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Inside Accenture’s City-Scale Copilot Rollout Deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot to 20,000 employees would qualify as a major enterprise technology project almost anywhere. At Accenture, it turned out to be the opening move. The global professional services company is now rolling out Copilot across a workforce of roughly 743,000 people, a population comparable to the size of Denver. Microsoft describes it as the largest enterprise Copilot deployment to date, but the more important story may be...

Microsoft is testing one of the most consequential Windows Update changes since the Windows 10 era: Windows 11 users will be able to keep extending update pauses in 35-day blocks with no stated renewal limit, while the Power menu will always preserve plain Restart and Shut down choices even when updates are waiting. The new controls are rolling out first to Windows Insiders in the Dev and newly reworked Experimental channels, following more than 7,600 pieces of direct user feedback that...

Microsoft and OpenAI have rewritten one of the technology industry’s most important commercial relationships, turning a once tightly coupled alliance into a more flexible, less exclusive partnership. The new terms keep Azure at the center of OpenAI’s deployment strategy, but they also let OpenAI serve customers across other clouds and make Microsoft’s license to OpenAI technology non-exclusive through 2032. Just as important, Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI, while...

Microsoft’s new Secure Boot 2023 certificate assessment in Microsoft Defender arrives at a critical moment for Windows administrators: the original Secure Boot certificates issued in 2011 begin expiring in June 2026, with the transition stretching into the months that follow. The new Defender recommendation gives security teams a fleet-wide view of which devices already trust the newer Windows UEFI CA 2023 certificate chain, which remain exposed, and which are not applicable because Secure...

Accenture’s decision to roll out Microsoft 365 Copilot to roughly 743,000 employees is more than a large software deployment; it is a stress test for the entire enterprise AI thesis. Microsoft is presenting the move as the largest enterprise Copilot deployment to date, while Accenture is positioning it as both an internal productivity engine and a practical proving ground for client transformation work. For Windows and Microsoft 365 administrators, the milestone signals that Copilot has...

Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 preview quietly replaces one of the operating system’s most stubborn visual leftovers: the Windows 8-era loading spinner shown during sign-in, sign-out, restart, and shutdown flows. The change, spotted in Windows 11 Insider Experimental Preview Build 26300.8289, aligns those transition screens with the newer boot animation already used elsewhere in Windows 11. It is a small visual tweak on paper, but it lands at a moment when Microsoft is trying to prove that...

Microsoft’s newest Windows 11 Experimental build looks modest on paper, but its hidden changes tell a much bigger story about where the operating system is headed. Build 26300.8289 officially focuses on Windows Update controls, Insider channel changes, printing, and small fixes, yet testers have also found a modernized Run dialog, a smarter Storage resizing interface, a new sign-in animation, and early traces of Taskbar relocation. These are not flashy AI demos or marketing-stage features...

Microsoft’s latest Exchange Online security announcement is a reminder that “legacy” does not always mean unused. POP3 and IMAP4 may no longer be the preferred way most Microsoft 365 users access their mailboxes, but they remain embedded in help desk tools, monitoring systems, ticketing platforms, scanners, line-of-business applications, archiving scripts, migration utilities, and older desktop clients. That is why the next deprecation matters: Microsoft is preparing to fully remove support...

Windows 11 appears to be preparing a more ambitious answer to screen fatigue than the familiar amber glow of Night Light, with a newly spotted Screen Tints feature that could give users targeted overlays for migraines, photophobia, harsh contrast, and long work sessions. Reported by XDA and surfaced by the well-known Windows feature watcher PhantomOfEarth, the hidden Insider-era setting suggests Microsoft is experimenting with color presets beyond ordinary blue-light reduction. If it ships...

Microsoft and OpenAI have loosened one of the most important technology alliances of the AI era, turning an exclusive cloud-and-IP arrangement into a more flexible partnership just as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft reaches a federal courtroom in Oakland. The amended agreement gives OpenAI the ability to serve all of its products across any cloud provider, while Microsoft keeps a non-exclusive license to OpenAI model and product IP through 2032. The timing is...

