Same Road. New Map: Microsoft is Replacing Release Waves

Microsoft made a big announcement this week. It is replacing its twice-yearly release wave announcements with a continuously updated, filterable “AI at Work roadmap”.

This change will see Microsoft customers and partners still track broadly the same product changes, but planning will shift from static release documents to a live roadmap covering Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Dataverse, Copilot and Copilot Studio.

What is changing?

Microsoft has announced a significant change to its product roadmap and release planning framework.

The release waves we have come to know over many years are being retired. As a result, there will be no 2026 Release Wave 2 announcement. New product capabilities for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Dataverse, Copilot and Copilot Studio will instead be published to the AI at work roadmap as soon as plans are committed, rather than being grouped into two major announcements a year.

The previously titled “Microsoft 365 Roadmap” has become the unified “AI at Work” roadmap. Business Applications, including Dynamics 365,Power Platform and Dataverse will join Microsoft 365, Copilot and Copilot Studio, which already reside on this roadmap.

From the singular roadmap view, organisations will be able to filter the view to only include products used within their current ecosystem. This should reduce noise for planning teams and make it easier to focus on changes that are relevant to their tenant, products and delivery roadmap.

Why is Microsoft making this change?

By introducing a singular roadmap for all their products Microsoft is making it easier for users, customers and partners to track new features.

With the introduction of the filterable UI, users now have the ability to personalise Microsoft's technical roadmap to their situation and help them plan for upcoming feature releases more easily.

Key dates

·      From September 2026, there will be no September release wave and new release plans will no longer be published to Microsoft Learn. Instead, new Power Platform, Dataverse and Dynamics 365 capabilities will be published to the AI at Work roadmap.

·      Between September and November 2026, features currently in public preview or those with a general availability date of 1^st June 2026 or later, will be transferred over the new unified AI at Work roadmap.

·      On 15^th November 2026, the AI at Work roadmap will become the primary location for public roadmap information. The Release Planner will be officially retired, and all remaining general availability and public preview transfers will be redirected and incorporated into the new AI at Work roadmap. Release plans on Microsoft Learn will remain accessible, but they will be archived.

How should you prepare?

Organisations should use the transition period to review how they currently monitor Microsoft product changes, who owns roadmap tracking nternally and how updates are communicated to delivery teams and customers.

Here’s what we recommend:

Start with the AI at Work roadmap

Microsoft’s suggested planning approach is:

1.     Filter – Create views based on the Microsoft products used by your organisation.

2.     Export – Export filtered roadmap data to CSV for internal planning, impact assessment and technical review.

3.     Follow – Subscribe to relevant roadmap views and continue monitoring tenant-specific updates through Message Center.

4.     Share – Share roadmap links, feature IDs and relevant tags with delivery teams, support teams and customer-facing stakeholders.

5.     Query – Use MCP server integration where live roadmap data needs to be surfaced inside agents, automations or internal knowledge tools.

For more advanced monitoring, consider MCP Integration:

For organisations that want to automate roadmap monitoring or surface roadmap updates inside existing tools, Microsoft’s MCP servers provide a more integrated option.

If you don’t want to browse the roadmap manually you can use Microsoft’s MCP servers. The Release Communications MCP Server requires no authentication, making its addition to existing agentic tools simple and brings live AI at Work and Azure roadmap updates into your existing automations and agents.

First steps

The good news is there are no big changes that users or organisations need to tackle immediately. Microsoft Learn will remain the home of product documentation and official implementation guidance. Likewise, Message Center remains the hub of tenant change notifications.

If you are actively following defined release schedules,continue to do so until the change in September. The development lifecycle is not changing. The way in which it is shared is.

Final thoughts

Removing the barrier to publishing new features is a sensible move by Microsoft. Allowing teams to publish new capabilities when they are ready, rather than waiting for a fixed release window, makes sense given the increasing speed of AI-assisted technical delivery.

For users, customers and partners, the key shift is not what Microsoft is building, but how they will need to monitor, interpret and plan around change.

If we can help you better understand and plan for these changes, please get in touch with us today to speak to one of our Microsoft experts.