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What’s new for Microsoft Viva – July 2025
July delivered a substantial wave of updates for Microsoft Viva, with Viva Engage receiving the most significant attention. The platform saw multiple feature releases that will impact how organizations manage communities and recognize expertise.
Two key developments stand out from this month’s releases: the AI Audio Briefing feature for Viva Connections Mobile, which introduces personalized audio summaries for mobile users, and the self-nomination capability for Community Expert status in Viva Engage, which allows community members to request expert recognition rather than relying solely on administrator assignments.
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Viva Engage will soon support 14 more languages
Viva Engage
Viva Engage will support 14 new languages starting mid-July 2025. Users can select these languages via web, desktop, Teams, and mobile apps. No admin action is required, but reviewing language settings and notifying users is recommended. New languages include Arabic, Vietnamese, and more.
Update to Question Posting in Viva Engage Answers Tab
Viva Engage
Viva Engage is updating the Answers tab to require users to select a community when posting questions, improving visibility and response quality. This change will be completed by mid-July 2025, applies to all users, and requires no admin action, though informing users is recommended.
JUL
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Microsoft Viva Engage: Introducing segmentation for personalized experiences (preview)
Viva Engage
Microsoft Viva Engage is introducing segmentation to deliver personalized experiences by department, geography, or other organizational compartments. The private preview starts in June 2025, with general availability in September 2025. This opt-in feature allows tailored content and interactions within user segments defined via Microsoft Entra Dynamic Groups.
Microsoft Viva | Viva Engage: Streamlined verified answers for community experts
Viva Engage
Microsoft Viva Engage is consolidating the answer verification options for community experts into a single “verified answer” action to reduce decision fatigue and promote consistency. This update will roll out from mid-July to late July 2025 across Teams, Surface Devices, and Web. No admin action is required.
JUL
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Self-nomination as a community expert in Viva Engage communities
Viva Engage
Self-nomination for community experts in Viva Engage will be available from early to mid-July 2025. Members can request to become experts via a new link, and admins can review and manage these requests. Admins can also disable the self-nomination feature if desired. No tenant-level action is required.
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Microsoft 365 Copilot | Viva Engage discussion posts added to grounding sources
Viva Engage
Microsoft 365 Copilot now includes Viva Engage discussion posts from public communities and Storylines as grounding sources, enhancing contextually relevant responses. This feature, rolling out from June to August 2025, requires no admin action and does not include private content. Review Viva Engage configurations and notify relevant parties.
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11
Microsoft Viva: Unread News Notifications in Connections
Microsoft Viva
Users will receive a weekly notification in the Connections apps in Microsoft Teams on mobile and desktop linking them to relevant SharePoint news that they might have missed in the preceding week. This unread news will be available in the “News” tab in the Connections app under the “unread” pill.
Microsoft Viva: News AI audio briefing in Connections Mobile
Microsoft Viva
This feature provides an AI generated audio overview of top 10 news items in the Viva Connections news reader experience. It plays the 10 audio clips sequentially to help users catch up on top news in a hands-free manner. This experience will be available in the Viva Connections App in Teams mobile on iOS and android.
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Microsoft Viva: Unread News Notifications in Connections
Microsoft Viva
Users will receive a weekly notification in the Connections apps in Microsoft Teams on mobile and desktop linking them to relevant SharePoint news that they might have missed in the preceding week. This unread news will be available in the “News” tab in the Connections app under the “unread” pill.
Microsoft Viva: News AI audio briefing in Connections Mobile
Microsoft Viva
This feature provides an AI generated audio overview of top 10 news items in the Viva Connections news reader experience. It plays the 10 audio clips sequentially to help users catch up on top news in a hands-free manner. This experience will be available in the Viva Connections App in Teams mobile on iOS and android.
JUL
15
Microsoft Viva: Custom font and theme support for Viva Amplify
Viva Amplify
Viva Amplify now supports custom themes and fonts published to Brand Center, empowering communicators to align their campaigns with brand identity and visual consistency across channels like Outlook and SharePoint.
Microsoft Viva: View and moderate private community content without being a member
Microsoft Viva
This feature enables verified admins and Engage admins to access and moderate private community conversations without needing to be members of those communities. Admins will also be able to manage community settings, ensuring better governance and oversight across Viva Engage.
Take actions with Viva Pulse after Viva Glint engagement surveys is now GA!
Viva Glint
Viva Pulse now integrates with Viva Glint, allowing managers to take targeted actions after Glint engagement surveys. This feature is available to Viva Glint customers with eligible licenses and must be enabled by a Glint admin. It helps maintain engagement momentum by recommending Pulse questions based on Glint survey results. Learn more [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/pulse/viva-integrations/take-actions-after-glint-survey).
