October 2025 Microsoft 365 Announcement Highlights

SharePoint 2013 workflows will be disabled for new tenants starting April 2, 2024, and fully retired for all tenants on April 2, 2026. Organizations must migrate to Power Automate or other solutions, notify users, and prepare support teams accordingly. No extensions will be offered beyond this date.

Microsoft has introduced the new "Access Review Agent," an AI-powered tool integrated into Microsoft Teams that revolutionizes access governance by streamlining and enhancing the review process. Designed to reduce manual effort and improve decision-making, the agent analyzes sign-in activity, peer group changes, and unusual access patterns to provide reviewers with focused, data-driven recommendations. It enables natural language interaction, simplifies compliance tasks, and reduces attestation fatigue. A walkthrough scenario with Contoso Financial illustrates how administrators and reviewers benefit from the agent’s intuitive interface and intelligent insights. Alongside this, Microsoft Entra is rolling out additional features for managers and approvers to revoke access, delegate tasks, and manage team permissions more effectively, all aimed at strengthening security and simplifying access management in dynamic environments.

Microsoft has added new logging capabilities and attribute enhancements aimed at improving transparency and security in identity management. Key updates include the introduction of the Microsoft Entra Agent ID, which unifies agent identities across platforms like Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, and expanded support for agents from Microsoft 365 Copilot and third-party solutions. New features such as the "is Agent” filter, MicrosoftServicePrincipalSignInLogs, and enriched attributes like AppOwnerTenantId, SessionID, and ASN data provide deeper visibility into sign-in activities and cross-tenant access. These improvements empower IT teams with more actionable insights for monitoring, threat detection, and compliance, reinforcing Microsoft’s commitment to transparency and robust security.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud has announced the public preview release of Automated Remediation for Malware Detection in Defender for Storage, available in Commercial Cloud. This feature automatically soft-deletes any blob identified as malicious during on-upload or on-demand malware scans. When enabled at either the subscription or storage account level, it configures soft-delete settings for blobs and containers, allowing recovery within a default retention period of seven days. The post explains how to activate the feature via the Microsoft Defender for Cloud interface and notes that enabling malware scanning alone does not automatically turn on automated remediation. Additional enablement options, such as REST API, are also available.

The Outlook Lite app is retiring this month (October 6, 2025). This means that users who are currently using it, can continue to use it; new installs will not be possible. In a couple of months (timeline tbd), the app will be fully retired at which point users will not be able to use the app all together.  In its place, admins should roll out Outlook Mobile app to replace the Outlook Lite app as soon as possible. Existing data will be available upon log in.

In September, Microsoft rolled out Channel Agents. The Channel Agent would be able to draw on all of the data in that channel and provide insight on Status of topics within the channel, as well as create reminders and answering questions. Agents can even be invited to Planner and Meetings.  Limitations:
* Channel Agent may gather and share context that crosses information barriers.
* Channel Agent is best supported by English (US).
* Channel Agent is not supported in private channels.
* Channel Agent is not functional in channels that contain external or guest users.
* Channel Agent is not supported in tenants that use Customer Key.
* Processing data from previews can happen outside of the EU Data Boundaries

Public preview of Channel agents started to roll out in September, and should be available to all by mid-Oct. Users will need to have an eligible Microsoft 365 license, Teams license as well as a Copilot license. Channel Agents will be available to users, but admins can decide to limit it to specific groups of users. For security and compliance considerations when using Channel Agents, refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/ai-teams-channel-agent.

Microsoft is introducing a new content explorer experience for Insider Risk Management cases in Microsoft Purview, now available in public preview. This update improves how investigators review and manage case information, adding advanced filtering, grouping options, document previews, customizable columns, and time zone selection for better context. The goal is to make case review faster and more efficient.

The rollout for this new experience will begin in early October 2025 and is expected to finish by early November 2025. It will apply automatically to all new cases created after the rollout, while existing cases will continue to use the classic content explorer. There are no changes to current policies or configurations, and the feature will be enabled by default.

This update affects admins and investigators who manage Insider Risk cases in Microsoft Purview. No action is required to prepare — the new experience will be rolled out automatically. Microsoft has not identified any compliance concerns, but organizations can review as needed to ensure alignment with internal policies.

Microsoft is continuing its commitment to improving user experience in SharePoint Online. Following last year’s overhaul of SharePoint Lists—which introduced a cleaner interface, better navigation, and more intuitive filtering—document libraries are next in line for a modernized look and feel.

This update is designed to make everyday tasks simpler and faster without disrupting existing customizations. If your organization relies heavily on document libraries, here’s what you can expect.

• Simplified command bar: The command bar has been reorganized for clarity and efficiency. The "New" and "Upload" actions are now combined into a single "Create or Upload" hero button, docked at the upper right.
• Improved breadcrumb navigation: The breadcrumb has been redesigned to make navigating between folders faster and more intuitive. Users can now:
  • See their current folder context clearly.
  • Jump back to any parent folder with a single click.
  • Use the dropdown next to the folder name in the breadcrumb to create folders or upload files directly into the current folder.
  • When at the root of a library, use the "Other Libraries" sub-menu to navigate between libraries in the same site.
• More visible custom views, view creation, and view saving: Custom views and view creation are now displayed more prominently inside pills directly under the breadcrumb. When sorts, filters, or groups are applied but not saved to the view, a visual indicator shows that others won’t see these changes until they’re saved.
• Filter pills: Filter pills provide a faster way to refine your view. Instead of opening the full filter pane, users can:
  • Apply file type filters directly from the pill bar at the top of the document library.
  • See all active filters as pills in this bar.
  • Use the clear button to remove all filters and return to the saved view.
• View options button: Common view customization options are now surfaced under a new "Options" button, including:
  • Layout options
  • Sort and group options
  • Field visibility and formatting
• No impact to other customizations: Other than the command bar custom formatter behavior described above, this change will not affect existing customizations made through SPFX, column formatting, or view formatting.

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, and DoD) begins early January 2026 and completes by late January 2026.