The Curiosity Meter

This fortnight at a glance

Counted from the Microsoft 365 Roadmap items published 21 September to 4 October 2026.

This fortnight's headline five

When will it land?

Roadmap items by target release month

Where is the change?

Roadmap items by product family. Hover a bar for detail.

Does it apply to us?

Australian tenants run on the worldwide cloud. US government cloud items are catch-ups of features many of us already have.

Coming up

The next dates to watch
All 33 roadmap items this fortnight
IDFeatureWhat it doesFamilyTarget
The Pocket Watch

"I'm late, I'm late!" Dates that matter

Pick a date on the watch chain to open it: what is happening, what it means for your agency, who should look at it, and where it comes from. Days are counted from this issue's publish date, 9 October 2026.

One file with fixed dates and month reminders, each with a nudge the day before. It opens in Outlook and most calendar apps.
Drink Me

What's new this fortnight

Choose Tiles to flip through the highlights, or List to scroll everything in one place, including all 33 roadmap items. Every item opens a drawer with the detail and the source.

The headline five

The roadmap items most likely to matter to Queensland public sector agencies this fortnight

The Caucus Race: the public sector lens

What governments in Australia and the UK are doing

"Everybody has won, and all must have prizes." What each jurisdiction is learning, and what it means for Queensland agencies.

The race so far

Each runner is a public development. Hover for the headline, click to open it.

What the stories are about

By theme, Australia and the UK

The "what it means for Queensland" lines are our analysis, not statements from the source. The Commonwealth OAIC obligations apply to Commonwealth APP entities; Queensland agencies sit under Queensland privacy law. Items marked "still current" were published before this fortnight but describe arrangements in force now.

Who Are You? said the Caterpillar

The Frontier journey

Six stages from first chat to governed agents at scale. The caterpillar moves to each stage as you explore. Click a stage, or press play.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

How the Microsoft stack works together

Every guest at the table is a Microsoft product, and everything is poured from one teapot in the middle: Microsoft IQ. Hover over or tap a seat, or call "Clean cups, move down!" for a guided tour around the table.

A guided tour round the table: every guest, what they bring and what they pass to the others. Or hover over or tap any seat.
No room! No room!
The Hall of Doors

How it works: the new way AI is paid for

Follow a request through Alice's adventure, page by page: down the rabbit hole, the golden key, the Drink Me bottle, the Queen's guards, the Queen counting her roses, and her ledger. Press play, or click any step: the storybook, the diagram and the words move together.

Step 1 of 6:

Source: Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot. No prices shown; see Microsoft for current licensing.

Checked against the source. Each step matches Microsoft's 25 September 2026 announcement: everyday work on a fixed-cost user licence with Auto choosing the model; Cowork, Code, Autopilot and frontier models on usage-based credits; Agent 365 spend policies, credit approvals and model controls; and credit balances for users plus value insights for leaders. Some of these controls are still rolling out.
An antique jewelled storybook
Curiouser and CuriouserThe Curious Tale of How AI Is Paid ForA story in six pages
The same journey as a diagram
The Queen's Court

Royal decrees for IT, Finance, Legal and Security

Governance, cost and risk actions from this fortnight. Tick them off as you go; the hearts show urgency.

The Cheshire Cat

On the horizon

Announced or on the roadmap but not here yet. Each card says what it could mean for Queensland agencies and why it matters. Dates are targets, not commitments.

Ask Alice

The Queen of Hearts requests the pleasure of your company

Royal invitations to public Microsoft events, and the Caterpillar's curious questions to take into your next leadership meeting. Click an envelope to break the seal.

Royal invitations

By order of the Queen, these public events are open to all. Australian events show Brisbane time; the others are shown as published, mostly US time. Break a seal to read the letter, then add the event to your calendar from inside it.

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar

Three curious questions

  1. Does every Copilot pilot and agent we run have a FAIRA or FAIRA LITE? Version 2 of Queensland's AI governance policy took effect in August 2026.
  2. Who decides which teams can spend AI credits, and on which models? Cowork, Code, Autopilot and frontier models now run on usage-based billing.
  3. When our agents get their own identities, who owns them and how do we switch them off? Persistent agent identity is on the roadmap for November 2026, and UK NCSC advice calls for a tested way to stop agents.

Want to walk through any of this? Book 30 minutes with me, or reply to the email this came with.
Charlie Marie Shanks, AI Workforce Solutions Specialist, Microsoft

The end of this issue

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Takes you back to At a glance and resets every picture, tour and story, ready to explore again.