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New Tenant-level Service Plan in Viva Suite SKU
Microsoft Viva
Microsoft is introducing a new tenant-level service plan, Insights by MyAnalytics Backend, in early August 2025. This update supports existing user-level service plans and aligns with security requirements without changing user-facing features. Admins will see the new plan in the Microsoft 365 admin center, which will be enabled and non-removable.
Microsoft Viva | New Microsoft Graph APIs for Viva Engage role management
Viva Engage
New Viva Engage role management APIs in Microsoft Graph are now in beta, allowing IT admins to manage roles programmatically. The rollout begins in early August 2025. These APIs enable automated role assignments and streamlined admin workflows. No immediate action is required, but testing and feedback are encouraged.
JUL
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Microsoft Viva: Viva Pulse – New Pulse customization options
Viva Pulse
Authors will have new options when starting surveys, including choosing to send without pre-defining an audience, and feedback can instead be gathered by sharing a link that people can access the survey and respond through, sending a survey without a specified end date, allowing for longer-term data collection and multiple responses from recipients over time, and collecting identified responses, where answers are attributed to the person who submitted them.
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Microsoft Viva Engage | Email sender domain migration from @yammer.com to @engage.mail.microsoft
Viva Engage
Microsoft Viva Engage is changing its email sender domains from @yammer.com to @engage.mail.microsoft, starting August 2025 for U.S. tenants and completing by October 2025 globally. This update includes tenant-specific prefixes for enhanced security and requires admins to update any custom email rules or integrations referencing the old domains.
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Microsoft Viva: New support for branded themes and typography in Viva Amplify
Viva Amplify
Microsoft Viva Amplify now supports custom themes and fonts from SharePoint’s Brand Center, enabling branded, consistent communications across channels. Default SharePoint themes apply automatically, with options to override. Custom fonts require deployment via endpoint management. Rollout begins mid-July 2025, with no tenant-level disable controls.
JUL
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Network Analytics Updates in Viva Engage
Viva Engage
Viva Engage Premium now offers Organizational Data Filters to analyze Network Analytics by employee attributes. New metrics—Enabled and Activated users—enhance engagement insights. Network-wide data can be exported via CSV. Admins can manage filters using Entra ID or CSV uploads. Rollout begins late July 2025.
JUL
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Microsoft Viva: Focus Area simplification and enhancements
Microsoft Viva
Beginning with this feature release, Focus Areas will be associated with survey cycles and goal periods will be retired. Users will be able to select the same Focus Area across multiple cycles. The Focus Area Overview report will be filterable to groups of interest (e.g. managers only). Draft/deleted Focus Areas will no longer be included in Focus Area calculations.
Microsoft Viva: Action Taking Analysis Report
Microsoft Viva
Introduction of a new report that provides transparency into platform activity by dashboard users. Metrics such as report views, Team Conversations completed, Focus Areas created, and more will be visible and filterable with this report.
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New AI-powered themes and sentiment analysis in Viva Engage community analytics
Viva Engage
Viva Engage community analytics will gain AI-powered themes and sentiment analysis by August 2025, helping admins identify discussion trends and sentiments. This feature is enabled by default for Viva Engage premium users, managed via Viva Feature Access Management, and accessible only to community and network admins.
JUL
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Microsoft Viva: Enhancement to Copilot studio agents report
Microsoft Viva
Enhancement to Copilot studio agents report (Preview) 1. Addition of Weekly active user count 2. Report aggregation changed to weekly to main consistency with other reports
Microsoft Viva: Copilot Dashboard – Copilot Chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint Metrics
Microsoft Viva
Copilot Analytics users can now view metrics that reflect Copilot Chat (Work and Web) activity across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These updates reflect the latest addition of Copilot Chat to these apps to help users transition seamlessly between workflows and will be displayed alongside existing app chat metrics for continuity. The updated metrics are available in the Copilot Dashboard, the M365 Copilot Adoption and Impact PBI reports, with additional query support for all chat prompt metrics.
Microsoft Viva: Copilot in Pulse follow-ups for Glint surveys
Microsoft Viva
Empower managers and leaders to gather additional context and check in on team progress after an org-wide Glint survey by sending a personalized Pulse that uses M365 Copilot to tailor the Pulse to the team’s needs based on the Glint survey results. With Copilot-powered Pulse follow-ups, managers and leaders can gather a timely understanding of the team’s progress to-date, make mid-point adjustments if needed, and maintain momentum in their efforts to improve engagement and employee experience.
Listen to the latest updates
This month’s update is now also available as a podcast! If you prefer listening over reading, or want to catch up on the latest SharePoint developments while commuting or running, you can now tune in on Spotify and YouTube.
The podcast features AI hosts Maria and John, who dive into the same updates covered in this post but through a conversational format. John brings his technical analyst perspective with attention to detail, while Maria focuses on the strategic implications and user experience impact. As the prompt director, I guide the conversation to ensure we’re covering what matters most for your day-to-day work.
This is an experiment in making tech updates more accessible, so I’d love your feedback on this format. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!
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