Great, I’ll compile a thorough list of new and upcoming features across all Microsoft Viva modules from 2024 through May 5, 2025. I’ll group the features meaningfully, rank their impact from 1 (minor update) to 5 (major change), and include both end-user and admin features with a preference for official Microsoft sources. I’ll also incorporate visual aids like tables where useful to make the update clear and actionable. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready for review.

Microsoft Viva Suite Updates (Jan 2024 – May 2025)

Viva Connections (Employee Portal and Intranet)

• Feed Replaced by SharePoint News (w/ Copilot) (Impact: 5) – Starting March 2025, the Viva Connections “Feed” in Teams will be replaced with an AI-enhanced SharePoint News experience. Users will see personalized news posts (based on their permissions and activity) instead of the legacy feed, and Microsoft 365 Copilot can generate a summary of the top news items for licensed users. This major update simplifies the home experience and introduces on-demand AI summaries of intranet news.

• Multiple Home Site Experiences per Tenant (Impact: 4) – Released in early 2024, organizations can create multiple distinct Viva Connections experiences (with separate SharePoint home sites) within one tenant. This is useful for conglomerates or subsidiaries that need different dashboards, feeds, and resources for different user groups. Admins can define each experience and its audience, and manage them centrally (see next item).

• Connections Administration in M365 Admin Center (Impact: 2) – A new Viva Connections admin interface was added to the Microsoft 365 admin center in 2024, allowing IT admins to centrally manage Connections experiences and home sites. This Feature Access Management simplifies governance of multiple intranet experiences.

• Regional Frontline Announcements (Impact: 3) – Introduced May 2024, managers can target frontline workers with regional announcements in Connections. Announcements can be scoped by attributes like location, job role, or department, ensuring relevant news reaches specific groups. (This requires an organizational hierarchy setup in Teams and enabling regional filters in Connections.)

• Enhanced “Spotlight” for Content (Impact: 3) – The Viva Connections dashboard’s Spotlight section was upgraded in mid-2024 to support up to 11 content slots with more control over ordering. Editors can “pin” priority content (which appears first) followed by dynamically populated SharePoint news. This blend ensures important content isn’t buried by news, improving visibility of key links or resources.

• Connections in Web Browser (Impact: 3) – As of June 2024, Viva Connections became available via web, not just in Teams. This gives users the same dashboard, feed, and resources through a browser portal (rolling out from May 2024). No additional setup is required; this broadened access is automatic once enabled.

• OneDrive “Recent Files” Card (Impact: 2) – A new Connections dashboard card allows users to see their recently accessed or favorited OneDrive files at a glance. This card (rolled out May 2024) requires no special configuration and brings personal productivity content into the Viva Connections dashboard.

• SharePoint Nav to Connections Resources (Impact: 2) – In May 2024, Microsoft added a capability to import SharePoint navigation links into the Viva Connections “Resources” menu. This lets intranet owners quickly populate the Connections resources with existing home site links for consistency.

• Notifications for News Posts (Impact: 2) – Coming June 2024, Viva Connections can push news post notifications on desktop and web (previously mobile-only). Users will get Teams activity feed or banner notifications when new intranet news is published, similar to how they receive other updates. Notification settings can be adjusted by users at the app or site level.

(Additional Notes:) Other improvements include custom branding support (e.g. custom fonts and theming in Connections via the SharePoint Brand Center) and a new Power Apps dashboard card (Nov 2024) to embed line-of-business apps in the Connections experience. These enhance the visual consistency and extensibility of the intranet.

Viva Insights (Personal & Manager Insights)

• Teams Collaboration Metrics (Impact: 3) – In January 2024, Viva Insights expanded its analytics to include Microsoft Teams channel activities. 17 new metrics (now GA) measure things like channel message posts, replies, reactions, channel visit counts, and after-hours or weekend channel usage. These augment existing metrics (e.g. “Collaboration hours”) to give a more complete view of digital collaboration. All official Power BI insight templates were updated to incorporate these new metrics.

