October 20, 2026
WHAT'S HAPPENING: New Copilot Experience and Capabilities Announced
WHEN: September 25, 2026
Microsoft has unveiled a redesigned Copilot experience centered around three new capabilities: Home, a unified workspace for chat and delegated work; Code, which enables users to build applications, dashboards, and automations using natural language; and Autopilot, a persistent AI agent designed to work independently on long-running tasks. Home and Code will start rolling out in the Frontier program in the coming weeks, and Autopilot was expanding to private preview at the end of September 2026.
Copilot in SharePoint begins general availability rollout on September 30, 2026. Core capabilities such as asking questions about content, creating files and pages, organizing content, managing metadata, and building simple workflows remain included with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. For larger-scale and more advanced scenarios, Microsoft is introducing usage-based billing through Copilot Credits. Activities such as analyzing large content sets, creating complete sites and solutions, running complex AI-powered workflows, generating images, using real-time metadata autofill, and AI-powered analytics now require Copilot Credits and an associated spending policy.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Copilot Pricing Model and FinOps for AI Evolution
WHEN: September 25, 2026
With the coming changes to the Copilot product, the core capabilities remain covered under the existing per-user subscription license. Advanced workloads such as Cowork, Code, Autopilot, and certain frontier AI models will use consumption-based billing through Copilot Credits. Users can now directly adjust effort levels in Cowork to balance response quality, speed, and credit consumption, while enhanced /cost reporting provides greater visibility into credit usage, remaining balances, and monthly limits.
Microsoft also announced additional FinOps capabilities to help organizations monitor AI usage, manage budgets, control model access, and track spending across AI workloads.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Copilot for Business will have Usage-Based Billing on by Default
WHEN: December 1, 2026
Starting December 1, 2026, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business purchases will automatically enable usage-based billing for advanced services such as Cowork. A default limit of 4,000 Copilot Credits, approximately $40 USD per user per month, will be applied, but customers are charged only for actual usage, and the limit can be adjusted or disabled by an administrator.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Azure Regional Price Increases for Select VMs and Storage Services
WHEN: February 1, 2027
Beginning February 1, 2027, pricing will increase for specific Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Storage services in the following Azure regions:
- EU West (Amsterdam) – 9%
- EU North (Dublin) – 17%
- France Central – 11%
- France South – 11%
- Norway East – 9%
- Norway West – 9%
- Southeast Asia (Singapore) – 8%
The pricing adjustments described above do not apply to: Azure Virtual Machines v1: Bv1, D, Ds, F, Fs, G, Gs, L, NP, HCS; v2: Av2, Amv2, Dv2, Dsv2, Fsv2, Lsv2; v7: Dsv7, Ddsv7, Dlsv7, Dldsv7, Esv7, Edsv7 Azure Storage services Azure Container Storage; Azure Managed Lustre; Azure NetApp Files – Cross Region Replication SKU; Blob Features; Change Feed; General Block Blob; Import/Export; Queues; Queues v2; Standard Page Blob; Storage Actions; Storage Bandwidth; Storage Discovery; Tables; Transaction Optimized SKU
Additionally, prices for v1 and v2 VMs are set to rise globally by 25% on this same date across all regions and purchasing programs. If your subscription(s) includes the impacted resources, you would have been notified via Azure Health Advisory.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Exchange Online Auto-Expanding Archive Capacity Increasing
WHEN: October 15, 2026
Microsoft is increasing the maximum size of eligible Exchange Online auto-expanding archive mailboxes from 1.5 TB to 3 TB, with rollout beginning in mid-October 2026 and expected to complete by late October 2026. The enhancement is included for customers licensed with qualifying Microsoft 365 E5, Office 365 E5, Purview Suite, and other Purview E5-capable offerings, and does not introduce any new per-GB storage charges. Eligible mailboxes with auto-expanding archiving already enabled will automatically benefit from the increased capacity without requiring additional configuration.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Pay-As-You-Go OneDrive and SharePoint Storage
WHEN: November 1, 2026
Microsoft has introduced new pay-as-you-go storage options for OneDrive and SharePoint, allowing organizations to consume storage beyond their included Microsoft 365 quotas without purchasing traditional storage add-ons. These services use Azure-connected billing and charge only for storage consumed above licensed capacity. Organizations can continue using traditional storage add-ons, but the new model provides greater flexibility for managing growth without purchasing large blocks of storage in advance. Available from November 2026, it’s opt-in, excludes education tenants, and requires Azure billing permissions. Read more here.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Azure Future Capacity Reservations Introduced
WHEN: October 1, 2026
Microsoft has added Azure Future Capacity Reservations to the October Product Terms, which allows customers to request capacity for specified Microsoft Azure resources in a specified region, with a scheduled start date and reservation term. Requests are subject to Microsoft approval and capacity availability. Azure Future Capacity Reservations do not provide a pricing discount or dedicated hardware, and the customer is responsible for completing any required subscription, quota, deployment, and configuration requirements. The reserved capacity expires at the end of the applicable reservation term, after which continued use of Microsoft Azure Services will be billed at applicable then-current consumption rates. This feature is currently in Private GA.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: New 3-Year Term for Azure Savings Plan for Databases
WHEN: September 11, 2026
On September 11, 2026, Microsoft added the option to choose a 3-year term for Azure Savings Plan for Databases. When originally launched on March 18, 2026, these Savings Plans were only available for one-year terms.
Both terms provide the same discounted pricing, so the choice is less about finding a different discount and more about selecting the commitment period that best aligns with your business needs, such as for longer-term database migration, modernization, or optimization initiatives. It provides a longer planning horizon for organizations that want predictable savings aligned to a multi-year database roadmap. The announcement is available to read here.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: Azure IoT Operations Essentials Added
WHEN: October 1, 2026
Azure IoT Operations Essentials is a new limited version of the full Azure IoT Operations product (now renamed to Standard). Each instance is restricted to a single Kubernetes node, two portal users, 50 concurrent endpoints, and two data flow graphs. Customers should also note several functional restrictions: the OPC UA connector is not supported, components cannot be separated or replaced with third-party alternatives, and several connectors (including MQTT, REST/HTTP, SSE,
ONVIF, and Media connectors) are limited to non-production and trial use only. The terms and conditions of the new Essentials version has been added to the October Product Terms.
WHAT'S HAPPENING: SQL Server on Azure Local
WHEN: September 28, 2026
SQL Server on Azure Local is now Generally Available (GA), allowing customers to run SQL Server on Azure Local infrastructure in either connected or fully disconnected environments, while keeping data on-premises or at the edge. While this is now generally available, note that the related Foundry Local AI capability remains in preview. Eligible existing SQL Server licenses can be used according to applicable licensing terms. For connected deployments, customers can also use pay-as-you-go licensing through Azure Arc. Fully disconnected deployments use eligible existing licenses through Azure Hybrid Benefit. You can read the full announcement here.
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