Category: Microsoft Teams

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Teams in Microsoft 365 is back for good (but it’s your choice)

It’s back!  Starting November 1, 2025, Microsoft Teams is officially “back” in the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise suites globally, but the choice to have it not sit with organisations and not Microsoft!

After years of regulatory issues, stalls, conceats and negotiations as well as regional licensing inconsistencies, Microsoft has reached a landmark agreement with the European Commission that reshapes how Microsoft Teams is packaged, priced, bundled and positioned across their modern work and productivity suites.

This agreement has spared Microsoft the potential antitrust fine and reputation damage.

The EU Commission decision makes Microsoft’s commitments (which were agreed) binding for seven years and for ten years regarding interoperability and data portability between platform.

Why This Matters

This isn’t just a licensing update it’s a fundamental “win” and global reset for Teams in Microsoft 365 and Office. After being forced to u bundle Teams from Office last year, causing cost increases, confusion and frustration for customers and partners, the change in decision actually follows a multi-year antitrust investigation originally triggered by Slack and Alfaview, who argued that bundling Teams with Microsoft 365 gave Microsoft an “unfair market advantage”. The European Commission had agreed, citing violations of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

To resolve the issue, Microsoft agreed and committed to:

  • Offering Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites with or without Teams globally, not just in Europe.
  • Introducing new pricing tiers that reflect organisations choice of whether to have teams or not have teams included, with clearer cost differentiation.
  • Enhancing interoperability and data portability, which will allow customers  more transparent ways to migrate Teams data to other and competing platforms.
  • Providing APIs and developer tools to support third-party integrations to further promote a more open and fair ecosystem.

In short. The decision is “do you want Microsoft 365 with Teams or without“.

What’s Changing for Customers

Whether you’re an enterprise, medium or small business, the change is synonymous and ultimately gives organisations more choice and control:

  • Choice: in whether you want to have Microsoft Teams included as part of your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suite. No more default bundling.
  • Transparency: with clearer pricing including reduced rates for suites without Teams Included.
  • Flexibility: Long-term license holders can switch to the “Teams-free” versions should they wish.
  • Consistency: The same options and pricing structures apply globally for every organisation across every region, meaning and end to regional licensing differences and rules.

In short. The decision is “do you want Microsoft 365 with Teams or without“.

Strategic Implications.

For organisations globally, this is a opportunity to reassess their productivity and collaboration strategy.

The global unbundling option opens the door to hybrid environments where Teams coexists across the business or departments meaning it’s more cost effective (IT integrations and support aside) to have multiple collaboration platforms such as to Slack, Zoom, or Webex for example.

Microsoft’s commitment to interoperability means third-party tools can now also fully embed Office Web Apps and access Teams-like functionality without being locked into the Microsoft stack or needed cumberson plug-ins which break the user interface and confuse users.

From a licensing perspective, this should also simplify procurement and renewals. There will be no more navigating region-specific bundles or opaque pricing.

For developers, the expanded API access is also a win and should help with line of business integration and interoperability across the board.

In short. The decision is “do you want Microsoft 365 with Teams or without“.

Talk to your Microsoft Partner

If you’re navigating Microsoft licensing or wondering how this impacts can positively impact your business come talk to your Microsoft Partner.

Whether you’re rethinking your collaboration  strategy, looking to better understand and optimise your licensing or need help with technology deployment, adoption or training, we can help.

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Teams Facilitator Agent: A Virtual Chair for Teams Meetings

Facilitator Agent Logo

Teams has a powerful new capability called the Facilitator Agent – a Copilot-driven meeting assistant designed to make collaboration smoother, smarter, and more productive. Think of it as a virtual chairperson that keeps your meeting on agenda, on-time and to point,whilst allowing participants to focus more on the meeting than taking notes.

Facilitator in Teams Rooms – Image (C) Microsoft.

Facilitator auto-drafts agendas, keeps people on track of the agenda and timings, provides rolling summaries, decisions, and action items all in a secure shared Loop page that everyone can co-author / edit across desktop, web, mobile, and even now in Teams Rooms direct from the room controls in Teams Rooms.

What is the Teams Facilitator Agent?

The Facilitator Agent is an AI-powered feature built into Microsoft Teams that works alongside Microsoft 365 Copilot (you need a Copilot license to activate it and interface to it). It acts as a shared assistant within your meetings and chats, providing:

  • Real-time AI-generated notes: Captures discussion points, decisions, and action items as the meeting unfolds.
  • Collaborative editing: All participants can view notes and Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users can co-author notes live – this ensures accuracy and inclusivity.
  • Meeting moderation: Helps manage agendas, prompts for goals if none are set, and even nudges participants to wrap up discussions.
  • Time management: Includes a meeting clock and reminders to keep sessions on schedule.
  • Post-meeting recap: Provides a structured summary and tasks in the Recap tab, stored securely in Microsoft Loop in the meeting organisers’ OneDrive.

How is it Facilitator different from the old “AI Notes” feature?

Previously, Teams offered AI Notes as part of Intelligent Recap, which generated summaries after the meeting. While useful, it was a passive experience—participants couldn’t interact with or influence the notes in real time.

The Facilitator Agent replaces and enhances this by:

  • Working live during the meeting, not just after.
  • Real-time co-authoring of notes by both AI and humans as the meeting progresses.
  • Acting as an active participant, responding to @mentions and questions in chat.
  • Providing dynamic updates as discussions evolve, rather than static summaries.
  • Keeps a track of the meeting, who has spoken, actions and topic/agenda drift (in otherwords it politely nags you!)

