Everything Microsoft CSPs and MSPs need to know: July 1 price increase, permanent Copilot SMB SKUs, Azure RI retirements, Copilot Cowork GA, Work IQ API, Security Specialisation audit model, updated MPA, Multiparty Private Offer expansion, and every deadline still on the clock.

Microsoft CSP Partner Program Updates — Late May & June 2026

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Critical Deadlines and Actions

• June 30, 2026 [THIS MONTH] — Final Day for FY26 BAPA Claims: Submit all Business Applications Partner Activities (BAPA) claims before June 30 or forfeit FY26 incentive credit. No extensions expected.
• June 30, 2026 [THIS MONTH] — Cowork Usage-Based Billing Setup Deadline: For Frontier programme customers currently using Copilot Cowork, usage-based billing must be configured in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center by June 30, 2026. Partners supporting Frontier customers must action this now.
• June 30, 2026 [THIS MONTH] — Key Promotions Expire: Microsoft Sentinel 50 GB promo (up to 32% off PAYG), Microsoft 365 E5 15% new customer promo, Purview Suite 50% discount for Copilot customers, and the Copilot for All 30%/40% large-seat promos all expire June 30. Close pipeline and secure renewals before the month ends.
• July 1, 2026 [PLAN NOW] — New Permanent M365 Business + Copilot SKUs Launch: Promotional Copilot Business bundles become permanent SKUs. Business Standard + Copilot Business ($282/user/year) and Business Premium + Copilot Business ($384/user/year) are now durable offers. A new 25% promo on Business Basic + Copilot Business ($252/user/year) launches simultaneously and runs through December 31, 2026.
• July 1, 2026 [PLAN NOW] — Azure Reserved VM Instances End for Select Series: No new purchases or renewals of RIs for Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, Lsv2 (one-year) and Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3 (one-year and three-year). Review all customer RI portfolios before this date to prevent billing at pay-as-you-go rates.
• July 22, 2026 [REGISTER NOW] — MCAPS Start for Partners: Free digital event covering FY27 priorities, go-to-market direction, and investment focus from Microsoft senior leadership. Register at aka.ms/MCAPS2026PCA and block July 28 for the GTM Kickoff Event the following week.
• August 15, 2026 [PLAN AHEAD] — H1 FY26 Co-op Claims Close: Co-op funds earned July–December 2025 must be claimed with proof-of-execution documentation before August 15 or are forfeited permanently. Begin assembling documentation now.
• September 1, 2026 [PLAN AHEAD] — France e-Invoicing Compliance Deadline: Microsoft France begins issuing e-Invoices compliant with French Tax Authority regulations. Partners transacting with Microsoft France must submit French VAT ID, SIREN, SIRET, and electronic delivery address before September 1. Submit details via the France e-Invoicing Tax ID form in Partner Center now.
• December 1, 2026 [PLAN AHEAD] — Updated Microsoft Partner Agreement Takes Effect: The updated MPA is available for review in Partner Center now. It takes effect automatically on December 1 for most partners. CSP direct bill and distributor partners in France must explicitly accept between December 1 and February 28, 2027. Review the changes now — not in November.

What's in This Edition

This edition covers late May and June 2026 — the period following our mid-May blog. It is one of the most commercially intense periods on the Microsoft partner calendar: the July 1 price increase is days away, multiple major promotions are expiring, Copilot Cowork reached general availability, the Work IQ API went live, the MPA has been updated, and the Security Specialisation programme is getting a fundamental structural overhaul.

One housekeeping note: Partner University's June 15 new-linking cutoff has already passed. That window is closed. What still matters is the path forward — replacement certifications, designation impact, and the June 2027 full retirement timeline. We cover what you can still act on.

June 30 Commercial Cliff — Act This Week

Everything below expires June 30. Five days. This is not a planning conversation — it is a closing conversation.

Key Promotions Expiring June 30

Microsoft Purview Suite — 50% off for Copilot customers

For customers who have M365 Copilot (existing or new), the Purview Suite is available at 50% off. E5 Compliance at half price is a direct cost-reduction argument for any Copilot customer who hasn't locked down their data governance posture. After June 30 this offer is gone.

