The Evergreen Update | August 2025

July has come to a close, and Microsoft continues to enhance our workday with a series of impactful updates. While the weather might be cooling down around our office, Microsoft are still just getting warmed up with their Copilot updates, and there are plenty more to see this month.

Keeping up with the new updates can be a full-time job, and we know how important it is to make the most of your time. With that in mind, here are our latest highlights from the most recent updates.

This month, we are including updates from Copilot, both Chat and licensed, significant changes for Microsoft Places and a range of features being added to Viva Engage.

New tools in the Copilot chat prompt box

As if searching with Copilot wasn’t already the most efficient way to go, Microsoft have upgraded once again to incorporate many of the Agents and tools we can find in other locations.

Landing this month, we will now be able to access those value-added features that enhance your Copilot experience.

This update is designed to help you trigger the right tool or agent based on the task you want to carry out. The list of features included will range from Researcher, helping you deep dive and develop knowledge to Copilot pages and image generation.

You will be able to access the tools from within the Copilot prompt box using a drop-down menu to select precisely what you need. This update will be available across Copilot chat and Copilot for M365, with the tools being surfaced depending on your licence type.

Microsoft Places

In our opinion, Microsoft Places is one of the best kept secrets of M365 and we think it’s time to let the cat out the bag. Microsoft Places is your agile working best friend, and it’s just received a whole host of updates making it the perfect time to try it out in your office.

Places is designed to help you coordinate across hybrid, in person and remote work by helping you to coordinate through scheduling linked to Outlook and Teams. You may have already spotted how you can update your location in New Outlook, that’s just a small part of Places integration.

With these latest updates you can tailor the desk availability within your office location allowing colleagues to book what they need, when they need it. You can configure your desks to show as Unavailable, Assigned, Reservable and Drop in so whether you’re a permanent feature in the office or popping by for a visit, you will always be able to manage capacity and ensure everyone has a seat at the table.

Now this update is a double whammy as we are also seeing updates to the Places web portal removing the need for PowerShell and giving your office manager, Team administrator or anyone at all the ability to be assigned the right permissions to manage your office space. The new centralised interface gives you the ability to view a breakdown of all the areas you manage, filter by geographical location and edit and manage the data around each bookable location.

No more will we need to look to third parties, wrestle with integration and need an expert to book a desk any time we want to meet with our colleagues.

Personalisation in Teams

Now this update might not be as huge as the changes to Microsoft Places but it’s one we are still very much looking forward to. This month we are looking forward to being able to colour customise our Teams app (For us it has to be Changing Social Yellow!).

Once available you will be able to head into your Teams settings, head over to Appearance and select from a range of accent colours to personalise or just brighten your digital workspace.

 

Viva Engage

Viva Engage is seeing a range of updates this month, the most ground-breaking being the inclusion of Copilot for M365. But fear not our standard M365 users, we are seeing updates across the board everyone will benefit from too.

Our first update in Viva Engage is adding discussion posts to Copilot for M365 meaning they can now be surfaced in your chat responses. This will apply to any public communities and Storylines. This update builds on an earlier development where we saw question posts become a part of Copilots wheelhouse.

Our next highlight for Viva Engage is a great one for our Digital Champions as you can now self-nominate as a community expert. If you’re the go to person in a Viva Engage community, supporting your colleagues and answering questions this one is for you.

Community admins will now be notified and can manage requests as any community members can ‘request to be an expert’. This update encourages engagement whilst maintaining admin control within the community.

Last but not least for Viva Engage we are seeing an update to question posting. Currently questions are submitted via the answer tab being posted as network level questions not related to any specific community making it hard to find, and less likely to get the response which is being looked for.

With this update you will now select a community when posting a question ensuring the best answers from the most relevant audience.

Honourable mentions

There are just too many updates to choose from this month, and we want to include a few mentions for some more niche updates that we know a few people out there will love!

Group files in Copilot Studio

Working with knowledge sources in Copilot Studio just got easier as Microsoft announce the ability to group up to 500 files into a single knowledge source. This is going to support your in delivering more precise and contextual answers through organising related documents alongside leveraging user-based variables.

This means you will see, improved performance, a reduction in irrelevant responses and the ability to narrow the search scope as needed.

Publishing agents to WhatsApp

For our technical teams, app developers and innovators, the capability to publish agents to WhatsApp is landing this month via Copilot Studio. This update will bring your WhatsApp configuration from Azure communication services and allow you to choose where your agent should appear.

Citations in Word

Did you know it’s becoming even easier for academics as third-party citation add-in in Words reference tab has become available? This update is specifically for our M365 users who are familiar with citation principals but need help navigating specific styles like APA, MLA and Chicago. This new update will allow you to surface the tools you need with ease.

 

Last Thoughts

From powerful new tools in Copilot chat to long-awaited upgrades in Microsoft Places and vibrant personalisation options in Teams. This month’s updates prove that Microsoft 365 continues to evolve with the modern workplace in mind. Whether you’re enhancing your hybrid collaboration, levelling up your community engagement with Viva Engage, or simply adding a splash of colour to your Teams experience, there’s something for everyone in August’s roundup.

As we look ahead to September, it’s clear Microsoft shows no signs of slowing down. Keep your eyes peeled for even more enhancements, and don’t forget to explore the updates first-hand to see how they can empower your day-to-day work.

Until next month, stay curious, stay connected, and stay productive.

P.S. We have an evergreen on August 28th, for even more updates, so come and join in!