M365 News Roundup for February 2025
The incomplete cost benefit analysis
I came across this article from Australia yesterday, and the math makes sense to me at a surface level:
Treasury M365 Copilot review estimates 13-minute efficiency gain needed to justify licence cost.
I work in a law firm, and when we’ve discussed the return on investment of an individual license for lawyers, I have always said that if they bill at $300 per hour (and many are much higher, but for easy math, I stuck with this), I need them to use Copilot to save six minutes per month to pay the $30 per month cost.
That should be easy enough.
It’s also not the whole picture because the costs associated with rolling out an AI tool are more complicated, including the finances and staff resources needed to support a Copilot rollout.
That simple math does not include all the work related to governance and compliance or any training.
The article above mentions the programs and initiatives to identify business use cases as additional costs. In other words, who’s showing you how to save more than six monthly minutes? Who’s leading AI innovation and stewarding the organization toward the correct tools that make the most of the investment?
That's not $30 per month. It’s much more expensive, assuming you have the expertise to do it. If you don’t, you may end up paying more for that.
Does your team have that expertise, or are you desperately trying to get up to speed? I’m spending a lot of time getting up to speed and keeping up with the new features.
It’s not easy.
In light of that, if you’re a BlueSky user, I’ve created a list of M365-related accounts you can follow. If you’re a Feedly user, they’ve introduced a new feature that lets you turn that list into an RSS feed to follow in Feedly. Let me know if you or someone you know should be added to this list. I'm happy to connect with everyone out here who is trying to keep up!
Copilot News:
There’s been a lot of talk about adding what Microsoft calls Think Deeper. I haven’t seen it roll out yet, but here’s some reading material:
You may want to keep this handy when explaining how agents work with Copilot Chat users: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Agent Starter Kit.
Of course, if you foresee non-licensed users using agents with Copilot Chat, you may want to keep this handy: Configuring Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat PAYG.
This is an excellent question about agents: Will Copilot Agents Run Amok in Microsoft 365 Tenants? See my point above about the need for governance resources to manage this.
This could be a recipe for more confusion. Users without a paid Copilot license will have a button connecting to Copilot Chat inside the apps. I imagine it will look similar to the current Copilot button in Outlook but does something very different. - Microsoft reveals Outlook and Teams Copilot Chat release dates.
If you need some help explaining what users can do with Copilot Chat, maybe this can help:
Non- Copilot News:
A few resources related to Purview and AI. I’m not sure if I’m seeing more of these because of the new features rolling out or if it’s because I’m knee-deep in this stuff every day and notice it more:
For a better overall look at Purview, this is a solid resource - A Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Purview Products and Features.
This was published in August, and while a few details have changed (Notably the inability to embed a Loop component in Word any longer), if you’ve struggled to explain Loop as I have, maybe it can help - Microsoft Loop cheat sheet.
You’ll need it, as two new items on the Roadmap are coming soon related to Loop Personal Workspaces and Channel Workspaces. (h/t to Greg Buckles)
I wrote about SharePoint last week, and there’s more SharePoint and OneDrive stuff in the news:
SharePoint is getting an updated document library experience.
Important things to know - 9 Essential Facts About the SharePoint Online Recycle Bin.
At the risk of sounding like the ultimate M365 nerd, I found this kind of fascinating - Optimizing OneDrive Retention Policies with Administrative Units and Adaptive Scopes.
This eDiscovery issue hasn’t been as confusing as it used to be, but I’m glad Microsoft is working on it. - M365 Changelog: Microsoft Teams: More predictable recording experience with Who keeps recording.
Do you remember when a meeting set to record automatically was stored in the OneDrive account of the first user to join? It has been a while since storage was that random, but that was rough.
Finally, this isn’t currently an issue in the US, given the current administration’s leanings on labor rights, I doubt it’s going to be a concern in the immediate future, but if you live somewhere with a “right to disconnect” law, you might find this interesting:
How to enforce the right to disconnect in Microsoft 365
Thanks for reading. If you found this newsletter informative or helpful, please share it with your peers!
Until next time, here’s hoping we all get a chance to disconnect.