Default Changes to Copilot Enabled Without Transcription

First issued on August 22, 2025, and updated on September 5 to clarify the timeline, message center notification MC1139493 (Microsoft 365 roadmap item 478611) flags an important change in how Microsoft 365 Copilot functions in Teams meetings. Ever since the introduction of Copilot, the way things worked is that transcription is enabled when Copilot is used in meetings. After Microsoft rolls out the change starting in early November 2025, using Copilot in Teams meetings will no longer enable and save transcripts. This change might be disruptive if meeting organizers expect transcripts to be available after meetings conclude, but as always, the devil is in the detail and this change might not affect your tenant.

The change isn’t surprising given that Copilot can answer meeting participant queries without a transcript (this wasn’t originally the case) and that Microsoft has gradually tightened access control to the meeting transcript over time.

Why Change the Generation of Meeting Transcripts

Microsoft isn’t saying why Copilot-enabled Teams meetings will no longer generate a transcript, but it’s probably to safeguard against the possibility that Copilot will regurgitate meeting discussions in its response to user prompts.

Meeting transcripts are stored in the meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business account and are indexed by Microsoft Search. Because their content is indexed, transcripts are available for Copilot to process just like any other document that isn’t blocked by the DLP policy for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Meeting organizers with Teams Premium licenses can apply a sensitivity label to files shared during a meeting, but the sensitivity label doesn’t apply to the transcript.

Will The Change Affect My Tenant

The simple answer is yes, if your tenant uses the default Teams meeting policy. That’s because Microsoft manages the settings of default Teams policies and can adjust policy settings as needed.

In this instance, Microsoft will change the value of the Copilot setting in the Teams meeting policy from EnabledWithTranscript to Enabled. The first value is in place today and it’s what instructs Teams to generate the transcript with Copilot. The second value allows Copilot to be used in Teams meetings without the generation of a transcript. If you check the documentation for the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet, you’ll see that Microsoft refers to a “persisted” and “non-persisted” transcript. A persisted transcript is one that’s saved to OneDrive for Business; a non-persisted transcript is one that Teams generates internally to allow Copilot to reference what people have said during the meeting before deleting all trace of the transcript when the meeting finishes.

New Microsoft 365 tenants will automatically pick up the Teams meeting policy default settings. Existing Microsoft 365 tenants will use the default settings for new meetings.

An exception exists where custom meeting policies are in use. It’s relatively common to customize Teams policies and the meeting policy is often changed to meet organizational needs. When a tenant customizes a default policy, Teams copies the default policy to create a custom copy for the tenant. The tenant controls the settings of custom policies and Microsoft therefore cannot change the default setting for Copilot. In other words, everything happens as before and enabling Copilot for a meeting will generate and save a transcript.

If Microsoft updates meeting policies for a tenant, it’s easy to revert the change to ensure that transcription occurs with Copilot. The change must be made with PowerShell by running the Connect-MicrosoftTeams cmdlet to connect to Teams PowerShell. Then, run this code to find which meeting policies have Copilot enabled without a transcript:

Get-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy | Where-Object {$_.Copilot -eq "Enabled"} | Format-Table Identity 

To update a policy and restore Copilot with transcription, note the policy name and update it like this:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity "RestrictedFunctionality"-Copilot "EnabledWithTranscript" -AllowTranscription $true

Copilot Transcription for Individual Meetings

Even if Microsoft updates the default Teams meeting policy, meeting organizers can opt for transcription through meeting options either when scheduling (Figure 1) or during the meeting.

Persistent Conversations in Meetings

In MC1139493, Microsoft also make the point that conversation history has been made persistent within meetings. In other words, participants can switch between different elements of a meeting like chat or viewing the participant list without losing access to Copilot insights, even without a transcript being taken. The point is that when transcription is not enabled, persistence is possible using the internal transcript, which is how it should be.

So much change, all the time. It’s a challenge to stay abreast of all the updates Microsoft makes across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Subscribe to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook to receive insights updated monthly into what happens within Microsoft 365, why it happens, and what new features and capabilities mean for your tenant.