🔥 TL;DR
SMTP Basic Auth retirement is official for September 2025. Microsoft 365 prices go up in July 2026. SharePoint Add-ins are hitting end-of-life in April 2026. Meanwhile, Copilot gets Agent Mode across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — and GPT-5.2 is now powering the experience. Here's everything you need to know and what to do about it.
🚨 What You Need to Know
Three critical items that require your attention right now.
1. SMTP Basic Auth Retirement — September 2025
Microsoft has officially confirmed that SMTP AUTH using Basic Authentication (username + password) will be permanently disabled in September 2025. This affects any application, device, or service that sends email through Exchange Online using legacy credentials.
If your organization still has multifunction printers, LOB apps, or automated scripts sending mail via Basic Auth SMTP, you need to migrate to OAuth 2.0 or SMTP AUTH with Modern Authentication before the cutoff. Microsoft has been warning about this for years, and this time there are no more extensions.
2. Microsoft 365 Price Increases — July 2026
Microsoft has announced price increases across the majority of Microsoft 365 commercial plans, effective July 2026. The increases range from roughly 5–15% depending on the SKU, and they apply to both new and renewing subscriptions.
This is the second significant price hike since the 2022 increases and reflects Microsoft's position that AI-powered features (Copilot integrations) add enough value to justify higher licensing costs — even for customers who don't use Copilot.
3. SharePoint Add-ins End-of-Life — April 2026
SharePoint Provider-hosted and SharePoint-hosted Add-ins will reach end-of-life in April 2026. After this date, these add-ins will stop functioning in SharePoint Online. This is the end of a deprecation cycle that started back in 2023.
If your organization relies on SharePoint Add-ins (formerly called "Apps for SharePoint"), you need to migrate to SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions or Microsoft Teams apps before the deadline.
🆕 New & Rolling Out
Five notable features and updates hitting tenants now or in the near future.
Copilot Agent Mode — Word, Excel & PowerPoint
Microsoft is rolling out Agent Mode for Copilot in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Unlike the standard Copilot chat, Agent Mode can take autonomous multi-step actions: restructuring entire documents, building complex spreadsheet models from a prompt, or redesigning presentation layouts end-to-end. It works iteratively, showing you progress and asking for confirmation at key steps.
This is a significant leap from "generate a paragraph" to "build the whole thing." Early access is rolling out to Copilot-licensed users over the next few weeks.
GPT-5.2 Now Powering Copilot
Microsoft has quietly upgraded the underlying model powering Microsoft 365 Copilot to GPT-5.2. The new model delivers noticeably better reasoning, improved instruction-following, and more accurate document summarization. Users should see fewer hallucinations and more contextually appropriate outputs across all Copilot features.
Teams Facilitator Agent
A new Facilitator Agent in Microsoft Teams can now join meetings as a participant, take structured notes, track action items in real-time, and post a formatted summary to the meeting chat when the call ends. It also integrates with Planner to automatically create tasks from agreed-upon action items. Currently rolling out to Teams Premium subscribers.
Voice Chat Memory in Copilot
Copilot voice interactions (in Teams mobile, Copilot app, and Windows) now have persistent memory across conversations. Copilot can remember your preferences, prior questions, and project context between sessions — making voice a genuinely useful interface for recurring workflows rather than a novelty.
Microsoft Purview Now in Admin Center
Microsoft Purview compliance tools are being integrated directly into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, replacing the standalone Purview compliance portal. The move consolidates DLP policies, sensitivity labels, retention policies, and audit logs into the admin interface IT pros already use daily. The rollout is gradual — expect to see the new navigation appear in your tenant over the next 4–6 weeks.
⚡ Quick Hits
Microsoft 365 Community Conference
April 21–23, 2026 in Las Vegas. Early bird registration is still open. Sessions cover Power Platform, Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, and admin deep-dives.
Employee Location Tracking Delayed
The controversial Viva Insights "employee location tracking" feature has been delayed to March 2026 following pushback from privacy advocates and enterprise customers. Microsoft says they're "refining the admin controls and consent experience."
=COPILOT() Excel Function in Dev Preview
A new =COPILOT() function is now available in Excel for developers in the Insiders channel. It lets you call Copilot directly from a cell formula — think natural language lookups, transformations, and calculations inline with your spreadsheet data.
Microsoft Fabric January Update
The latest Fabric update brings improved Lakehouse performance, new Dataflow Gen2 connectors, and better Power BI embedded analytics integration. Check the Fabric blog for the full changelog.
E3/E5 Partner Promos
Microsoft has extended partner promotional pricing for M365 E3 and E5 licenses through Q2 2026. If you're considering upgrading or expanding your licensing, now is a good time to lock in discounted rates through a CSP partner.
✅ Admin Action Items
Your checklist for this week:
That's it for Edition #1 of The M365 Pulse. We'll be back with more Microsoft 365 news, feature updates, and admin action items. If something in this edition impacts your environment and you need help navigating it — that's literally what we do.
Stay sharp. 🔥
— Fireside Cloud Solutions