What’s new in Powell? | May 2026 Release
A mobile-first experience, smarter AI, and analytics that tell a story
The digital workplace is evolving fast. Powell’s latest updates focus on making mobile access simpler, AI more useful, and analytics easier to understand.
A new mobile experience built for the way people actually work
Employees need quick access to information, especially when they are away from their desks. But mobile workplace experiences often feel like desktop intranets squeezed into a smaller screen.
Powell is changing that with a new mobile-first experience: faster, easier to deploy, and designed around real mobile usage, not reliant on prior heavy customization.
Before
❌ Needing heavy customization before use
❌ Authentication friction
❌ Desktop-first experience
❌ Slower deployment
With the new mobile experience
✅ Mobile-first views
✅ Simplified authentication
✅ Faster access to content
✅ Easier setup and deployment
Mobile-first, not mobile-afterthought
The new experience introduces dedicated mobile views created specifically for phone usage. It is not just a resized version of the intranet.
The goal is simple: give employees the right information, in the right format, without making admins rebuild everything from scratch.
Social feed
Employees can access news, react, comment, and stay connected from their phone.
Org chart
A smoother way to search for colleagues and understand teams directly from mobile.
Designed with frontline workers in mind
Not every employee lives in Outlook, Teams, or PowerPoint all day. For frontline and deskless workers, mobile is often the main gateway to the company.
Powell’s new mobile experience is being built to support this reality, with simple access through a Microsoft identity and a lighter, more practical way to connect employees to the digital workplace.
Why this matters
A digital workplace only works if employees can actually reach it. By making mobile access easier, Powell helps organizations connect more people, not just the ones sitting at a desk.
Powell Buddy and Copilot: better together
One question keeps coming up in AI conversations: “How does Powell Buddy compare to Microsoft Copilot?”
The answer is simple: Powell Buddy is not here to replace Copilot. It is here to complement it, extend it, and fill the gaps where Copilot is not deployed.
No Copilot yet
Powell Buddy can support specific workplace use cases like HR, onboarding, internal communications, and knowledge discovery.
Full Copilot rollout
Powell can extend Copilot with workplace actions like desk booking, intranet knowledge access, and Powell-powered experiences.
Mixed licenses
For many organizations, some employees will have Copilot and others will not. Powell Buddy helps bridge that gap.
Smarter AI across the digital workplace
Powell is also continuing to evolve AI features across content, governance, search, and workplace knowledge.
Content creation
AI will help communicators build better campaigns, not just generate more text.
Knowledge lifecycle
Automatic document tagging and high-value content detection will improve knowledge quality and discoverability.
Knowledge access
Agent orchestration will make it easier to access several specialized knowledge sources through one conversational experience.
Advanced Analytics is getting a clearer story
Analytics should help teams understand engagement. Too often, they create confusion instead.
Powell is improving Advanced Analytics to solve two common customer frustrations: metrics that are hard to compare with Microsoft’s default analytics, and dashboards that feel too much like a blank canvas.
Clarify
New terminology will help avoid confusing comparisons between Powell and Microsoft analytics.
Understand
Sentiment insights will add a new layer to understand how employees react to content.
Act
A redesigned interface will make analytics easier to read, with executive summaries and clearer dashboards.
Less dashboard fatigue. More actionable insight.
The new Advanced Analytics direction follows a simple principle: 80% of the experience should be valuable out of the box, while 20% remains customizable for advanced users.
The goal is to make analytics feel less like a data maze and more like a clear executive summary of what is happening across the digital workplace.
What’s next
Mobile pilot accounts
The first pilot accounts are expected to test the new mobile experience before a broader launch.
More AI-powered workplace actions
Powell will continue developing agentic capabilities for frontline workers, knowledge access, and Copilot-connected experiences.
A redesigned analytics experience
Advanced Analytics will evolve toward clearer storytelling, more useful summaries, and better engagement insights.
Final thought
The future of the digital workplace is not about adding more complexity.
It is about making work tools easier to access, easier to understand, and easier to act on.
From mobile-first experiences to AI-powered assistance and analytics that actually tell a story, Powell is helping organizations make Microsoft 365 beautifully simple — and genuinely useful.
Powell Buddy
Copilot integration
Advanced Analytics
Frontline workers
Trinity Resting
Product Marketing Manager
Product marketing doesn’t have to be all jargon and slides—Trinity’s here to prove it’s about creating human connections. With 5 years in digital marketing, she’s been scaling, building, and transforming product strategies that resonate with real people. At Powell, Trinity ensures the message isn’t just heard, but felt. She’s passionate about helping teams go beyond the office and build lasting relationships. When she’s not crafting strategies, you’ll find her sipping tea (she’s a self-proclaimed tea-aholic) or working as a professional dog sitter—because, let’s be honest, dogs are the ultimate team players.