Microsoft 365 E5 — 15% off for new customers

New-to-E5 customers on annual subscriptions get 15% off through June 30. Any E3 customer who has been sitting on an E5 evaluation needs a call this week — the price lock expires at month end.

Microsoft Sentinel — 50 GB commitment tier, up to 32% off PAYG

Customers who transact on the 50 GB Sentinel commitment tier before June 30 lock in pricing through March 31, 2027. This is a price-lock story, not just a discount story. SIEM customers evaluating Sentinel should be contacted today.

Copilot for All — 30% off (300+ seats) and 40% off (1,000+ seats)

The two largest-scale Copilot promotions in CSP both expire June 30. These apply to incremental Copilot license purchases where the customer reaches 80% information worker coverage. No confirmed extension. Enterprise and large mid-market Copilot pipeline needs to close this month.

M365 Business + Copilot Business bundles — 35% off SMB

The SMB Copilot bundle promotion closes June 30 before the permanent SKUs replace it on July 1. For SMB pipeline that is still evaluating: the June 30 price is the best you can get before the July 1 restructure.

Action Required — Sales Team

• Pull every active opportunity with a Copilot, E5, Purview, or Sentinel component and set a June 27 internal close target.
• Call — don't email — your top 10 open opportunities this week. The June 30 date is your close trigger.
• Submit all FY26 BAPA incentive claims before June 30. Log into the Incentives workspace in Partner Center and check your claim status today.
• For Frontier customers on Cowork: confirm usage-based billing is configured in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center before June 30.

July 1 — The Price Increase

Microsoft 365 Global Price Increase

Effective July 1, 2026, Microsoft 365 prices increase across Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, E3, E5, and F3 plans globally — for both new and renewing customers. Customers who renew before July 1 lock in current pricing for their next term.

What's being added to justify the increase:

• Business plans — 50 GB additional mailbox storage and enhanced Copilot Chat
• E3 — Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 included
• E3 and E5 — expanded security, compliance, and endpoint management capabilities

A separate EEA currency pricing-precision update also takes effect July 1 — a cent-level adjustment on select M365 and Office 365 SKUs in EEA currencies, driven by EU settlement compliance. Brief your billing team: this is distinct from the list price increase and will show as small line-item changes on EEA invoices.

Action Required — Sales Team

• Run your renewal report from Partner Center subscription exports or your PSA tool, segmented by renewal date July 1 through December 31, 2026. Sort by seat count descending.
• Cross-reference your top accounts against CloudAscent propensity scores to identify which renewals also carry upgrade or upsell potential.
• Prioritise E3 customers for E5 or E7 upgrade conversations — E3 now includes Defender for Office 365 P1 at the new price, making the E5 delta smaller than customers expect.
• Lock renewals before June 30 wherever customers are willing. That's the clearest offer on the table: same plan, same price, one more year.

Action Required — Billing Team

• Brief your reconciliation team on the EEA pricing-precision change. Pull updated EEA price lists on July 1 and diff against current to identify impacted SKUs.
• Update customer-facing invoice templates for both the list price increase and the precision adjustment simultaneously on July 1.
• For distributors: communicate both changes to indirect resellers in advance to prevent margin discrepancy queries.

July 1 — New Permanent Copilot SMB SKUs

Permanent M365 Business + Copilot Bundles Launch

On July 1, the promotional M365 Business + Copilot bundles become permanent durable SKUs — the promotional price becomes the standard price. Simultaneously, a new 25% promotional offer launches on the Business Basic + Copilot bundle.

Making these bundles permanent removes the single most common SMB Copilot objection: "What happens when the promo expires?" The answer is now: nothing. These are permanent offers at a permanent price.