• Meeting Cost & Quality Insights (Impact: 4) – Rolled out May–June 2024, this feature provides both leaders and individuals with analytics on meeting load and effectiveness. For managers/leaders: a new report highlights how their team’s time is spent in meetings and identifies opportunities to claw back time from costly or low-quality meetings. For individual users: the Viva Insights app and Outlook will surface nudges if scheduling high-cost meetings (e.g. large meetings) and help review meeting habits. This aims to foster more mindful meeting practices.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot Dashboard (Impact: 5) – A Copilot usage dashboard in Viva Insights is being introduced to help organizations measure Copilot’s adoption and impact. Initially available to Viva Insights licensed customers, Microsoft later announced this dashboard will be opened up to all Microsoft 365 Copilot customers (no Viva license needed). It shows trends in “Copilot assisted hours” and other AI engagement metrics, with options to view potential productivity impact (even in dollar terms). Rollout for the expanded availability begins July 2024. (Advanced breakdowns and custom reports still require a Viva Insights license.)

• Viva Pulse Integration (“Connected Actions”) (Impact: 3) – Viva Insights now integrates with Viva Pulse surveys to add context to insights. Starting January 2024, team leaders viewing their Insights “leader reports” can launch a quick Pulse survey in-context. The integration suggests question templates based on areas of concern (e.g. after an organizational survey or a metric change) so managers can gather confidential feedback from their team and follow up on Insights data. This bridges objective collaboration metrics with subjective employee feedback.

• Advanced Analysis Controls (Attribute Cloning) (Impact: 2) – For analysts using Viva Insights’ advanced analysis (Workplace Analytics), a new “attribute clones” feature launched in May 2024. It allows analysts to duplicate organizational attributes into multiple versions within partitions for experimentation or custom groupings, without altering the original data columns. This gives more flexibility in slicing data for custom reports.

• Delegate Access Management (Impact: 2) – Improvements were made in late 2024 to how delegate access is handled. Insights admins (or global admins) can now assign or remove manager delegates via PowerShell, rather than requiring the manager to do it. Additionally, by early 2025, users themselves can request delegate access to their manager’s data through the Insights app (with manager approval) instead of out-of-band requests. These changes make delegate setup more convenient for vacation coverage or assisting leaders.

• Insights + Glint Data Export (Impact: 3) – In Nov 2024, Microsoft announced combined data export capabilities for Viva Insights and Viva Glint. Analysts can generate a CSV export that joins Glint survey results with organizational and collaboration data from Viva Insights. This enables deeper analysis of how employee engagement (survey scores) might correlate with work patterns. (The feature became generally available via the Advanced Insights app’s Power BI templates.)

• Copilot & Privacy Settings (Impact: 2) – By April 2025, new admin controls for Viva Insights in Copilot were provided. Global admins can fine-tune which personal and advanced insights Copilot is allowed to access or generate at the tenant level. This helps organizations enforce privacy choices (for instance, disabling certain personal analytics in Copilot’s responses).

(Additional Notes:) Other updates include incremental improvements like “Copilot assisted hours” breakdown by collaboration type (added to the dashboard in May 2024), and updated algorithms for network and cross-collaboration metrics to improve accuracy (rolled out Nov 2024). These ensure the data behind Viva Insights stays reliable and relevant. Integration with other Viva modules is also growing: for example, Copilot for Microsoft Viva Goals and Viva Sales now feeds data into the Insights analyst workbench (for reporting on Copilot usage in those contexts).

Viva Topics (Knowledge Discovery)

• No New Features – Product Retiring (Impact: 5) – Microsoft has announced that Viva Topics will be retired on February 22, 2025, and no new feature development occurred after February 2024. This strategic shift comes as Microsoft focuses on new AI-driven knowledge experiences via Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services.

