Microsoft announced that at the end of January 2026, transcription, dictation and reading facilities would stop working in older versions of Office 365 applications.
Read loudly Users read the documents and email back, Transcription Real time changes the speech in the lesson, and Dictation The feature office allows for voice-to-text input in applications.
The company advised customers to update their Microsoft 365 Office app in an edition of over 16.0.18827.20202 (release released early July) To maintain access to these access and productivity facilities by the end of January 2026.
This time limit provides most organizations with about a year to plan and apply the required software updates in your environment.
However, Redmund said that government cloud customers using GCC, GCC high and dod atmosphere have two more months by March 2026 to update their software.
“To ensure high quality performance of reading, transcription and dictation features in Microsoft 365 office apps, we are upgrading backnd service that strengthens these abilities,” The company said In a Friday message center message.
“As a result, these features will no longer work on versions running before 16.0.18827.20202 after January 2026.”
The change stems from the decision of Microsoft that upgrade backnd service that strengthens these voice-enabled capabilities. Users running office customers with version numbers below the specified threshold will lose access to facilities after the time limit.
The company said that the office customers are running more than 16.0.18827.20202 versions, the infrastructure upgrade will not be affected by upgrade and there will be no change in their current functionality.
In May, Redmund also announced a plan to abolish the support for office apps on Windows 10 later this year and will continue to provide security updates for three more years by 2028.
A month ago, in April, Microsoft reminded customers that Office 2016 and Office 2019 will reach the end of extended support until two months from now on October 14, 2025.