What’s new in Microsoft Copilot – September 2026: plugin registry, new models and pricing

Microsoft Copilot’s September 2026 updates come down to three words: plugins, models and costs. Microsoft launches the plugin registry, a single catalog to govern skills, connectors and agents, adds several AI models to Copilot’s model choice (including Grok in preview) and evolves its pricing toward a mix of per-user licensing and usage-based billing.

On the app side, Copilot in SharePoint and Copilot in OneDrive become generally available, PowerPoint gains Skills and connectors, Word shows its citations and Teams Phone gets a call-answering agent. Admins can finally manage authoritative sources for Copilot Search.

Here is what to remember, and above all what to control.

September’s updates at a glance

Feature	Where	Status
New Copilot design	Teams, Outlook	Rolled out in September
New Copilot new tab page	Edge	Rolling out in October
Agents and skills called in the prompt	Copilot Chat	Rolled out in September
Copilot in Word, PowerPoint and Excel	Android	Rolled out in September
Plugin registry	Copilot experiences, Microsoft 365 admin center	Rolled out in September
SharePoint Framework components and SharePoint tools in Work IQ	Copilot Chat	Frontier
Record	Microsoft Copilot mobile app	Rolled out in September
Teams Phone Agent	Teams Phone	Rolled out in September
Citations, images and shapes	Word	Rolled out in September
Skills and connectors	PowerPoint	September (some features in October)
Copilot in SharePoint and Copilot in OneDrive	SharePoint, OneDrive	Generally available
Copilot Search as default	SharePoint, OneDrive	Frontier
Authoritative sources	Microsoft 365 admin center	Rolled out in September
Targeted Pulse surveys	Copilot Dashboard	Rolled out in September

Copilot Chat: new design and agents in prompts

The Copilot experience in Teams and Outlook adopts the Copilot app design, both full screen and in the side pane. Navigation is simplified and new ways to organize work appear. This design rolled out in September.

Other changes:

• agents and skills directly in the prompt: users type “/” to call an agent or “@” for a skill, without breaking the flow of their request (rolled out in September);
• better matching of search results from scanned PDFs (rolled out in September);
• the new Copilot new tab page in Edge, which brings search, chat and web exploration together in a single search box (rolling out in October);
• Copilot in Word, PowerPoint and Excel on Android, after iOS earlier this year (rolled out in September).

The interface change is visible: give your help desk and champions a heads-up before users discover it on their own.

Plugin registry: one catalog for skills, connectors and agents

This is the most structural announcement of the month for admins. A plugin bundles skills (reusable instructions), connectors (approved access to services and data) and agents. For users, a Plugins page replaces and expands the existing Agents page in Home (Chat and Cowork), Code, Autopilot, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint.

The Microsoft plugin registry centralizes governance. From the Agent 365 experience in the Microsoft 365 admin center, under Agents > Tools, you review Microsoft, partner and custom-built plugins, enable or disable them, and block or assign them to users or groups. Basic registry capabilities are included with qualifying Microsoft cloud subscriptions.

More than 100 plugins are already available (HubSpot, Atlassian, Asana, Notion, Canva…), including many industry connectors added this month. Some are still rolling out. To get started: manage plugins, skills and MCP servers.

Two related features are rolling out to Frontier only: interactive SharePoint Framework UI displayed directly in Copilot Chat, and SharePoint content and action tools in Work IQ.

Finally, Record, in the Microsoft Copilot mobile app, captures in-person conversations and voice notes, then provides a transcript and summary in Copilot Chat (rolled out in September). Remind users of your internal rules on recording conversations before promoting it.

Teams Phone Agent: an AI-powered calling receptionist

The Teams Phone Agent targets customer-facing departments that use Teams Phone (bank branches, IT help desks…). In more than 60 languages, it answers common questions, handles appointments and routes callers to the right person with an AI-generated conversation summary. It rolled out in September.

Word and PowerPoint: citations, Skills and connectors

In Word, Copilot responses now show citations to the web and work content used, and Copilot can arrange and modify images and shapes in the document. Both features rolled out in September.

PowerPoint gets the most updates:

• Skills turn multi-step workflows into reusable capabilities, with prebuilt Skills such as Explain this presentation or Sharpen slide titles (rolled out in September);
• admins can publish approved Skills to specific users, groups or the entire organization (rolled out in September);
• connectors bring information from your connected sources into slides (rolled out in September);
• brand managers can add Skills to the Brand Kit (rolling out in October);
• Copilot keeps working on long-running tasks even if the user leaves PowerPoint, switches devices or goes offline, and notifies them when done (rolling out in October).

According to the dedicated post, Brand Kit and Skills in PowerPoint are generally available with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. For distribution, see Deploy organization skills for Copilot in PowerPoint.

SharePoint and OneDrive: Copilot generally available

Copilot in SharePoint has been generally available since September: creating and organizing content, questions grounded in SharePoint, AI-generated metadata with near real-time autofill, image generation and editing, site analytics reports and reusable skills. Copilot in OneDrive has been rebuilt on the same foundation and follows the same licensing approach.

Copilot Search becomes the default search experience in SharePoint and OneDrive, starting with Frontier. Answers are based on supported content the user is authorized to access: now is the right time to track down overly broad permissions.

Administration: authoritative sources and targeted surveys

In the Microsoft 365 admin center, you can now designate up to 100 SharePoint sites as authoritative sources for Copilot Search and Chat, to signal verified, official content. You can view, add, remove, and bulk import or export them (rolled out in September).

In the Copilot Dashboard, leaders can launch targeted Pulse surveys using dynamic lists built from Copilot adoption data. Results stay aggregated, with no individual user visibility (rolled out in September).

Also announced this month

• New models: GPT-6 Astra in Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio (September 4), Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Chat, Cowork and Copilot Studio (September 22), then GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (September 30). The latter two arrive first with usage-based billing in Cowork and Copilot Studio, then in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Chat with the license, subject to limits. Availability varies by license, access and region.
• Grok (SpaceXAI) arrives in preview through the Frontier Program in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. SpaceXAI joins the subprocessor list and access goes through an admin setting that is disabled by default. Grok is not available in the EU, EFTA and the United Kingdom during the preview.
• Pricing evolution: the user subscription license (USL) covers “everyday AI”, with usage limits, while “advanced AI” (Cowork, Code, Autopilot, some models) moves to usage-based billing (UBB) with Copilot Credits. For enterprises, nothing is billed until an admin creates a spending policy in the Microsoft 365 admin center. It sets budgets, caps and alerts.
• Measuring Cowork value: the Consumption Dashboard in Insights shows Cowork assisted hours, an intentionally conservative estimate.
• Agent Builder: Microsoft publishes change management best practices and recommends tracking the Users by creator type metric in the Microsoft 365 Copilot agents usage report.

What I recommend doing this month

1. Open Agents > Tools in the Microsoft 365 admin center: review the available plugins, block what hasn’t been validated and assign the rest to pilot groups.
2. Make an informed decision on the spending policy: without one, usage-based features stay off. If you create it, set per-group budgets and alerts.
3. Settle your position on the new models, especially Grok: review the subprocessor list with your DPO, even though the model is not offered in Europe during the preview.
4. Designate your authoritative sources (intranet, internal policies, procedures) and audit SharePoint permissions before Copilot Search becomes the default.
5. Prepare your organization Skills for PowerPoint with your communications team: a Brand Kit and two or three approved Skills quickly deliver visible results.