Microsoft confirms "major 2026 update" to remove several Planner features, add new ones

Microsoft recently shared an in-depth look at the differences between Office 2024 and Microsoft 365 products to help users understand the differences. You can check out that dedicated article here but in a nutshell, Office 2024 is part of Microsoft 365, but the latter has additional apps, features, and benefits like Teams. Another useful application is Planner, a task management and planning app, and today Microsoft has confirmed that it is preparing a "major update" for it.

This new update will add new collaboration features while retiring several existing ones. The first notable addition is task chats in basic plans, which will allow team members to collaborate directly on tasks using rich text formatting and @mentions. The change is to ensure colleagues receive notifications only when they are specifically mentioned.

Custom templates are also being introduced, enabling organizations to create reusable plan layouts tailored to their needs. These templates are expected to save time and promote consistency across projects. In addition, the project manager agent will now be available in all plans for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, thus extending advanced management capabilities to basic plans.

At the same time, Microsoft has also confirmed that several features will be retired. The existing task comments experience in basic plans will be replaced by the new task chat functionality. While the comments pane will no longer be directly visible, users will still be able to access older comments through Outlook. Interestingly, the legacy comments system will remain functional on mobile apps, though new chat messages will not appear there initially. Microsoft confirmed that email notifications for comments will continue unchanged, while premium plan conversations remain unaffected.

Another feature getting the axe is the whiteboard tab in premium plans. This feature, which automatically created a whiteboard linked to Planner and allowed sticky notes to be converted into tasks, will no longer be available. Though the company notes that existing whiteboard content will remain accessible in the Whiteboard app, users will lose the ability to generate tasks directly from it. Microsoft has stated there is no replacement for this functionality at present.

Some features will be temporarily unavailable during the rollout. For example, the ability to convert a basic plan into a premium plan will be paused. Users will need to manually create new premium plans and copy tasks until similar functionality is restored in the future.

The rollout for the 2026 Planer update is scheduled to begin between mid-January 2026 and mid-February 2026, affecting both basic and premium plans.

Beyond Planner itself, integrations with other Microsoft services are also being retired. Viva Goals, which is scheduled to be retired on December 31, 2025, will lose its Planner entry point. The iCalendar feed integration, which allowed tasks to be viewed in compatible applications such as Outlook, will also be discontinued during the rollout window. Users will no longer be able to create new feeds or view tasks in existing ones, with no replacement announced.

Finally, the Planner component in Loop pages will be retired. Previously accessible by typing /planner in a Loop workspace, this option will be removed in favor of the Task List Control. Workspaces that already contain Planner components will display the plan URL, such that existing tasks should remain available even after the retirement.

Those who have access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal can view the entry here under ID MC1193421.