Current momentum is AI-first and governance-heavy. Microsoft is pushing all builder experiences into Copilot surfaces while tightening control for enterprise scale.
- SharePoint Online – SharePoint Copilot Apps Announced: The headline for July. Microsoft announced SharePoint Copilot Apps as the new AI-first SPFx model that lets you build solutions that are Copilot-ready by default and surface data/actions directly in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Public preview starts July 2026, GA targeted September 2026 with SPFx 1.24.
- SharePoint Online – SPFx 1.23.2 Quality Release: Shipped in June, focused on platform quality, security/npm audit hygiene, and readiness for new and edit panel override for lists/libraries.
- SharePoint Online – New UX + Retirement Alert: Redesigned SharePoint app bar and Start Page rolling out mid-June to late July 2026 with AI-assisted creation (Copilot premium required). Meanwhile, SharePoint Alerts two-phase retirement is active: new alert creation blocked since Jan 2026, all existing alerts stop working entirely in July 2026. Microsoft guidance is migrate to Power Automate.
- Power Platform Governance is GA: Advanced Connector Policies (ACP) are now Generally Available to govern not just connectors but specific actions and MCP servers used by AI tools. New Power Platform Inventory in public preview now shows connectors and connector operations used by every canvas app, cloud flow, and Copilot Studio agent across the tenant, queryable via API and Azure Resource Graph.
- Power Automate – Desktop Flow Upgrades: Version control improvements with side-by-side compare across subflows, actions, variables, and UI elements, versions stored in Dataverse up to 12 months. New public preview Run Power App action lets desktop flows launch a Power App with native two-way communication.
- Power Apps – Copilot and Agentic Apps: M365 Copilot now GA in model-driven apps, public preview in canvas apps, plus new app skills for data entry, exploration, visualization, and summarization. New closed-loop learning via Power Apps MCP server – user corrections persist as structured memory for agents. 2026 Release Wave 1 (April-Sept 2026) brings standardized modern theming and real-time offline-first Dataverse access.
- Power BI / Fabric: Part of Release Wave 1 improved analytics experience. Copilot Studio multi-agent capabilities rolling to GA include Microsoft Fabric integration and Agent-to-Agent communication.
- Power Pages: Modernized app experiences in Release Wave 1, plus focus on WAF managed rules and server logic updates as part of June feature update.
- Teams & M365 Community Conference Impact: May 2026 M365 Community Conference in Orlando (approx 3,000 attendees) centered on M365 Copilot, SharePoint and Teams AI innovations. Weekly community call on July 2nd and 7th covered these rollouts.
- Copilot Chat & Copilot Studio: Copilot Chat now included in all Microsoft 365 base plans. July SharePoint Copilot update adds Word/Excel/PPT creation, HTML reports, approvals and skills. 2026 Release Wave 1 plans published March 18, 2026, GA began April 1, 2026. Copilot Studio vision is to balance with Power Platform strengths, mixing automation and AI with existing Dataverse/Power Apps.
