Teams adds policy control for external meeting bots
Reviewed by Helen Jones
Microsoft announced a Teams meeting policy for detecting external recording and note-taking bots. Targeted Release is due to finish by the end of August 2026, with general availability completing by the end of September; the default setting requires an organiser to approve a detected bot before it joins.
Before this rollout, a third-party note-taking bot could look much like another external participant, leaving organisers to recognise the risk before admitting it. That matters because recordings and transcripts may be stored outside the tenant’s compliance boundary. Teams can now label detected bots and hold them in the lobby under a user- or group-level meeting policy. Detection is not perfect, so the useful change is a clearer approval point backed by an explicit tenant rule, not a guarantee that every bot will be caught.
Analysis
Check the “Manage external bots and their access to meetings” setting in Teams admin center. Keep approval required unless you have an agreed exception, and tell organisers who is allowed to admit note-taking bots.
Source note
Pulse published by Collab365 Spaces, reviewed by Helen Jones on . Cite as "Teams adds policy control for external meeting bots", Collab365 Spaces.