk). After the rollout, when a user receives a first-time message from an external sender, Teams checks for potential impersonation activity. If risk is suspected, the user sees a high-risk warning in the accept-or-block flow, must preview the message before choosing, and gets prompted about the risk once more if they choose to accept.
Rollout: mid-November 2024, completing by mid-November 2024.
One calendar for Teams and Outlook
The new Calendar app aims to be a single, modern, intelligent calendar shared by Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook. What it brings:
- Advanced calendar surface: a new command bar that right-aligns primary actions, plus Meet Now, Join with ID, filters, month view, split view, customizable time scales, saved views, sharing options, printing, and personalized calendar settings
- Enhanced meeting creation: quick-view scheduling and a new scheduling form with improved options
- Peek view: meeting artifacts, including recaps of completed meetings, accessible from the calendar
- Weather integration for your current location
- Work plan integration: specify work locations and check teammates' in-office availability via Microsoft Places
- Place Finder: switch between floors and view room capabilities when creating events
- Pop-out: right-click the Calendar icon to pop the calendar into its own window
Rollout: mid-January 2025, completing by late January 2025.
Edge links open without re-authentication on macOS
When Microsoft Edge is configured as the browser for web links in Teams, links from Teams chat now open in Edge in the profile matching the authenticated user. Previously, macOS users were asked to re-authenticate in the browser, which slowed everyone down.
Rollout: late October 2024, completing by late November 2024.
Premium town halls open chat to attendees
Before this change, only presenters, organizers, and co-organizers in a Teams Premium town hall could chat, in a private event group chat. After the rollout, everyone including attendees can chat. The new Event chat is available only during the event and displays the last 200 messages.
Rollout: mid-December 2024, completing by late December 2024.
Intelligent recap reaches ad-hoc meetings and calls
Users can turn on recording or transcription in meetings started from Meet now or from a 1:1 or group chat and get the same intelligent recap as scheduled meetings. After the meeting ends, a thumbnail appears in the chat with a View recap button.
Rollout: mid-November 2024, completing by early December 2024.
Frosted glass meeting branding
Companies can brand Teams meetings and calls with frosted glass background effects. Every Teams user can upload individual frosted glass backgrounds manually, while Teams Premium administrators can upload them for the organization and assign them to different teams through customization policies. Full announcement: Branding your company's Teams meetings and calls with frosted glass effects (opens in new tab).
Availability: GA, requires a Teams Premium license.
Microsoft Outlook: phishing reporting on Mac and location privacy
Built-in report buttons land in new Outlook for Mac
New Outlook for Mac gains built-in buttons for reporting email as phishing, junk, or not junk, integrated with Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Admins control the buttons' appearance and behavior from the User reported settings page in the Defender portal (security.microsoft.com), including where reports go (a reporting mailbox, Microsoft, or both) and what users see before and after reporting.
Availability: GA.
Users can hide their work location
A new option lets users share no work location information at all. After the rollout, a user (or an admin on their behalf) can choose between:
- No location shared: others see nothing
- Only general location shared: others see Office or Remote, if provided
- Detailed location shared: others see building or desk information, if provided (this remains the default)
Rollout: mid-October 2024, completing by late October 2024.
Microsoft Places goes GA in Q4 2024
Existing customers will see a new service plan on their Office 365 subscription: Places core, covering location plan setup and updates, viewing collaborators' location plans, peek card experiences, in-person meeting scheduling, hybrid RSVP, and workplace presence. Teams Premium customers additionally get Places Finder, intelligent booking, Places Explorer, Places Space Analytics, and auto-release policies.
SKUs receiving Places core: Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, Microsoft 365 or Office 365 E1/E3/E5, and Microsoft 365 or Office 365 F3. Teams-specific Places core features also reach Microsoft Teams Essentials, Teams Enterprise, and Teams EEA.
Rollout: mid-November 2024.
Microsoft SharePoint: approvals for any document library
Users gain the ability to configure approvals on SharePoint Online document libraries: open the Automate dropdown in the command bar and select Configure Approvals to enable or disable them. Once enabled, a user can submit a file for approval with a named approver, and the request shows up in the Approvals app in Teams or can be approved directly in the library. Approved files get their metadata updated.
