Skills Agent Retiring March 16 — Migrate Now or Lose Access
Microsoft is pulling the plug on the Skills agent from Copilot Frontier. If you've built workflows around it, you have two weeks to migrate. Delegation settings won't carry over. Plus SharePoint's 25th anniversary redesign enters preview and Defender drops a massive security update.
📋 TL;DR — What You Need to Know
- 🚨 Skills agent dying end of March — delegation settings WON'T carry over
- 🆕 SharePoint gets a 25th anniversary facelift (preview available now)
- 🛡️ Defender stack drops 7 feature updates — SOAR playbook generator is 🔥
- 📧 Outlook had a bad afternoon yesterday — it's fine now
- ⏰ Sentinel Azure portal sunset pushed to March 2027
🚨 Skills Agent Retirement (MC1243548)
Microsoft is pulling the plug on the Skills agent from Copilot Frontier. If you're using it, this is your two-week warning.
Key Dates
- March 16, 2026 — Skills agent removed from agent store
- End of March 2026 — Full retirement, existing users lose access
Where Skills Capabilities Are Going
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (direct integration)
- Learning agent (skill-based learning paths)
- Workforce Insights agent (org insights, team structure)
🟡 Notable — Worth Your Attention
SharePoint's 25th Anniversary Redesign (Preview)
SharePoint is getting a fresh coat of paint. The new experience is available in preview now:
What's New:
- Redesigned home page focused on content discovery (Sites, News, People, Favorites, Recent)
- Revamped App Bar with dedicated publishing tools (Pages, News) and building tools (Sites, Lists, Agents)
- Enhanced global navigation
Microsoft Defender March 2026 Security Bundle
Major updates across the security stack this month:
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Defender for Cloud in Defender portal | Public Preview |
| Sentinel UEBA behaviors layer | GA |
| Custom Guidebooks for Copilot | GA |
| SOAR Playbook Generator (AI) | Public Preview |
| Copilot Data Connector for Sentinel | Public Preview |
| Lake-only ingestion for Advanced Hunting | GA |
| Library Management for Live Response | Public Preview |
⚡ Quick Hits
- Outlook Outage (March 3) — Some users had connectivity issues ~3PM ET yesterday. Resolved.
- Sentinel Timeline Update — Azure portal sunset extended to March 31, 2027. You've got another year.
✅ Admin Action Items
| Priority | Action | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| 🔴 HIGH | Audit Skills agent usage and begin migration planning | March 10 |
| 🔴 HIGH | Reconfigure delegation settings in Workforce Insights | Before March 31 |
| 🟡 MEDIUM | Test new SharePoint experience in preview | When ready |
| 🟡 MEDIUM | Review Secure Score after March changes roll out | Mid-March |
| 🔵 LOW | Familiarize team with new Defender portal features | Ongoing |
🔥 The Bottom Line
The Skills agent retirement is the big one this week. If you've built workflows around it, don't wait — Microsoft's giving you two weeks of notice, which in enterprise terms is basically tomorrow.
The SharePoint refresh is a nice quality-of-life improvement, and the Defender updates show Microsoft continuing to consolidate their security story into a single pane of glass.
Questions? Need help with migration planning? Reply to this newsletter or reach out — we're here to help you stay ahead of the curve.
Need help with Skills agent migration?
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