IT & AI brief, 8 November 2026: Copilot leaves the Power Automate designer, Application Insights keys end

A quiet weekend for emergency fixes: CISA's newest KEV entry is still the SonicWall SSLVPN flaw from 6 November. The planning items are the end of Copilot in the Power Automate designer on 30 November and the Application Insights API key retirement.

Copilot in the Power Automate designer ends on 30 November

What changed: MC1540258 says Copilot in the designer for cloud flows and agent flows reaches end of support on 30 November 2026. Makers will no longer build or edit flows with natural-language prompts there. Existing flows are not deleted or modified, and the designer, templates, expression editor, flow checker and run history keep working. Microsoft points to the Power Automate plugin in a supported AI assistant such as GitHub Copilot, or connecting to Copilot Studio through MCP.

Who is affected: Power Automate and Copilot Studio makers who rely on prompt-based flow building.

What to do: Tell makers before 30 November and agree an alternative. Our guide on building a flow with a Copilot prompt describes the workflow that is going away.

Power Apps drops AI-generated descriptions for model-driven apps

What changed: MC1540110 removes the "Create descriptions using AI" option from the Publish dialog and the app designer Settings panel for model-driven apps. End of support is 30 November 2026. Existing descriptions stay as they are, and manual descriptions still work. Microsoft suggests the model app-builder skill, which runs outside Power Apps.

Who is affected: Makers and admins of model-driven apps.

What to do: No admin action is required. Mention it to makers, and write descriptions manually for apps you publish after the date.

Application Insights API keys stop working on 31 March 2027

What changed: Microsoft's Azure updates notice, updated on 4 November 2026, says API keys used to query Application Insights data retire on 31 March 2027. The date was extended from the original schedule. Queries must authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID instead.

Who is affected: Anyone with scripts, dashboards, Grafana-style tools or third-party integrations that read Application Insights data using an API key.

What to do: List the API keys in each Application Insights resource, find what calls them, and move those callers to Entra ID authentication, using a managed identity or service principal with an appropriate Azure RBAC role, well before the cutoff.

Azure Front Door adds GA post-quantum TLS key exchange policy

What changed: Azure announced general availability of configurable TLS key exchange policies for Azure Front Door, including hybrid post-quantum key exchange, on 5 November 2026.

Who is affected: Teams that publish websites or APIs through Front Door and have crypto-policy or compliance requirements.

What to do: No action needed for ordinary sites. If you track post-quantum readiness, review the new policy options and test with your clients in a non-production profile first. For where Front Door fits against other services, see Front Door vs Application Gateway vs Traffic Manager.

Application Gateway for Containers previews: MCP gateway, JWT validation, private ingress

What changed: On 3 November Azure listed three public previews for Application Gateway for Containers: an MCPRoute resource that publishes Model Context Protocol servers behind a stable hostname and path, centralised JWT validation that checks signature, issuer, lifetime and audience, and private ingress reachable only through approved Private Link endpoints.

Who is affected: Platform teams running Kubernetes on Azure, particularly those exposing internal AI tool servers.

What to do: Preview features are not covered by production SLAs. Trial them in a test cluster, and for private ingress confirm your Private Link approval process first.

Viva Engage turns on group email and calendar defaults for new communities

What changed: MC1480869 says new Viva Engage communities get Microsoft 365 group settings on by default, so members are subscribed to community emails and calendar invitations. The rollout for new communities now completes by the end of November 2026, moved from mid-October. Existing communities follow later this autumn, with no date yet.

Who is affected: Community owners, members and the support teams who field mailbox noise complaints.

What to do: No admin action is required. Warn owners that they can change the settings in My Account, and brief your help desk.

Also worth knowing

• GitHub's usage metrics API now includes code review details and an addressed rate.
• Azure announced WAF Insights for Application Gateway as generally available, with dashboards for investigating blocked traffic.
• Azure Firewall IPv6 now supports application rules in public preview.
• CISA's KEV catalog shows the SonicWall SSLVPN entry with a 20 November due date; see the previous brief.