Action Required

• Update quoting tools, PSA templates, and customer-facing price cards for July 1 — both the permanent SKUs and the new Business Basic promo.
• Brief your SMB sales team on the distinction between permanent SKUs (Standard + Copilot, Premium + Copilot) and the promotional SKU (Basic + Copilot, valid through December 31). Different close urgency, different objection handling.
• Build a Copilot SMB value pack — deployment support, adoption guidance, monthly check-in — to attach to the permanent SKU. No promo clock means no urgency on the customer side; your services package creates the commercial reason to move now rather than later.

July 1 — Azure Reserved VM Instance Retirements

RI Purchases End for Legacy VM Series

Beginning July 1, 2026, Microsoft stops accepting new purchases and renewals of Reserved VM Instances for a significant set of legacy VM series.

One-year RIs ending July 1: Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, Lsv2

One- and three-year RIs ending July 1: Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3

Existing RIs already in place are not affected — they run to the end of their current term. What changes: when those RIs expire, they cannot be renewed. If no action is taken, affected workloads shift to pay-as-you-go rates automatically.

Action Required — Azure Practice / Technical Team

• Pull a full Reserved Instance audit across all managed customer subscriptions this week. Flag every RI on an affected VM series and note its expiry date.
• For RIs expiring on or near July 1: initiate customer conversations immediately. Options are migration to a newer-generation VM series (Dv4/Dsv4, Dsv5, Ev5, Esv5) or Azure Savings Plan for Compute as an alternative cost vehicle.
• For RIs on affected series expiring after July 1: flag these in your account plans — customers need to know their next renewal will require a workload migration conversation.
• Document each customer's RI position and provide a recommendation memo with migration options before June 30.

Copilot Cowork — General Availability

Cowork GA and the Copilot Credits Model

Microsoft announced the general availability of Copilot Cowork in June 2026, alongside a new consumption-based billing model using Copilot Credits — a unified consumption currency that also covers Copilot Studio and Work IQ API usage.

Cowork at GA is a multi-step execution system. It works across Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and connected systems — executing tasks in the background based on organisational context, within the tenant's existing security and compliance perimeter. It is not a prompt-response tool. It's closer to a background worker that has access to your Microsoft 365 environment.

How billing works: M365 Copilot seat = required baseline. Cowork usage is then metered through Copilot Credits on top of that seat. Credits are shared across Cowork, Copilot Studio agents, and Work IQ API calls in the same tenant.

Microsoft also introduced Microsoft Scout — an always-on personal agent spanning cloud, desktop, and web, connecting Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Currently in limited Frontier availability; pricing to be confirmed separately.

Action Required

• For Frontier customers using Cowork: configure usage-based billing in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center before June 30, 2026. This deadline has not been extended.
• Review the Copilot Credits documentation to understand how Credits are consumed, replenished, and monitored per tenant.
• Build a Cowork onboarding service: credit management configuration, governance policy setup, usage monitoring, and quarterly reviews. This is recurring managed services territory.
• Brief your account management team on how to monitor Credits consumption and when to recommend balance top-ups.

Work IQ API — General Availability (June 16)

The Intelligence Layer for M365-Grounded Agents

The Work IQ API reached general availability on June 16, 2026. Work IQ is the semantic intelligence layer that powers Cowork — it continuously processes email, calendar, meetings, chats, files, and people signals to build a real-time model of how an organisation operates.

The GA API gives developers, ISVs, and SI partners direct access to that intelligence layer to build M365-grounded agents in Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, or third-party platforms.

Billing: Consumption-based via Copilot Credits — no separate SKU. Requires M365 Copilot license per user.

Action Required

• If you have software development or SI capability: review the Work IQ API documentation on Microsoft Learn and assess build readiness for M365-grounded agent solutions.
• If you support customers with Copilot Studio agents grounded in M365 data: confirm those agents are using Work IQ APIs and that Copilot Credit billing is correctly configured.
• Build a Work IQ API competency brief for your pre-sales team — this is the technical differentiator in any custom AI agent conversation.

Updated Microsoft Partner Agreement — Effective December 1

MPA Updated — Review Now, Action Required Only for France

Microsoft has published the updated Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) and CSP Program Guide, both taking effect December 1, 2026. The updated MPA is available for review and early acceptance in Partner Center now.