• Topics Integration Changes – As part of retirement, any Viva Topics integrations in other apps are being removed. Notably, Viva Engage is reverting to its native hashtag topics model for customers without a Topics license. The special Viva Topics hover cards and AI-discovered topic suggestions in Engage will cease, and Engage will treat topics as simple labels going forward. Existing topic pages in SharePoint will become standard pages that users can edit manually, but the AI-driven updates and indexing will stop after retirement.

Implication: Organizations using Viva Topics should plan to export or transition their knowledge. Microsoft advises using SharePoint pages and Microsoft Search to publish and discover knowledge going forward, as those will continue to be indexed and utilized by Copilot for Q&A. The retirement of Topics is a major change – while no new end-user features were added in 2024, this decision itself is crucial for planning future knowledge management strategies.

Viva Learning (Learning & Skilling)

• External Content in Learning Collections (Impact: 3) – Users can now include external content via URL when creating learning collections. As of early 2024, a learner curating a collection can add links to YouTube videos, web articles, or other external resources alongside courses. This broadened the scope of content available in Viva Learning collections beyond the integrated providers.

• Learning Academies & Providers Admin (Impact: 2) – Viva Learning’s admin experience was enhanced. Administrators can configure Learning Academies (custom groupings of content) and manage content providers directly in the Viva Learning admin tab. They get visibility into content sync status and logs, making it easier to troubleshoot integration issues with LMS or content libraries.

• Add to Calendar (Mobile) (Impact: 2) – A quality-of-life update (rolled out in early 2024): learners using the Viva Learning mobile app can add a learning course to their Outlook calendar to block time for it. This helps employees schedule dedicated learning time, improving follow-through on course completion.

• “My Learning” Records API (Impact: 3) – Introduced in May 2024, an Egress API allows users (or admins) to retrieve all “My Learning” records and course completion details programmatically. This is useful for reporting and analytics – for example, extracting training completion data into an HR system or custom dashboard.

• Edit Learning Paths (Impact: 2) – Admins gained the ability (May 2024) to edit existing learning paths (change metadata, reorder or update content) in Viva Learning. Previously, once a learning path was created, editing was limited, so this update gives learning curators more flexibility to keep paths up-to-date. Learners will see the updated path content immediately after edits.

• Localized Date & Number Formats (Impact: 1) – Viva Learning now respects user locale for dates and numerals. By mid-2024, all dates shown in the app (due dates, completion dates, etc.) appear in the user’s local date format, and number formats (e.g. thousand separators) match the user’s locale. This small update improves clarity for global users.

• Semantic Search in Learning (Impact: 4) – In March 2025, Viva Learning began rolling out AI-powered semantic search for its in-app search bar. Instead of exact keyword matching, the search understands user intent and context to return more relevant learning content results. This makes it easier to find courses using natural language queries (in all supported languages). Curators are encouraged to enrich content metadata to leverage this feature fully.

• AI/Copilot Resources Enabled (Impact: 2) – As of April 2025, the “AI and Copilot Resources” learning provider (a set of training content about Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI) will be enabled by default for all Viva Learning users. This means even users without a Copilot license can discover Copilot learning content in their Viva Learning app. Admins can hide it if desired, but the default ON ensures broad exposure to AI skilling materials.

• Copilot Academy for All Users (Impact: 2) – Similarly, Copilot Academy (Microsoft’s curated learning path for Copilot adoption) is being made available to all Microsoft 365 users via Viva Learning starting April 2025. Admins can configure who sees it, but by default it’s accessible. This is part of Microsoft’s push to educate users on AI – notifications about Copilot Academy will still only go to Copilot-licensed users, but even unlicensed users can see and take these courses if allowed.

• Inferred Skills & Course Recommendations (Impact: 4) – Coming in late March 2025, Viva Learning will infer users’ skills from their Microsoft 365 activities and provide personalized course recommendations based on those inferred skills. Learners will be able to select skills of interest, and the system will suggest trainings relevant to both their chosen and inferred skills. This is a significant enhancement to personalize learning, leveraging the Microsoft Graph to tailor content to each employee’s needs.

