Microsoft is shutting down Exchange Web Services (EWS) — the nearly 20-year-old API that Exchange uses for hybrid coexistence — in Exchange Online in two phases: a soft block on October 1, 2026, and a permanent hard shutdown on April 1, 2027. If you run Exchange in hybrid mode, meaning some mailboxes are on-premises and some are in Microsoft 365, this requires a two-step migration. The first step should already be complete; the second step must be finished before October 2026 and requires Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE). Microsoft has confirmed there will be no exceptions past April 2027.

Source

In hybrid Exchange environments, organizations have long been forced to keep an on-premises Exchange Server running just to manage Exchange-related settings for mailboxes already hosted in Exchange Online. Microsoft has been addressing this with the Cloud-Managed Remote Mailboxes feature, and its latest addition — writeback — entered public preview on May 15, 2026. Writeback automatically pushes Exchange attribute changes made in Exchange Online back to your on-premises Active Directory, so internal line-of-business applications that read from AD stay in sync. This article explains what writeback does, what you need to configure it, and how it supports decommissioning your last on-premises Exchange Server.

Source

Microsoft announced two significant updates: Agent 365 reached general availability as a management tool for AI agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and Copilot Cowork — a feature that runs multi-step tasks on your behalf in the background — gained mobile support, reusable task templates called skills, and new third-party integrations. Agent 365 is licensed separately per user at $15/month or is included with Microsoft 365 E7; Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and is currently limited to participants in the Frontier early-access program.

Source

Microsoft is rolling out a long-overdue change to the browser-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint: you can now apply sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions directly in the web apps without switching to the desktop client. Sensitivity labels are classification tags you attach to a file to control who can read, edit, or print it. They are configured centrally in Microsoft Purview (Microsoft's compliance and information protection platform) and enforced by the Rights Management Service (RMS), which is the encryption engine built into Microsoft 365. This update started rolling out in mid-April 2026 and is expected to be completed worldwide by early May 2026. It requires enabling coauthoring on encrypted files in your tenant beforehand.

Source

Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork moves beyond chat-based AI responses by acting as an autonomous agent—an AI that can perform multi-step tasks on your behalf across Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 services. Cowork is built on top of Work IQ, Microsoft's intelligence layer that reads your emails, meetings, files, and organizational data to provide context for actions. As of May 2026, Cowork is available through the Frontier preview program and has expanded to include mobile support, custom skills, plugins, and integration with Agent 365. Access requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and enrollment in the Frontier early-access program.

Source

Microsoft 365 Backup now lets you recover individual files and folders from SharePoint and OneDrive backups without rolling back an entire site or account. This granular restore feature became generally available in late April 2026. You need the SharePoint Backup Administrator role to use it, and the service charges $0.15 per GB per month for protected data. This article explains how the feature works, its limitations, and how to perform a restore.

Source

Microsoft has released the Change Optics Report in public preview for Exchange Online. This new report, available in the Exchange Admin Center (EAC), identifies emails in your tenant that will be affected when Microsoft enforces an upcoming service change — before the change takes effect. Currently, it covers two scenarios: outbound mail sent from your default onmicrosoft.com domain, and incoming Direct Send traffic. This article explains what the report shows, how to access it, and what steps to take for each scenario.

Source

Microsoft released new security and governance controls for Microsoft 365 Copilot, introducing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies that inspect prompts before Copilot processes them, protecting web searches from leaking sensitive data, and enabling bulk remediation of overshared SharePoint files. The Copilot Dashboard gained expanded access, user satisfaction tracking, and CSV export. This article explains what each feature does technically, how to configure the relevant policies, and where the current limitations are.

Source

Microsoft announced a breaking change to the Microsoft Graph API affecting Exchange Online: from December 31, 2026, applications that modify sensitive email properties -- such as the subject, body, or recipients -- on delivered messages must hold elevated Mail-Advanced.ReadWrite permissions. Until now, the standard Mail.ReadWrite permission was sufficient for these operations. The new permissions require explicit approval from the tenant administrator ("admin consent"). If you operate Microsoft 365 and have custom applications or third-party tools that interact with email via the Graph API, you need to audit and potentially update these apps before the enforcement date.