OpenAI and Microsoft have recut one of the defining alliances of the generative AI era, replacing a tightly controlled exclusive structure with a more flexible arrangement that lets OpenAI serve customers across rival clouds while keeping Azure first in line. The reset does not break the partnership; it reprices its strategic value, moving Microsoft from sole gatekeeper toward preferred infrastructure partner, major shareholder, and deeply integrated AI platform vendor. For Windows users...

Microsoft has expanded the scale of its Sovereign Private Cloud strategy, announcing that Azure Local can now support deployments of up to thousands of servers within a single sovereign environment. The move is aimed at governments, regulated industries, telecommunications providers, critical infrastructure operators and organizations that need cloud-style capabilities while retaining control over infrastructure, data, operations and jurisdictional boundaries. Azure Local serves as the...

Microsoft Is Testing a Smarter Replacement for Windows 11’s Night Light Microsoft appears to be experimenting with a more flexible alternative to Windows 11’s long-running Night Light feature, potentially giving users far more control over how their screens look and feel during long sessions at the PC. The new feature, reportedly called Screen Tint, was spotted hidden inside a Windows 11 preview build and looks like a broader, more customizable accessibility and comfort tool rather than a...

Microsoft is moving its customer-service AI strategy from scripted chat and menu-driven phone trees into real-time voice agents that can listen, reason, respond, and act during live calls. The company says the capability is now generally available in Microsoft Copilot Studio for Dynamics 365 Contact Center customers in North America, positioning voice as the next major frontier for enterprise AI automation. The announcement matters because phone support remains one of the most expensive...

Microsoft is pushing customer experience deeper into the agentic AI era with new capabilities across Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. The centerpiece is the general availability of real-time voice agents in Copilot Studio, designed to replace rigid phone trees with natural, context-aware conversations. The larger story is more ambitious: Microsoft wants CX teams to stop treating service, sales, and marketing as...

Microsoft and OpenAI have rewritten one of the defining technology alliances of the generative AI era, replacing a tightly controlled partnership with a looser, more market-facing structure. The new agreement preserves Azure’s privileged role but removes key exclusivity provisions, giving OpenAI room to sell and serve products across rival clouds. For WindowsForum readers, the real story is not simply who “won” the negotiation; it is how this reset could reshape AI cloud competition...

Microsoft is preparing one of the most quietly important Windows 11 usability changes in years: the ability to shut down or restart without installing pending updates. The change, highlighted by PCWorld and tested by Windows Latest, separates ordinary power actions from update actions so users can choose Shut down, Restart, Update and shut down, or Update and restart when updates are waiting. It is a small menu change with a large trust dividend, because Windows will finally do what the...

Moore and Microsoft Bring Agentic AI to Nonprofit Fundraising With SimioAccelerate Moore has introduced SimioAccelerate, a new AI-powered fundraising intelligence platform built in collaboration with Microsoft on Microsoft Azure, positioning the product as a way for nonprofits of varying sizes to use large-scale donor data, predictive modeling and autonomous AI agents to identify fundraising opportunities and turn them into campaigns. The platform was announced on April 27, 2026, during AFP...

Microsoft is testing one of the most meaningful Windows Update control changes in years, and it lands squarely on a frustration that Windows users have been airing since the Windows 10 era: updates that arrive at the wrong time, hide too much detail, and turn basic power actions into negotiations. The new Windows 11 experience, now beginning in Insider testing, adds options to skip setup updates, repeatedly pause updates in 35-day blocks, and shut down or restart without being forced into...

Microsoft is testing one of the most user-friendly Windows Update changes in years: a clearer split between ordinary power actions and update-triggering actions, plus a more flexible way to pause updates for up to 35 days at a time. For anyone who has watched a quick restart turn into a forced installation ritual, the promise is simple: Shut down should mean shut down, and Restart should mean restart. The changes are rolling out first to Windows Insiders in the Dev, Beta, and new...