• Security Group Support & LMS Integrations (Impact: 2) – Viva Learning has improved how it handles user management and LMS integration: by March 2025 it supports Azure AD security groups for permissioning content and features across the app. Additionally, admins can now set up custom user mapping for LMS integrations (like SAP SuccessFactors) and view user sync logs. These admin features ensure enterprise LMS data aligns correctly with Viva Learning users, reducing setup headaches.

(Additional Notes:) A new “Learning in Teams” integration is on the horizon (allowing learning tabs or cards more broadly in Teams channels), as hinted in roadmap updates. Also, Microsoft’s AI investments might bring Copilot directly into Viva Learning in the future – for example, suggesting learning content during performance reviews or career chats. For now, the emphasis has been on surfacing the right content and simplifying admin management during this period.

Viva Engage (Yammer Communities & Conversations)

• “Article” Post Type (Storyline) (Impact: 4) – In early 2024, Viva Engage introduced a new rich Article post type for storyline posts. This allows users (especially leaders or communicators) to create long-form content with rich text, images, and formatting – essentially blog-style posts within Viva Engage. The addition of Articles (alongside Questions and standard conversations) gives employees more ways to share knowledge and narratives, improving internal storytelling.

• Answers in Communities (Impact: 4) – Microsoft expanded the Q&A capabilities of Viva Engage with Answers in Viva (premium). By Q1 2024, if you have Viva Engage (Communications & Communities SKU or Viva Suite), you can enable Q&A within any community – not just the global Answers hub. This feature threads community questions with suggested similar questions (to prevent duplicates) and marks best answers, complete with gamification (users earn badges for answering). It also provides Answers Analytics at both community and global level to track engagement with Q&A.

• Enhanced Questions Posting (Impact: 2) – Along with the above, question posts in Engage got a UX tweak: a question now has two parts – a mandatory title and an optional details section – to encourage clearer, searchable questions. This was a minor update (due around March 2024) that makes Q&As more effective.

• Code Snippets in Posts (Impact: 2) – For tech-oriented communities, Engage introduced the ability to add formatted code snippets in conversations. Starting Feb 2024, users can embed code blocks in their posts, replies, or questions (with syntax highlighting), making Viva Engage more useful for developer communities or IT discussions. (This feature is also available in Answers posts for those with Answers premium.)

• View-Only Mode (Impact: 3) – New moderation controls rolled out in May 2024 allow Engage admins to set certain users to “view-only” mode. A user in view-only can read content in Viva Engage but cannot post, react, or reply. This is useful for regulatory compliance (e.g., during employment transitions or investigations) or for staged onboarding of new users. Admins can toggle this status as needed.

• Mute Conversations or Users (Impact: 3) – As part of a suite of moderation tools, network admins and corporate communicators can now mute specific conversations (threads) or even all posts by a particular user in the Home feed and email digests. Introduced Nov 2024 (conversations) and May 2024 (user muting), these features let moderators reduce noise or hide inappropriate threads without deleting content. Notably, muting a user’s posts from the feed does not notify the user, and admins retain full control.

• Leadership Analytics and Change Log (Impact: 2) – For organizations using Engage’s Leadership Corner, new analytics and logs were added. In May 2024, Viva Engage Premium introduced benchmarks that compare your engagement metrics (network activity, audience activity) to those of similar customers. Additionally, a change log for leaders and their audiences was released, allowing comms teams to see when leaders are added or removed, and when audiences (employee segments) are changed for leader posts. These help measure and manage leadership communication campaigns.

• Official Communities & Discovery (Impact: 2) – A new concept of “Official Communities” was rolled out to improve community discovery. Network admins can mark certain communities as official/verified. By May 2024, the Communities Discovery page in Engage highlights official communities in a dedicated section, making it easier for users to find company-endorsed communities. This is similar to verification, to drive employees to the best groups.

• Modernized Community Settings (Impact: 1) – The community settings dialog in Engage was revamped into a full settings page (May 2024) for a better UX. It doesn’t change functionality much, but it lays groundwork for future community features. All existing community configuration (cover photo, description, member permissions, etc.) are now easier to find and adjust on this page.

