Microsoft AI Weekly #7: Copilot, GitHub, Azure AI & more

👋 Hi, here’s this week’s roundup of Microsoft AI news. AI is moving fast from help me to do it for me, with new models, multi-agent workflows, smarter Copilot experiences, and tools that are making AI development increasingly autonomous. Here’s what caught our attention this week.

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⚡️ Microsoft

The latest from Microsoft on AI.

💼 Productivity & Work

• What’s New in Microsoft Copilot • Daniel Vargas

• Inside Track - Taming the Copilot odyssey: Five ways to effectively prompt AI without going overboard • Eva Etchells

• What’s New in Copilot in SharePoint: September 2026 • julieseto

• Available today: Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 in Microsoft Copilot • Bas Brekelmans

• Copilot in Excel: Bringing clarity to collaborative workbooks • msexcel

👩‍💻 Coding & Developer Tools

• Project HydraFusion: Frontier quality via multi-model orchestration • GitHub Staff

• Engineering the Frontier Firm: Sharing our AI-native approach to software development • David Hirning and Neil Orint

• GitHub Copilot app for Beginners: Run several agents at once • Kayla Cinnamon

• How we make AI coding more cost efficient without sacrificing task quality • Erik Kristensen and Napalys Kilicius

• Build Once, Run Everywhere: Agent Plugins Guide • Visual Studio Code

• Build Your Personal Brand with GitHub Copilot • Microsoft Developer

🐙 GitHub Changelog

• GitHub Copilot weekly releases

• GPT-6 Astra is generally available in GitHub Copilot

• Upcoming deprecation of selected GitHub Copilot models

• Gemini 3.8 Flash is now available in GitHub Copilot

• Reopening Copilot Business and Enterprise signups

• Enterprise-managed settings support any default model

• Content exclusions generally available in Copilot app and CLI

• Copilot code review can now approve pull requests

• Claude Fable 5.1 is generally available in GitHub Copilot

• GitHub Copilot in VS Code, August 2026 releases

🏗️ AI Apps, Agents & Platform

• MAI-Transcribe-2 is the fastest, most accurate and cheapest speech recognition model in the world • MAI Superintelligence Team

• MAI-Code-1.1-Flash: Better, faster, at a quarter of the cost • MAI Superintelligence Team

• Enterprise AI transformation relies on the end-to-end platform: Azure was built for this moment • Jeremy Winter

• GPT-6 Astra: Frontier intelligence for work, now generally available in Microsoft Foundry • Steve Sweetman and Naomi Moneypenny

• OpenAI GPT-6 Astra in Microsoft Copilot • Bas Brekelmans

• Behind SPFx Dev Skills: testing what agents know and fixing what they miss • Waldek Mastykarz, Vesa Juvonen and Garry Trinder

• AI agent optimization: How context engineering lowers AI costs • Jeff Hollan

• Designing product simplicity for the agentic AI era • Jenny Lanier Wolski

• Inside Microsoft’s marketing team: Scaling expertise with AI • Jessica Hawk

• Bring Your Own Model in VS, Foundry Models, .NET Conf Sets Date • Microsoft Developer

• Build an AI agent without leaving VS Code • Microsoft Developer and Bethany Jepchumba

• From Code to Agents: Build Production MCP Servers on Azure Functions • Microsoft Developer and Jonah Andersson

• Now that everything is agentic, what should I be learning? • Microsoft Developer and Filisha Shah

• What’s new in AI? • Microsoft Developer and John Maeda

• Your first AI agent is only a few lines of Python away • Microsoft Developer and Bethany Jepchumba

🧩 Business Apps & Low Code

• Turbocharge your canvas development with the canvas authoring agent plugin - now generally available! • Tasha Scott

🛡️ Security, Governance & Admin

• How IT can secure agents across the full lifecycle | EP03 • Microsoft Power Platform

Copilot Studio

• White paper: Choosing between the GitHub Copilot and Standard harnesses in Copilot Studio • Lucia Mosner

Upcoming Events

• PPCC 2026: Bringing AI and your business processes together • Ryan Cunningham

• Join us for MCP Live on September 9! #vscode #mcp • Visual Studio Code

Message Center

• Copilot Chat can now better match search results from Scanned PDFs

• Create Videos in the Clipchamp Start Page

• Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Federated Copilot Connectors

• Microsoft Copilot Studio: Deliver rich interactive app experiences in Copilot Studio agents

• Microsoft Copilot Studio: Introducing an App- and Intent-First Agent Creation Experience

• Microsoft Copilot: Meeting Prepare from Up Next

• Microsoft Purview: Purview in Microsoft Admin Center

• Microsoft Teams: Copilot Chat for chats, channels, calls, and meetings in GCC, GCC High, and DoD

• Microsoft Viva: Copilot Analytics - Agent Dashboard.

• OneNote: Summary and Q&A in OneNote Mobile with Copilot (Android)

• OneNote: Summary and Q&A in OneNote Mobile with Copilot (Iphone)

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🌍 From the community

Hand-picked from MVPs and AI subject-matter experts around the globe.

👩‍💻 Coding & Developer Tools

• Let’s Learn GitHub Copilot SDK • dotnet

🏗️ AI Apps, Agents & Platform

• Localize a Declarative Agent with WIQD Without Behavioral Drift • Sébastien Levert

Upcoming Events

• Production Ready: Observability, Governance and Deployment • dotnet and Bruno Capuano

• Scaling the Claw: Skills, Shell, CodeAct and Background Agents • dotnet and Bruno Capuano

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🪃 Acknowledgement of Country

MSAI.ms is written between Melbourne and Dubai. Part of this work is created on Wurundjeri land, and we acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.