Weekly Update 27 October 2025 – AI in Windows, VS, Workflows. Microsoft Agent Framework write-up

This week:

How Windows 11 and AI are transforming the future of work

Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework: An Open-Source Engine for Agentic AI 

Introducing Planning in Visual Studio (Public Preview)

Microsoft Teams: AI Workflows Powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot

You can also listen to the audio-only version: Thoughtstuff Podcast – Tom Morgan on Teams Dev: Weekly Update 27 October 2025.

Find all my videos at thoughtstuff.co.uk/videos. You can also subscribe to the audio-only version of these videos, either via iTunes, Spotify or your own podcasting tool.

Transcript (AI-generated)

Weekly Update: Windows + AI, Agent Framework, and More

Hello and welcome to another weekly update. I hope you’re doing well. I hope you had a good week.

Some things to talk about this week. For the first one, I’m going to take us just slightly outside of Microsoft 365 developer extensibility and touch on something that’s happening in the Windows world that’s worth keeping an eye on. That’s a blog post from this week about how Microsoft is bringing AI to Windows and what that means.

I’m not going to go through the whole blog post — you may have seen it covered in the tech news. But a few things stood out for developers. It’s worth tracking what’s happening here. While Windows has always been a platform for apps, it’s now offering new extensibility options, much like what we’ve seen with Microsoft 365.

We’re seeing features like “click to do,” which will allow developers to register their own actions. Combine this with AI agent capabilities — like co-pilot agents performing tasks — and we can see a new extensibility model forming. Although different from Microsoft 365’s approach, it may start to overlap or compete with it. The upcoming Ignite conference could bring announcements to support these ideas.

Next, let’s revisit the Microsoft Agent Framework. This open-source initiative combines Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, and the Process Framework into one cohesive umbrella. Jamie Maguire, a fellow MVP, wrote a detailed piece that explains the transition and what the Agent Framework is poised to replace. One big takeaway — there’s too much developer confusion right now. Agent Framework aims to centralize capabilities and eventually succeed Semantic Kernel. Jamie estimates 6-12 months for that transition, so developers using Semantic Kernel today should start planning now.

In Visual Studio, there’s a new concept called “planning” being introduced. This concept, familiar from tools like Claude Code, involves generating a plan when the system is asked to do something complex. Plans will be saved as temporary markdown files, allowing users not only to see and modify them, but also to reuse and commit them to repos. This is a big leap in developer experience — helping prevent misunderstandings, bugs, and rework. It’s about catching nuance early.

In the Teams space, the Workflows app is finally getting AI enhancements. It’s surprising this didn’t launch earlier, but from the end of this year into early next year, the Workflows app will include copilot integration — allowing users to create tasks using natural language. It will also ship with predefined templates. I think this could be a turning point in making Workflows genuinely useful, particularly where its purpose wasn’t always clear.

You will need a Copilot license to use this, and there’s admin-level control on rollout and visibility. If you’re already using the Workflows app, keep an eye out — and if not, this might be a good time to revisit it and check if it fits into your productivity needs.

There’s a lot going on — sometimes it feels overwhelming with so many tools overlapping. And with developments like Claude skills launching just this past week, I get the sense that Microsoft is working hard to keep pace with this incredibly dynamic space.

Interesting times, and I’ll continue tracking what matters most for developers in the Microsoft 365 and AI extendibility world. Hope that’s been useful — have a great week, and I’ll speak to you next time.