• Topic Follow Notifications (Impact: 3) – Starting June 2024, users can subscribe to topics and receive notifications when new content is tagged with those topics. If you follow a topic, you’ll get a Teams and Engage notification whenever someone uses that topic in a new post. This helps users stay informed on specific subjects of interest (much like following a hashtag).

• Engage in Microsoft 365 Copilot (Impact: 4) – Announced late 2024, Microsoft 365 Copilot can now draw from Viva Engage content to answer questions. Copilot will include public community posts and Answers in its knowledge scope (for licensed users), meaning company Q&A and discussions in Viva Engage can surface via Copilot’s AI responses. This effectively turns your enterprise social knowledge into an AI retrievable resource. Rollout began Dec 2024 and into early 2025.

• New Engage Communications Dashboard (Impact: 4) – A Communications Dashboard for Engage is launching (rolling out April–June 2025) to give corporate communicators and admins a centralized view of campaign performance and moderation. It will consolidate analytics (reach of announcements, engagement metrics), trending topics, and moderation alerts into one interface. Additionally, advanced moderation like keyword monitoring is moving into this dashboard from the legacy Yammer admin center, with AI-powered Moderation Agents to detect concerning keywords or themes in conversations. These updates enhance oversight for enterprise-wide communications via Engage.

• External Network Modernization (Impact: 5 for affected users) – Microsoft is overhauling external networks in Viva Engage. Legacy external Yammer networks (used for external communities) will no longer be supported after mid-2025. Starting June 1, 2025, customers are prompted to migrate external networks to a new platform or risk data loss. This is a significant change: organizations with Yammer external networks should export their data and plan to use alternative solutions (such as shared Teams channels or the forthcoming new external Communities platform). Documentation and guidance are promised by Microsoft by March 2025 to assist with this transition.

• Network Consolidation Timing (Impact: 1) – Engage also tweaked the auto-consolidation of networks. If a tenant has multiple Yammer networks (often due to mergers), the platform auto-consolidates them. As of March 2025, the notice period for these auto-merge events is reduced from 30 days to 15 days. Admins cannot stop an auto-consolidation, so this change urges quicker action when a notice is received.

(Additional Notes:) Several smaller improvements were made to keep Viva Engage aligned with modern workplace needs. For example, mobile app support updates: as of June 2024, the iOS app requires iOS 16+ (older devices won’t get updates). Also, in April 2025 Engage refreshed the user settings interface to align with Microsoft 365 account settings for consistency. All these changes – big and small – reflect Viva Engage’s evolution from the Yammer days into a more integrated, modern social layer within Microsoft 365.

Viva Goals (OKR Management)

• Enhanced Goal Sharing (Impact: 2) – In early 2024, Viva Goals introduced a more user-friendly sharing experience for OKRs. A new share dialog lets users easily share goals or dashboards via multiple channels – Microsoft Teams, email, Slack – or simply copy a link. This makes it easier to broadcast goal progress to coworkers or stakeholders directly from Viva Goals.

• Custom Check-In Templates (Impact: 2) – Viva Goals added the ability to create check-in templates (announced in Jan 2024). Goal owners or admins can define a template with prompts or questions for progress updates. When users make a check-in on a goal, they can follow the template, ensuring more consistent and meaningful progress notes. This helps standardize how teams report status on OKRs.

• Terminology Customization in Copilot (Impact: 1) – An update for Viva Goals Copilot (the AI assistant for OKRs) was planned to better respect customized terminology. Many organizations rename OKR terms (e.g. calling “Goals” something else); this Copilot enhancement ensures it uses the organization’s preferred terms when suggesting or summarizing goals, improving adoption of AI in goal-setting.