For most partners: The updated MPA takes effect automatically on December 1. No signature required. You may accept early in Partner Center if you want certainty before the effective date.

For France CSP direct bill and distributor partners: You have a fixed-term agreement. Explicit acceptance is required between December 1, 2026 and February 28, 2027. Missing that window risks interruption to transact capabilities.

Action Required

• Log into Partner Center and review the updated MPA summary today.
• Assign a reviewer to compare changes against your current agreement — focus on indemnification, data processing, programme participation, and termination terms.
• France direct bill and distributor partners: Calendar a hard reminder for December 1 with a February 28 completion deadline.
• Communicate relevant changes to your operations, billing, and account management leads before December 1.

Security Specialisation — Audit Model Coming

Third-Party Audit Replaces References

Microsoft is moving all four Security Specialisations — Cloud Security, Data Security, Identity & Access Management, and Threat Protection — to a third-party audit model. Independent auditors (funded by the partner) will assess real delivery capability every two years, replacing the current customer reference and documentation submission model. Partners receive a Pass or No Pass result.

The full rollout timeline has not been published. Partners currently holding Security Specialisations will receive anniversary date extensions when the audit model goes live.

Also confirmed in June 2026 for Security Specialisations:

• MS-102 (Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert) is being removed as a Security Specialisation requirement.
• APL-4002 (Prepare security and compliance to support Copilot) and APL-7008 (Create custom agents with Copilot Studio) retire at the end of June 2026.
• AB-100 (Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect) and AB-620 (AI Agent Builder Associate) are being added as replacements for the APL-7008 retirement.
• Azure Specialisation checklists have been updated with Preview Links showing changes effective July 1 — available to review now for one month before they go public.

Action Required

• Review Azure Specialisation checklist Preview Links in Partner Center — July 1 changes are visible now for a limited window.
• Enrol team members affected by the APL-4002 and APL-7008 retirements in AB-100 or AB-620 certification paths before end of June.
• Begin building an internal audit readiness dossier: delivery methodology documentation, anonymised customer outcome evidence, and technical process records for each Security Specialisation you hold or are pursuing.
• Identify the SMEs in your organisation who will own audit artefact collection for each specialisation.
• Monitor Partner Center announcements for the official audit model rollout timeline.

MAICPP Programme — May & June Specialisation Changes

Monthly AI Cloud Partner Programme Updates

The May and June MAICPP updates delivered a set of structural changes to specialisations and designations. Here is what is relevant and still actionable.

Secure AI Productivity Specialisation (renamed from Teamwork Deployment)

Effective April 29, 2026, the Teamwork Deployment specialisation was renamed. The updated requirements: partners must achieve 2,500 MAU growth on at least three of eight specified workloads (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams, M365 Apps, Entra ID P1, Intune, Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Information Protection). At least one workload must come from each group (productivity and security). The 20% growth requirement has been removed. The new customer tenant requirement dropped from 12 to 5. Partners must hold both a Modern Work and Security designation to qualify.

Identity and Access Management Specialisation — Entra ID P2 Added

Entra ID P2 is now eligible alongside P1 for the IAM specialisation performance requirement (minimum 2,000 MAU growth of Entra ID P1 and/or P2). This expands qualification pathways for partners with P2 deployments.

GitHub Certifications — Added to Digital & App Innovation Designation

GitHub Actions, GitHub Administration, GitHub Advanced Security, and GitHub Copilot certifications are now valid Advanced skilling options for the Digital & App Innovation designation. Relevant for partners with DevSecOps or GitHub-based development practices.

Partner University Retirement — What's Still Actionable

The June 15 new-linking window has closed. What still matters: existing linkings earn skilling credit until June 2027. If you have employees already linked, those linkings still count toward designation requirements for another year. Use that window to complete replacement certification paths — Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate and Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals are the two key replacements.