Source

Microsoft has released file-level archiving for Microsoft 365 Archive in public preview on March 30, 2026. The feature lets you move individual files in SharePoint document libraries to a low-cost cold storage tier while the rest of the site remains fully active. This builds on site-level archiving, which has been generally available since May 2024. General availability of Microsoft 365 Archive file-level archiving is targeted for July 2026. Policy-based automation for automatic archiving is planned for late 2026.

Source

Exchange Online now lets you choose, per outbound connector, whether SMTP DANE and MTA-STS are enforced opportunistically, mandatorily (for DANE), or not at all. These new connector modes give you granular control over how strictly Exchange Online enforces modern email security standards when sending mail to external domains.

Source

Microsoft is developing Priority Cleanup V2, an updated data-purging feature in Microsoft Purview that deletes Exchange Online mailbox content even when protected by retention policies or eDiscovery holds. This proposed version is designed to reduce the number of approval stages from three to two, accelerate deletion from days to hours, and introduce batch-processing safeguards.

Source

Microsoft has launched departmental billing for Microsoft 365 Backup, effective March 2, 2026, enabling organizations to configure billing policies, delegate administration, and implement chargeback models across different business units. This enhancement addresses enterprise demands for decentralized backup management while maintaining centralized IT governance and visibility.

Source

Microsoft Agent 365 is the control plane for AI agents in the enterprise: a set of capabilities built on Microsoft Entra, Purview, Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 Admin Center that gives IT and security teams a single location to observe, govern, manage, and secure AI agents — regardless of whether they were built with Microsoft tooling, open-source frameworks, or third-party platforms.

Source

Microsoft announced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, introducing Copilot Cowork as a new AI-driven work mode that executes multi-step tasks across Office applications. However, Copilot Cowork is a double misnomer because the tool qualifies as neither a copilot nor a coworker.

Source

Microsoft has completed the global rollout of AI workflow templates in the Teams Workflows app, powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot, as of mid-February 2026 (Roadmap ID 500379). The feature introduces scheduled prompts — recurring, AI-driven automations that run without manual intervention. You can use pre-built templates to automate tasks such as weekly project summaries or data monitoring across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The feature is restricted to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and is currently available only in Teams for Web and Teams for Mac.

Source

The Microsoft Security Dashboard for AI is a unified governance tool now available in public preview that aggregates real-time risk signals from Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview into a single interactive interface. Designed for CISOs and AI risk leaders, it provides inventory discovery, posture tracking, and remediation paths for AI agents, models, MCP servers, and applications. No additional licensing is required — access is included for organizations that already hold enterprise subscriptions to the relevant Microsoft security products.

Source

Microsoft has announced that moderation approvals in Exchange Online are transitioning from voting buttons to Actionable Messages Adaptive Cards, bringing Approve | Reject buttons directly into email bodies. This update enables moderators to approve or reject messages from any Outlook client, including Windows, macOS, web, and mobile. The rollout begins in late February 2026 and concludes by early April 2026 for Worldwide and GCC environments. The legacy voting button method remains available until July 31, 2026, after which Actionable Messages Adaptive Cards will be the only supported method.

Source

Microsoft is retiring Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Exchange Online, with a phased shutdown beginning October 1, 2026, and complete retirement by April 1, 2027. You must migrate your applications to the Microsoft Graph API before the final deadline to maintain access to Exchange Online mailboxes. This retirement only affects Exchange Online in Microsoft 365 environments and does not impact on-premises Exchange Server installations. Organizations using EWS-dependent applications face service interruptions unless they transition to supported alternatives. The nearly 20-year-old protocol no longer meets modern security, scale, and reliability requirements.

Source