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Among all the enhancements Microsoft is rolling out this year, several new technical features are designed to strengthen the capabilities of administrators, developers, and business app designers.

⚠️ Feature availability may vary by country

Depending on your region, access to certain functionalities may take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

Power Platform Gets Smarter

Power Automate

For the first half of 2025, Power Automate introduces several minor but welcome UX improvements, such as a dark mode for the desktop app and color coding within the expression editor for better readability. But beyond these small touches, the platform also delivers major updates with strong operational impact.

Map View for Flow Executions

From the Admin Center (“Runs” tab), you can now visualize all executed flows across your organization at a glance, including their interconnections and execution timelines. This global view makes it much easier to spot bottlenecks, unused flows, or delays in your automation chains.

Automatic Save & Recovery

Even if your flow fails to save, Power Automate now creates an automatic backup. This ensures you never lose your work, even if your flow contains errors.

Expression Generation with Copilot (coming soon)

If you have Copilot licenses, the AI assistant will soon be able to generate code directly from natural language descriptions. It will also analyze and debug errors, suggesting fixes to streamline troubleshooting.

As of today, Copilot can already answer contextual questions about your flow components to help you better understand their purpose and functionality.

Power Apps

On the Power Apps side, the updates primarily focus on data management and AI-powered productivity.

AI-Powered Solution Designer

From the homepage, you can now describe a need or a business problem to the Plan Designer. By combining your written brief with any uploaded source files, the designer generates a detailed iterative plan tailored to your use case, summarizing needs, user profiles, and the data models required.

You can even generate a Canvas app directly from this plan, then customize it to better fit your organization’s needs.

The Plan Designer is also available under the “Solutions” tab, allowing you to build plans based on information from existing solutions. Once saved, plans can be edited, expanded, and reused. To leverage this feature, the solution must include at least one published app and one table.

Shareable SPN (Service Principal Name) Connections

Power Apps now makes data access simpler and more secure. Team members can share SPN-based connections without needing personal credentials, reducing the risk of exposing sensitive login details.

Offline Mode Enhancements (June 2025)

You can now download specific columns and their data for offline use in Model-Driven Apps (MDA). Configuration is available via the Maker Portal under offline settings.

New Data Recycle Bin (preview)

A long-awaited addition: deleted data can now be restored for up to 30 days, helping teams recover from accidental deletions effortlessly.

Power BI

Several Power BI features are currently in preview, but they represent a major step forward toward more interactive analytics:

“Ask Anything!” — Natural Language Queries

This new feature lets you interact directly with your datasets in natural language. Ask questions, request insights, or even generate reports without writing a single line of code.

AI-Powered Data Preparation Tools

The quality of AI-generated insights depends on the quality of your data. Preparing clean, relevant, and well-structured datasets is crucial, but time-consuming. To speed up this process, Power BI introduces several upcoming tools:

• AI Data Schema → Helps structure datasets for Copilot training.
• Verified Answers → Allows you to create predefined Q&A pairs linked to visuals in BI reports.
• AI Instructions → Lets you embed detailed prompts and contextual instructions directly into your reports.
• Clipboard Enhancements → Soon, you’ll be able to copy-paste values directly into lists and buttons, making chart editing much faster.

Visual Calculations

You can now perform calculations directly on visuals without modifying the underlying data model. This is particularly useful for quick, iterative adjustments on charts and dashboards.

Additionally, Power BI introduces several visual design improvements, already available to general users. We’ve covered the most impactful ones in our companion article on business-focused Microsoft 365 updates.

Copilot and AI Builder Are Getting Smarter

AI Builder

Starting in June 2025, AI Builder will introduce preconfigured monitoring reports. From the AI Builder Activity page, you’ll be able to track the usage frequency of each model and monitor token consumption within a specific environment. This enhanced visibility makes it significantly easier to manage and optimize your AI models across all environments.

Copilot Studio

No Microsoft update roundup would be complete without mentioning Copilot, which has been evolving at an incredible pace since its launch. We’ve already covered several new features in our [previous article — insert link], such as third-party data source integration and embedding AI agents directly into SharePoint.

Here are a few additional updates particularly relevant if you’re creating your own AI agents:

Improved Agent Activity Tracking

Copilot Studio now provides enhanced visibility into agent performance — helping you better understand usage, potential gaps, and even billing metrics. From the Agent Activity tab, you can track sessions, user interactions, triggers, knowledge sources, and even the agent’s reasoning process in detail.

Advanced Analytics Dashboard

The Analytics tab provides deeper insights into your autonomous agents’ performance. You can now track:

• Number of executions per agent
• Success and failure rates
• Billing and resource consumption

This data helps you debug issues faster, optimize performance, and improve agent reliability over time.

Create Custom Agents Using Natural Language

Building agents is now more intuitive and streamlined. From the Create tab, click “New Assistant”, describe your agent’s purpose in natural language, and Copilot Studio automatically sets up a foundation for you. You can then fine-tune its behavior and data sources in the Assistants tab for maximum customization.

IT Governance: Stronger Control & Security

Power Platform Admin Center

The Power Platform Admin Center introduces several new pages and features designed to improve visibility, navigation, and control:

• Dedicated product pages for Power Apps, Copilot Studio, and Power Pages now provide better insights into usage metrics and billing.
• New onboarding spaces simplify adoption:
  • “Get Started” → centralizes resources and learning materials.
  • “Features” → outlines the Power Platform roadmap and explains upcoming changes to help you prepare.
  • “Copilot Studio” → gives a global view of all AI agents created, including their compliance, activity, and performance.
• A new centralized Settings page allows you to configure and manage all AI agents, including Copilot, and control which environments they’re linked to.

New interface

In addition, the admin center now features a completely redesigned interface with simplified navigation, modern visuals, and enhanced search and filtering capabilities, making it more user-friendly and consistent.

Security Enhancements

Security has also been significantly strengthened across the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

• Mandatory MFA → Multi-factor authentication is now enforced by default for all Microsoft 365 apps, ensuring a higher level of account protection.
• Enhanced Access Control with Entra ID → You can now define granular permissions based on user location, compliance status, and even time of day. This provides greater flexibility and security, especially for hybrid and multi-tenant environments.

Looking Further

For more details on the latest Microsoft 365 updates, including SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, and Power Pages, check out our companion article dedicated to business-focused features.

In Conclusion

With significant improvements in productivity, major strides in AI integration, and stronger security measures, the first half of 2025 has set the stage for a more powerful Microsoft 365 experience.

And this is just the beginning, expect even more updates in the coming months. We’ll keep monitoring every release and bring you a full deep-dive analysis as soon as the next wave rolls out.