Upcoming Specialisation Mergers (watch for announcements)

Three mergers are in progress: Analytics on Microsoft Azure (combining Analytics on Azure, Data Warehouse Migration, and Business Intelligence); Agentic Business Solutions (combining Low Code Application Development and Intelligent Automation); and App Modernization on Microsoft Azure (combining Kubernetes on Azure and Migrate Enterprise Applications). The Adoption and Change Management specialisation is being retired; ACM capabilities will be embedded within product specialisations.

Action Required

• Check your current Partner Capability Score in Partner Center. If you are at 22–24 points in any solution area and your designation anniversary falls in July or August, you are at risk of dipping below incentive thresholds. Identify which lever — performance, skilling, or customer success — has the most headroom before June 30.
• Enrol affected employees in Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate or Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals certification tracks. Existing Partner University linkings count until June 2027 — but build the replacement path now.
• If you hold Secure AI Productivity (formerly Teamwork Deployment) specialisation: review the updated MAU requirements against your current customer base to confirm you still meet the three-workload threshold.
• Review the Entra ID P2 addition if you hold the IAM specialisation — this may improve your performance score if you have P2 deployments not previously counted.

Multiparty Private Offers — European Expansion

MPO Now Available in 30 European Countries

Effective May 27, 2026, Multiparty Private Offers expanded to 30 countries in Europe including Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and 22 more. A second expansion to Australia, Japan, and South Africa is scheduled for July 15, 2026.

Multiparty Private Offers let ISVs and channel partners collaborate on deals — the ISV creates a private offer with custom pricing, the partner extends it to the customer. The full sale counts toward the customer's Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), removing a major enterprise purchasing obstacle. Partners receive a direct payout from Microsoft.

Action Required

• Review your tax profile in Partner Center for Microsoft Marketplace and confirm coverage for the newly eligible European countries where your customers are based.
• Reach out to ISV partners about enabling MPO deals in the newly eligible countries.
• If you have customers in Australia, Japan, or South Africa: review the July 15 expansion announcement when it publishes and prepare tax profiles in advance.

Billing & Platform Updates

ReferenceId Now in JSON Format — Live Since June 15

The ReferenceId attribute in Billed and Unbilled Reconciliation files changed to a structured JSON format effective June 15, 2026. This is now live. The new format:

json

{ "osId": "ab12Cdef-GiJ3-ab12-Cdef-ab12CdefGiJ3", "id": "ab12CdefGiJ3", "v": 2 }

Partners who parse ReferenceId as a plain string are now receiving a JSON object. Invoice totals are not affected, but any downstream logic that depends on the ReferenceId value — audit trails, transaction correlation, support ticket linking — will produce incorrect output until the parser is updated.

Action Required — Billing Team

• Confirm the ReferenceId JSON parser update is deployed to all environments — production, staging, and any test pipelines.
• Pull a post-June 15 reconciliation file from Partner Center and validate correct extraction of osId, id, and v fields.
• If you use a third-party PSA or billing tool: confirm with the vendor that their reconciliation module has been updated. Do not assume.
• Check downstream CRM, ticketing, and reporting integrations for any anomalies introduced after June 15.

Promotions Now Viewable Directly in Partner Center UX

Partners can now view promotion details in the Partner Center UI without downloading a spreadsheet. Navigate to Pricing → Benefits to see a promotions list with a details panel showing start/end dates, auto-apply status, discount type, and eligibility constraints per promotion.

Action Required

• Familiarise your sales and pre-sales teams with the Promotions view in Partner Center (Pricing → Benefits).
• Build it into your pre-quote checklist: Promotions UX → verify active → confirm auto-apply → check eligibility → note end date → quote.

New End-of-Sale Software Price List — July 1

Microsoft is adding a new End of Sale Pricelist for Software to Partner Center effective July 1, identifying software products no longer available for new purchase, including their end-of-sale start and end dates.

Action Required

• Download the End of Sale Software Pricelist when it publishes on July 1 and cross-reference against active customer software subscriptions.
• Identify customers whose software SKUs appear on the End of Sale list and begin migration or renewal conversations proactively.

Unbilled Reconciliation Files — Already in CSV.GZIP

All unbilled usage and reconciliation files moved to .CSV.GZIP format in May 2026. High-volume partners (5M+ records) see download times drop from over 6 hours to under 10 minutes. Invoices with more than 1.5 million records are split into multiple .CSV.GZIP files.