• Default Company-Wide Org (Impact: 3) – To streamline onboarding, Microsoft made a company-wide organization (CWO) available by default in Viva Goals for new customers (as of Jan 2024). This is a tenant-level OKR space that all licensed users can access automatically. It means companies don’t have to manually set up an initial organization in Goals – teams can directly start creating their OKRs under the default org, simplifying first-time use. (Admins can disable or rename this if needed.)

• (Upcoming Change) Viva Goals Retirement (Impact: 5) – Important: Microsoft announced that Viva Goals will be retired on December 31, 2025, with no new features being developed after Dec 5, 2024. While the service remains supported (security and bug fixes) through 2025, customers are advised to plan a transition for their OKR management. Microsoft provides data export tools (to CSV, PowerPoint, or via API) to help migrate OKRs to another solution. This announcement effectively froze feature additions in our timeframe; the emphasis is now on maintaining existing functionality and helping customers eventually move to alternate OKR platforms. It’s a major strategic shift, so organizations using Viva Goals should be aware that beyond the early 2024 improvements, no further enhancements were or will be released.

(Additional Notes:) Before the development freeze, Microsoft had been integrating Goals with the broader Viva suite (for example, Viva Goals data can feed into the Viva Insights analyst workbench for Copilot usage reporting, and there were plans to surface OKR info via Copilot). With the retirement plan, customers might look to these integrations to extract more value while Goals is still in use, but also consider other tools for long-term OKR tracking.

Viva Glint (Employee Feedback and Engagement)

• Glint Surveys in Viva (GA) – After Microsoft’s acquisition of Glint, it was integrated into Viva as the employee feedback platform. By 2024, Viva Glint surveys (engagement surveys, pulse surveys, etc.) became available to Viva Suite customers. Many new features revolve around making survey insights more actionable within Microsoft 365.

• Copilot Summary of Open-Text (Impact: 5) – Starting in late 2024, Microsoft 365 Copilot can be used with Viva Glint to analyze employee comments. Copilot will summarize survey write-in responses, detect key themes, and even suggest follow-up actions for HR or managers. This AI-driven analysis of qualitative feedback (public preview in mid-2024, GA by Nov 2024) helps leaders get the gist of thousands of comments quickly. It requires a Viva Glint license and admin enabling, but is a major advancement in turning raw feedback into actionable insights.

• Viva Pulse Integration (Impact: 3) – As of May 2024, Viva Pulse (quick surveys) can be tied into Glint results. After an organization-wide Glint survey, managers can launch a targeted Pulse survey from the Glint dashboard to dig deeper on specific team issues. Pulse will even recommend questions based on top strengths or gaps identified in the Glint results. This integration lets leaders “check the temperature” between big annual surveys, maintaining momentum on engagement improvements.

• Combined Glint + Insights Analysis (Impact: 3) – Viva Glint data can now be correlated with Viva Insights data, as noted earlier. The Advanced Insights app offers a template that joins Glint scores with collaboration patterns. For example, an analyst could see if teams with high overtime hours also have lower engagement. This cross-data export became generally available in late 2024.

• Admin & Language Updates – A number of administrative enhancements were made to Viva Glint: for instance, some legacy language codes are being retired in 2025 to streamline localization (admins are advised to update any custom translations before August 2025). Also, expectation setting for survey programs is improved – for example, clearer 15-day notice and scheduling for survey launches in the admin center. These tweaks ensure Glint remains enterprise-ready under the Viva umbrella.

(Additional Notes:) Viva Glint is essentially the evolution of what was Glint standalone, now integrated with Azure AD and Viva. Looking forward, Microsoft is likely to deepen Glint’s connections with the rest of Viva (for instance, feeding engagement insights to Viva Insights, or using Copilot to not only summarize but also recommend learning content or communications based on survey results). The focus in 2024–2025 has been on integration (Pulse, Insights, Copilot) to make survey data more actionable.

Viva Amplify (Internal Communications Campaigns)

• General Availability & Purpose – Viva Amplify became generally available in late 2023 as a central tool for internal communicators to craft and publish campaigns across multiple channels (email, SharePoint news, Teams). From Jan 2024 onward, the product saw steady improvements to make communications creation more collaborative and effective.