One operational note: saving changes to a file cancels any in-flight approval. To discourage edits mid-approval, files open view-only in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for the web, and the Windows desktop apps mark the document as final. More info: Approvals in Lists (opens in new tab).
Rollout: early December 2024, completing by late January 2025.
Microsoft 365 Apps: the Office 2016/2019 clock starts
Support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 ends on October 14, 2025 (opens in new tab), one year out from this announcement. After that date there will be no further updates, security fixes, or technical support for these versions. The applications may keep working, but unsupported software is a security risk waiting for a CVE. Read the upgrade guidance (opens in new tab) for moving to Microsoft 365 Apps, and get these migrations on the 2025 roadmap now.
Microsoft Copilot: agents for everyone
Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot hit general availability
Individuals in your organization can use the no-code agent builder, within BizChat at Microsoft365.com/chat or in Teams, to create simple Copilot agents using natural language instructions and grounding documents stored in SharePoint. Rolling out now, with 100% availability targeted by the end of November 2024.
Page summarization returns to Copilot in Edge
Page summarization has been unavailable since the mid-September 2024 updates to Microsoft Copilot, and it rolls out again in early November 2024 along with user prompt suggestions. After the rollout, Copilot may access a user's page context when they send contextual prompts in Edge or use Copilot alongside an open webpage or PDF.
Rollout: early November 2024, completing by mid-November 2024.
Business Chat learns charts, graphs, and data analysis
Copilot users can now enter prompts in Copilot Business Chat to create charts, graphs, and data analysis. To inspect the Python code generated behind a chart or graph, users select the Code button. Rollout: mid-November 2024, completing by late November 2024.
A Support Assistant in admin center Help, and a smarter inbox
The Microsoft 365 admin center gains a new Support Assistant feature in Help. Alongside it, Microsoft pitched the inbox-overload answer: with Prioritize my inbox, Copilot in Outlook (opens in new tab) surfaces the messages that matter by analyzing both the content of email and the context of the user's role, like who they report to and which threads they have been responsive on.
Rollout: early November 2024, completing by late May 2025.
Frequently asked questions
Do users need a Copilot license to build agents in BizChat?
The no-code agent builder rolled out within BizChat at Microsoft365.com/chat and in Teams for Microsoft 365 Copilot users, with full availability targeted by the end of November 2024.
What should MSPs do about the Office 2016 and 2019 end of support?
Start migration conversations now. After October 14, 2025 the applications may keep functioning, but running unsupported software carries security risk, and Microsoft's upgrade guidance points to Microsoft 365 Apps as the destination.
Which licenses get Microsoft Places features?
Places core lands in Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, E1/E3/E5, and F3, plus Teams-specific features for Teams Essentials, Teams Enterprise, and Teams EEA. The premium capabilities like Places Finder and Space Analytics require Teams Premium.
October's changes, checked against your tenants in 60 seconds
Every monthly wave moves defaults and adds settings worth verifying. CloudCapsule runs a CIS-mapped assessment of 250+ controls per tenant in about a minute, so feature churn never turns into posture drift. Note: it does not run against M365 dev tenants.
Run a free assessment
Written by
Nick Ross
CEO · Microsoft MVP · Founder, T-Minus 365
Nick is not just a CEO, he's a respected thought leader and influencer in the MSP space. Tens of thousands of MSPs learn through his YouTube channel, T-Minus365. Nick has been honored as a three-time Microsoft MVP for his educational content; his expertise and influence are the backbone of our mission, ensuring that you are in the best hands when it comes to security.
Nick joined Pax8 in 2017, where he would ultimately oversee product management for PSA and Microsoft integrations. Following his tenure at Pax8, Nick has continued to demonstrate his leadership prowess as an executive at various MSPs, culminating in his most recent role at Sourcepass.
Nick holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management from Florida State University, as well as a Minor Degree in Entrepreneurship. In his free time, Nick is an avid hiker, reader, and fitness-junkie.