Action Required

• Confirm your billing pipeline correctly decompresses .CSV.GZIP files before parsing.
• If you receive multi-file invoices (>1.5M records): confirm your consolidation logic correctly merges all files before running totals.

France e-Invoicing — September 1 Deadline

Tax ID Submission Required Before September 1

France's e-Invoicing regulations take effect September 1, 2026. Partners and customers transacting with Microsoft France must submit required Tax ID details before that date. Required information: French VAT ID, SIREN (9 digits), SIRET (14 digits for public sector and applicable businesses), and electronic delivery address (if registered in Chorus Pro).

Missing or invalid Tax ID details may cause invoices to be rejected by government systems entirely.

Action Required

• Submit Tax ID details via the France e-Invoicing Tax ID Collection form in Partner Center.
• Confirm SIREN, SIRET, French VAT ID, and electronic delivery address with your finance or compliance team before submitting.
• Communicate the Tax ID submission requirement to any France-based customers transacting directly with Microsoft France.
• Engage your tax advisor if there is any uncertainty about Tax ID accuracy — Microsoft cannot provide tax guidance.

MCAPS Start for Partners — July 22

Register Now — Free FY27 Kickoff Event

Microsoft has announced MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22, 2026 — a no-cost digital event delivering FY27 priorities, go-to-market direction, and investment focus directly from Microsoft senior leadership including Judson Althoff, Nicole Dezen, and Stephen Boyle.

Sessions are structured around Frontier Transformation — the shift from AI experimentation to secure, scalable, operational AI deployment.

One week later, July 28, the Microsoft Partner FY27 GTM Kickoff Event provides tactical depth across three tracks: Microsoft AI Business Solutions (with a dedicated CSP track), Microsoft Commercial Cloud and AI, and Microsoft Security.

Action Required

• Register at aka.ms/MCAPS2026PCA — no cost, high value.
• Block July 22 and July 28 in your team calendar.
• Assign ownership for each of the three GTM Kickoff tracks to a team lead.

FY26 Co-op Funds — August 15 Claiming Deadline

With FY26 ending June 30, partners earning Microsoft Commerce Incentives co-op funds need to be tracking:

• H1 FY26 co-op (earned July–December 2025): claiming deadline August 15, 2026
• H2 FY26 co-op (earned January–June 2026): claiming deadline February 15, 2027

Co-op funds are the 40% marketing and enablement portion of MCI incentive earnings. If your H1 co-op accrual exceeded the $10,000 minimum threshold, those funds must be claimed with proof-of-execution (POE) documentation before August 15 or they are forfeited permanently.

Action Required

• Pull your H1 FY26 co-op earning balance from the Incentives workspace in Partner Center.
• Identify all qualifying marketing and enablement activities completed July–December 2025.
• Compile proof-of-execution documentation for each activity.
• Submit H1 FY26 co-op claims in Partner Center before August 15, 2026.

10 Questions CSPs Should Be Asking Right Now

The July 1 price increase is 6 days away. What's the most efficient way to drive renewals?

Export your renewal report from Partner Center or your PSA, segmented by renewal date through December 2026. Sort by seat count descending. Cross-reference against CloudAscent propensity scores to identify which accounts also carry upgrade potential. Your top 20 by seats are your first calls — not emails, calls. The June 30 date is the close trigger. Set an internal June 27 deadline so your team has three working days to resolve objections.

The Copilot for All 30% and 40% promos expire June 30. Are there extensions expected?

No confirmed extensions. These are the largest-scale Copilot promotions currently active in CSP. If you have enterprise or large mid-market pipeline with 300+ or 1,000+ seat Copilot intent, those deals need to close this month. After June 30, the promo structure resets and you are starting from a different commercial position.

The permanent M365 Business + Copilot SKUs launch July 1. How do we position this to SMB customers?