• Two-Column Email Layouts (Impact: 3) – At long last, Amplify gained support for multi-column email designs. Rolling out in April 2025, campaign authors can format newsletter-style emails with two columns. This allows more sophisticated, magazine-like layouts (e.g. images or text side-by-side) directly in the Amplify email editor, which was previously a single-column layout tool.

• Animated GIF Support (Impact: 1) – In the same update, Viva Amplify emails will support animated GIF images (with size limits) that play in Outlook. This adds a bit of dynamism to internal communications, allowing movement or small animations in emails to catch employees’ attention.

• Collaborative Authoring (Impact: 4) – A major update announced for April–May 2025: real-time co-authoring in Viva Amplify campaigns. Multiple team members with access can now edit the same draft simultaneously on the web, with a presence indicator showing who’s editing. There are also options to lock a publication if needed. This is a significant productivity boost – no more back-and-forth on versions; comms teams can work together just like in Office apps.

• Campaigns Without M365 Groups (Impact: 3) – Originally, Amplify campaigns were tied to Microsoft 365 Groups (for permission and channel setup). A 2025 update removes that requirement: you no longer need to create a dedicated M365 Group for each campaign, simplifying setup. Only SharePoint admin rights are needed to use Amplify now, and when a campaign is made, it won’t auto-provision a Teams channel like before. This streamlines Amplify for orgs that found the group linkage confusing.

• Auto-Footers for Compliance (Impact: 3) – In Nov 2024, Microsoft introduced automatic footers for emails sent via Viva Amplify (and for SharePoint news shared by email). These footers include the organization’s logo, a standard disclaimer, and a privacy statement link. They are added by default to ensure compliance and consistency. This saves communicators from manually adding legal boilerplate to each message and ensures all broad communications have proper branding and privacy info.

• Copilot Deployment Kit (Impact: 2) – Microsoft created a “Copilot deployment kit” within Viva Amplify (GA announced mid-2024). This is a set of pre-crafted communication templates and guidance to help organizations announce and drive adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot. It’s essentially a content pack in Amplify: templates for emails, intranet posts, FAQs, etc., that comms teams can customize. This doesn’t change functionality, but it’s a valuable content addition coinciding with Copilot’s rollout.

• Power Apps/Card Integration – Amplify campaigns can leverage other Microsoft 365 content: for example, an update in late 2024 allowed embedding Viva Connections cards or Power Apps directly in Amplify communications (so an email could have an interactive card component). Combined with the two-column layout, this makes messages more interactive and actionable. (Impact small, but notable for power users.)

(Additional Notes:) Since its launch, Viva Amplify’s trajectory is towards making internal communications more like external campaigns: rich visuals, collaborative drafting, and measurable impact. While the current period’s updates focused on authoring experience, we expect future ones (post-May 2025) to enhance analytics (so communicators can see open rates, engagement time – note: a new “average time spent per user” report graph was added in early 2025) and possibly bring Copilot into content creation (e.g. AI suggestions for email copy or campaign scheduling). For now, Amplify is steadily becoming the go-to hub for corporate communications, with these new features reducing friction for comms teams.

Viva Sales (Microsoft Sales Copilot)

(Note: In 2023, Viva Sales was rebranded as Microsoft Sales Copilot, reflecting its focus on AI-assisted sales workflows. It’s part of the Viva suite but licensed separately. We cover new features under this evolved “Copilot for Sales” name.)

• AI Email Drafts & Summaries in Outlook (Impact: 4) – Sales Copilot (Viva Sales) can generate email content for sellers based on CRM context. In 2024 it saw improvements in this area: by December 2024, Copilot’s email summarization and drafting got even smarter. Sellers can get a summary of an email thread or have Copilot draft a reply that pulls in relevant CRM details. The Outlook add-in gained quick filters for saving email content to CRM, making it faster to capture customer interactions. These enhancements save time on follow-up communications by leveraging GPT-4 to draft personalized, data-driven emails.

