Updated December 12, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
To ensure continued high-quality performance of the Read Aloud, Transcription, and Dictation features in Microsoft 365 Office apps, we’re upgrading the backend service that powers these capabilities. As a result, these features will no longer function on Office clients running versions earlier than 16.0.18827.20202 after September 2026.
We are extending the supporting period for customers to prepare and upgrade to the supported version. Here is the updated timeline:
- General Availability (Worldwide): End of September 2026 (previously end of January)
- General Availability (GCC, GCC High, DoD): End of November 2026 (previously end of March)
If your organization is using Microsoft 365 Office apps with version numbers lower than 16.0.18827.20202, users will lose access to Read Aloud, Transcription, and Dictation features after the dates listed above.
There is no change to the user experience for clients on supported versions.
To avoid service disruption, ensure that all Office clients are updated to version 16.0.18827.20202 or later before the applicable deadline.
You can learn more about these features using the following resources:
Compliance considerations
No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.
Source: Microsoft
<<< [MC1127222] Archive
Tooltip: View earlier revisions of this post
Latest Posts
- MC1268933: Viva Engage Adds Pinned Resources and Related Communities to Teams for iOS
- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory now supports flexible namespace variables
- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory now supports fine-grained access control
- Amazon EC2 C8gn instances are now available in AWS Europe (Paris) region
