What’s new in the Copilot stack

Microsoft continues to consolidate Copilot experiences under the same orchestration layer. The July wave delivered three upgrades that enterprise architects should care about:

1. Unified skills catalog. Copilot Studio now publishes skills that are immediately consumable by Microsoft 365 Copilot and Team Copilots. No more duplicate manifests.
2. Tenant-aware connectors. Data gateways got policy scopes, so you can expose Dynamics, ServiceNow, and SAP connectors selectively across business units.
3. Team Copilot GA roadmap. Microsoft committed to general availability in Q4 2024 with Planner, Loop, and SharePoint integration baked in.

Deployment strategy

To adopt responsibly, treat Copilot rollout like any other digital workspace project:

• Perform a security sweep: review Purview sensitivity labels, configure DLP around SharePoint and Teams to keep copilots from over-sharing confidential data.
• Stand up a sandbox tenant mirroring production policies. Pilot Copilot Studio skills for customer service or support before scaling.
• Establish a measurement baseline: track handle time, case resolution, or document drafting hours pre-launch.

Architecture sketch

Consider this the placeholder for a diagram illustrating how your Copilot skill calls Azure Functions, references Graph connectors, and logs telemetry.

Change management

Microsoft recommends the “Copilot Council” approach—build a cross-functional team covering IT, HR, Legal, and Comms. In practice, we run:

• Weekly office hours for power users.
• Two-way feedback channels inside Viva Engage.
• Bite-sized training using Loop components embedded in Teams.

Drop in a short video walkthrough or leadership introduction.

Compliance watchlist

• Feature flighting remains tied to the Current Channel. Align your update rings.
• EU Data Boundary enforcement for Copilot stays on track for end of 2024; document data residency decisions now.
• Review licensing: Team Copilot will require a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license plus a Teams Premium seat for some features.

Wrap by inviting readers to your Copilot readiness assessment.