• Teams Meeting Intelligence – Real-time Insights (Impact: 5) – A groundbreaking feature in Sales Copilot is its integration with Teams meetings. Announced as part of the 2024 Wave 2 release, Copilot can listen during sales meetings and provide real-time guidance. For example, it will detect customer objections or questions in real time and surface contextual suggestions. If a prospect raises a concern, Copilot might display a relevant product fact or a suggested response drawn from a knowledge base. It also monitors seller talk ratio, sentiment, and adherence to call “playbooks.” This live coaching capability is like having a sales coach in the meeting, helping sellers respond better and capture important info on the spot.

• Post-Meeting CRM Updates (Impact: 5) – Sales Copilot also streamlines the after-meeting work. Sellers can now update CRM records directly from the Teams meeting summary page, which Copilot populates after a call. For instance, Copilot will transcribe key points and then suggest updates: “The client mentioned a budget of $50k” – with one click, the seller can update the Opportunity’s budget field in Dynamics 365 to $50,000. Copilot can even identify new contacts mentioned and prompt to create them in CRM, or log action items. This tight integration means less manual data entry after sales calls – a huge time saver and ensures CRM data isn’t forgotten.

• SharePoint File Recommendations (Impact: 3) – Introduced in preview in early 2024, Copilot for Sales can fetch document recommendations from SharePoint during sales processes. For example, when preparing for a customer meeting, a seller can ask Copilot to find relevant product brochures or case studies – Copilot will suggest files from SharePoint that match the context (e.g. based on product names or customer industry). This feature connects sellers to the latest sales collateral without frantic searching.

• Unified Teams App (Impact: 3) – Microsoft consolidated the Sales Copilot experience into a single Teams app (announced Feb 2024). Instead of separate add-ins for Outlook and Teams, the enhanced Teams personal app now houses the Copilot experience for both meeting intelligence and CRM collaboration. Sellers can use it as a central hub: view emails, meetings, and action items in one place. This also included improved contact and deal insights in Outlook (more actions available, like summarizing recent communications or scheduling follow-ups right from Outlook).

• Multi-CRM and Data Insights – Viva Sales (Sales Copilot) works with Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. In 2024 Microsoft added more parity and features for Salesforce users (so that features like meeting recap and email sync work similarly). Also, Sales Copilot usage data is now fed into the Viva Insights Copilot dashboard (for admins to see how often sellers use AI assistance, etc.). This shows the cross-module integration: the success of Sales Copilot can be measured alongside collaboration metrics.

(Additional Notes:) The roadmap for Sales Copilot after May 2025 likely involves deeper AI and tighter loops between CRM and productivity tools. For instance, expect even more proactive suggestions: Copilot may soon alert a seller if an important email from a customer hasn’t been replied to, or automatically draft a proposal document by pulling in CRM data. Microsoft is also working on multilingual support (so Copilot can draft emails in various languages for global sales). All current trends indicate that Viva Sales (Sales Copilot) is becoming an indispensable assistant for salespeople – reducing clerical tasks and enhancing customer engagement with AI. The features from Jan 2024 to May 2025 cement that direction, from real-time call coaching to effortless CRM updates, truly “bringing CRM to where sellers work” and using AI to light up the data in meaningful ways.

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Sources:

1. Official Microsoft announcements and roadmap updates (Jan 2024 – May 2025) – e.g., Microsoft 365 Message Center news, Tech Community blogs.

2. Microsoft Learn documentation for feature rollouts and product changes.

3. Microsoft Tech Community Blogs: What's New in Viva Insights, Viva Learning Q4 2024 Roadmap, Ignite 2024 announcements, etc..

4. High-quality third-party analyses (HandsOntek by João Ferreira, Office365itpros.com, etc.) summarizing Viva updates and Message Center posts.

5. Dynamics 365 Copilot Release Notes (Wave 1 & 2 2024) for Sales Copilot features.