Critical Action Required: Multiple July 1 deadlines have just passed with direct financial and compliance implications. Leaders must prioritize reviewing guest account sprawl following the SharePoint OTP retirement, address new AI bot governance risks in Teams, and plan for upcoming Power Platform feature releases.
SharePoint Online
- Critical Governance Shift: SharePoint One-Time Passcode (OTP) authentication is being retired (May–August 2026). All external file sharing now automatically creates guest accounts in Entra ID, leading to “shadow guest” proliferation. Many tenants already have 2–4x more guests than employees—this will worsen. IT admins must implement lifecycle controls immediately.
- Service Degradation: Users may be unable to view SharePoint Online files linked by Copilot Chat/agents (error: “We couldn’t show the file”). Affects Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF files.
Microsoft 365 & Pricing
- July 1 Price Increases: Commercial M365 suite prices increased effective July 1, 2026. Example increases: Business Basic $6→$7, M365 E3 $36→$39, M365 E5 $57→$60.
- New SMB Copilot SKUs: Permanent M365 Business with Copilot bundles launched July 1: Business Standard + Copilot ($282/user/year), Business Premium + Copilot ($384/user/year).
Teams
- AI Notetaker Governance: Microsoft now allows IT to block non-Microsoft meeting bots, placing them in the lobby for organizer approval. Critical gap: This does NOT control Microsoft’s own AI bots. Security analysts warn this may be insufficient—external bots can capture sensitive discussions (M&A, legal, HR) and store transcripts in uncontrolled clouds. Recommend default-blocking external AI notetakers for sensitive meetings.
- Facilitator Coming August: New AI meeting assistant launching August 2026 analyzes conversations, identifies unanswered questions, and provides relevant info in meeting chat (disabled by default, <1 response/meeting).
Copilot & AI
- Copilot Chat Now Supports Claude: Anthropic Claude available as a model option in M365 Copilot Chat for multi-step analysis, long document understanding, and structured content generation.
- Infinite Scroll History: Enhanced browsing of past Copilot conversations without manual loading.
Power Apps
- Native Mobile Apps: Private preview begins July 2026 for creating native (non-WebView) mobile applications, enabling sensor data usage (e.g., temperature monitoring).
- Agent Co-Authoring: Coming to Canvas Apps—agents assist with reviews, security analysis, performance optimization throughout app lifecycle.
- Dataverse Online Mode: GA in July 2026 enabling canvas apps to access Dataverse while online.
- Performance Improvements: Up to 30% reduction in complex app load times expected next quarter.
Power Automate
- Desktop Flows Update: Version 2607 rolling out in July 2026 across all regions. New capabilities: direct schedule of desktop flows, flow chart visualization, Python script execution, PowerPoint automation, PGP encryption/decryption.
- Cloud Flows: Restore accidentally deleted flows, share Process license capacity across workflows, improved licensing dashboard—all GA July 2026.
Power BI
- ODBC to ADBC Migration: Power BI Service connections migrating from ODBC to ADBC (Apache Arrow Database Connectivity) starting late July 2026. Admins can temporarily revert to ODBC. Full ODBC removal in Q3-Q4 2026—requires action for Dremio Software customers to migrate existing connections.
- June 2026 Feature Update: Generally available: DAX user-defined functions, DAX query grid sorting/filtering, Shape Map with custom maps, matrix auto-expand, Azure Maps selections. Preview: Copilot in web modeling, AI-powered reporting agent skills.
Power Pages
- July 2026 Updates: Configure site analytics and server logging (preview), support for Power BI embed token v2 (GA), unify authorization by merging web role with Dataverse security role (preview), create/delete websites using CLI (preview).
Copilot Studio
- July GA: Define custom metrics for analytics, get M365 Copilot agent suggestions based on your work, unified view of errors/warnings/governance notifications.
- MCP-Compliant Tools: Use MCP-compliant tools in agent workflows (GA July 2026).
Recommended Actions for Leadership
- Immediate: Audit guest accounts following OTP retirement; implement guest lifecycle policies
- Immediate: Assess Teams AI notetaker risk; consider default-blocking external bots for sensitive meetings
- July: Plan Power BI ODBC→ADBC migration for impacted data sources
- July–August: Evaluate new SMB Copilot SKUs for pricing optimization; prepare for Teams