What is Facilitator good at?

Facilitator can or could if trusted, replace the chair or act as a chair/co-chair in a meeting. In my personal experience I have foudn it to be really really good at:

  • Real-Time Note-Taking & Summarisation
    Capturing key discussion points, decisions, and action items during meetings, with live co-authoring – I love how it writes as the meeting prgresses and even corrects itself.
  • Meeting Moderation & Structure
    Detects if a meeting lacks an agenda and prompts participants to define goals. If a meeting has an agenda it attempts to chunk the meeting into sections and helps keep the meeting on topic and ontime.
  • Improved Collaboration
    Works in meetings and group chats, keeping everyone aligned—even late joiners. It allows people to talk to the agent too – by mentioning @facilitator if you need it to do something like set an action or recap a point.
  • Post-Meeting Recap & Accountability
    Generates structured summaries and suggested tasks in the Recap tab for people to go back to or generate an email follow from etc,.

Facilitator Agent – Current Limitations

I do love usig it – its been GA for a few weeks now, but there are few limitations which I hope/expect will “go away soon”. These include:

  • Not Available Everywhere: Facilitator currently doesn’t work in external, instant, or channel meetings; mobile users can view notes but not start Facilitator (yet)..
  • Compliance Gaps: Sensitivity labels don’t automatically apply to notes yet but this is in thge public roadmap.

Using Facilitator in Meetings

Turning it on: By Default, when you create a meeting via Teams, Facilitator is “off” and needs to be enabled by switching the toggle as illustrated below. It can also be enabled from “within” the meeting.

In Meeting Interaction:
When the meeting starts, you are notified that Facilitator is running via an in-app notification. Note the meeting does not need to be recorded for this to be active. You also see this indicator under the notes section at the right of the meeting pane.

By the way, if you join a meeting where Facilitator is not active, you can enable it anytime from the menu under “…more”.

You still get a notification when Facilitator is running, and it will period chat to you in the meeting chat to keep you updated on the meeting.

Facilitator in Meeting

In Meeting – Meeting Notes and Actions Beng taken by Facilitator

Actions Generated by Facilitator

During the meeting (and afterwards, which you can find by going back to the meeting in your calendar), you can view and of course edit the notes, actions and also see any “related” content and “insights” that Facilitator has sufaced that it “thinks” might be relevant to the meeting dsicussion you have been in. These notes are captured in a Loop Space which is stored on the meeting organisers OneDrive and shared (automatically) with all meeting participants.

Post Meeting Notes, Actions and Insights.

Facilitator Agent Use Cases

I use this in most meetings but there are loads of use cases I see and hear about.

  • Daily stand-ups or project huddles to log progress and blockers
  • Customer calls and scoping meetings capturing commitments and next steps to eliminate follow-up churn
  • Project update or planning calls.

Facilitator Agent – What is Coming (Roadmap)

This is in preview and will be fully rolled out (GA) by September, and there are a few thinsg still nt he works which I expect will be out soon enough.

  • Editable Canvas for Chat Notes: AI notes in chats will move to an editable canvas backed by SharePoint Embedded.
  • Teams Rooms Integration: Facilitator will also (now in Preview) support ad-hoc and scheduled meetings in Teams Rooms, with QR code invites and speaker attribution.
  • Improved Compliance: Sensitivity label inheritance and enhanced governance via Microsoft Purview will be supported.

Q & A

Q: Is the Facilitator Agent just a rebrand of the previous AI notes feature?
A: It builds on that toggle but expands into a full-blown agent. Beyond post-meeting summaries, Facilitator prompts agendas, generates live recaps, drives collaboration via Loop, and integrates with Teams Rooms by QR code.

Q: How does it differ from using Copilot in a Teams meeting?
A: Copilot in a meeting is a private assistant—only you see its responses. Facilitator operates in the group context: prompts, highlights, and action items appear for everyone to view and edit in real time.

Q: What’s the added value over just recording and transcribing?
A: Recording and transcription are passive: you consume them after the fact. Facilitator is proactive—drafting agendas, nudging for goals, surfacing decisions, and giving every attendee an editable canvas mid-meeting.

Q: Where does Intelligent Recap fit in?
A: Intelligent Recap synthesizes speech and on-screen visuals after the meeting ends. Facilitator closes the loop instantly – keeping the conversation structured, accountable, and collaborative from start to finish.

Q: What are the alternatives to Facilitator Agent?

1. Native recording + transcription then manual or Copilot/ChatGPT note generation
2. Intelligent Recap for post-meeting slide and data context
3. Private Copilot chats for ad-hoc AI queries
4. Manual note-taking or shared OneNote pages
5. Third-party assistants like Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai

Q: Do I need a Copilot license to use the Facilitator Agent?
A: Any user who initiates or edits AI-generated notes in meetings or chats must have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Unlicensed participants can view meeting AI notes but cannot start or edit them.

Q: What about in-person meetings?
A: Coming soon – a new feature in the Teams mobile app will let you start a dedicated in-person meeting with Facilitator right from your phone. This will then kick off a recorded, transcribed session – again with real-time agendas, notes, and follow-up tasks. When you end the meeting, notes save automatically and a “in the past” calendar event is created—everything is surfaced in Recap. – This will requires a Copilot license and is due to be in preview Auguist/Sept – I’ve seen it but don’t have it yet myself!

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