Lead with permanence, not price. The "what happens when the promo ends?" objection is now obsolete — the Business Standard + Copilot and Business Premium + Copilot SKUs are permanent at $23.50 and $32 per user per month. For cost-sensitive customers, the new Business Basic + Copilot 25% promo at $21/user/month is the entry point. Build a services package (deployment, adoption, monthly check-in) to attach to the first year — permanence removes urgency on the customer side, so your services create the reason to move now.

Copilot Cowork is now GA. What does that mean commercially for partners?

It means the agentic AI story has moved from preview to production. Cowork is billed through Copilot Credits on top of the M365 Copilot seat. For partners, this creates a managed services opportunity around Credits monitoring, governance configuration, and adoption management — all of which customers will need help with. Build a Cowork onboarding service now, before customers start asking questions your team isn't ready to answer.

What is the Work IQ API and should we care?

Work IQ is the intelligence layer that grounds Copilot agents in real organisational context — emails, meetings, files, people, collaboration patterns. The GA API lets you and your ISV partners build M365-grounded agents in Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, or third-party platforms. If you have any custom agent development capability, or if you support customers who want to build beyond out-of-box Copilot, Work IQ is the technical foundation you need to understand.

The Security Specialisation audit model is coming. How long do we have to prepare?

Microsoft hasn't published the rollout timeline — but the direction is confirmed. Partners currently holding Security Specialisations will receive anniversary date extensions when the model goes live. Use that lead time to start building audit readiness artefacts: delivery methodology documentation, anonymised customer outcome evidence, and technical process records. The partners who start now will have a ready dossier; the partners who wait will be scrambling.

The MPA update is in December. Is there anything we need to do before then?

Read it now. The updated MPA is in Partner Center. Six months of notice is enough time to have your legal team review the changes calmly; it is not enough time to discover a material change in November and react under pressure. France direct bill and distributor partners must accept explicitly between December 1 and February 28, 2027 — missing that window risks transact capability interruption.

Multiparty Private Offers just expanded to 30 European countries. What's the fastest path to our first MPO deal?

Identify an ISV you already work with that has a Microsoft Marketplace listing. Contact them about enabling an MPO deal for a specific customer opportunity in one of the newly eligible countries. The ISV creates the private offer; you extend it to the customer. The revenue counts toward the customer's MACC. That's a low-friction first deal — and the July 15 APAC/South Africa expansion extends the same motion to Australia, Japan, and South Africa.

Azure RIs for Dv3 and Ev3 series are retiring July 1. We have customers on these. What's the priority order?

First priority: RIs expiring on or immediately after July 1 — these customers have zero window to renew on the current series. Contact them this week and initiate a migration or Azure Savings Plan conversation. Second priority: RIs expiring in Q3 or Q4 2026 on affected series — add these to your Q3 account plan review. Third priority: any customer with auto-renew enabled on an affected series RI — disable auto-renew or it will fail silently at renewal, switching the workload to pay-as-you-go without warning.

The BAPA claims deadline is June 30. What happens if we miss it?

FY26 incentive credit for Business Applications Partner Activities is forfeited permanently. No extensions have been offered for BAPA deadline misses historically. Log into the Incentives workspace in Partner Center today, confirm your claim status, and submit anything outstanding before June 30. If you're not sure what qualifies as a BAPA activity, check the Business Applications incentive guide in Partner Center documentation.

Team Playbooks — What Each Function Needs to Do

HR / Training / Programme Management

• Employees linked to Partner University before June 15 earn skilling credit until June 2027. Audit which employees are linked and which designation paths those linkings support.
• Enrol replacement certification candidates immediately: Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate (for Teams Calling/Meetings specialisations and Modern Work designation) and Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals (for Modern Work designation).
• Review your Partner Capability Score before June 30 — if you are at 22–24 points in any solution area with an anniversary in July or August, identify the fastest lever to move the score before fiscal year close.
• After June 30: review PCS in the first week of July and confirm FY27 incentive eligibility before the new fiscal year programme activates.

Promotions — Quick Reference Table

CSP Billing Ultimate 2026

Elite Growth Platform for Ambitious Businesses