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August 2025 announcements

This page provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for August 2025.

Microsoft Publisher Agreement has been updated

The Microsoft Publisher Agreement has been updated and is now available for your review.

  • Date: August 29, 2025
  • Workspace: All
  • Impacted audience: All audiences

The Microsoft Publisher Agreement has been updated and is now available for your review. Changes become effective for current partners automatically on September 30, 2025, without further action by either party.

As part of its standard business operations, Microsoft periodically reviews and updates the Microsoft Publisher Agreement to ensure alignment with current practices and regulatory requirements. Beginning on September 30, 2025, the updated terms will take effect automatically, and no action, signature, or acknowledgment is required from partners.

Next steps

To review the updates, access the updated Microsoft Publisher Agreement.

Now available: Get a better look at customer growth with Net Paid Seat Adds reporting

Net Paid Seat Adds (NPSA) reporting is available in Partner Center. Access it now for a comprehensive view of Microsoft 365 customer growth

  • Announcement date: August 28, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) and Scale Solution Partners (SSP) partners

Details

NPSA reporting is available in Partner Center, a critical move for CSP revenue growth. NPSA metrics are the same performance metrics used internally by teams at Microsoft, such as Partner Development Managers (PDMs). NPSA reports aim to empower you to better understand the state of your Microsoft 365 cloud install base and take timely, informed action by giving you a consistent, transparent view of Microsoft 365 customer growth.

How NPSA helps with CSP revenue growth

NPSA reporting enables stronger alignment, more productive business reviews, and clearer performance management conversations. Partners can track the net change in paid seats over time, broken down into new customers, net expansion, and churn, and they can assess trends across different customer segments and time periods. Partners can more easily identify growth opportunities, proactively address churn, and make data-driven decisions that affect CSP revenue, using the NPSA data.

How NPSA is measured

NPSA is measured by comparing the current period’s end of period (EOP) seats to the prior period’s EOP seats for specific cloud products.

Key capabilities of NPSA

NPSA reporting capabilities include:

  • Viewing a list of customer tenants and their associated NPSA over time, including month-over-month variations.
  • Selecting different months to assess NPSA at specific points in time
  • Analyzing the NPSA bridge table, which highlights the breakdown between new customers, net expansion among existing customers, and churn
  • Segmenting customers by size, from very small businesses to large enterprises

Ultimately, NPSA reporting aims to equip partners with the insights needed to grow their business more effectively, optimize customer engagement strategies, and stay competitive in a dynamic Cloud services environment.

Next steps

Ready to find out more about how NPSA reporting can help your organization? Take the next actions:

Important update to implementation of Partner of Record (POR) changes for CSP resellers

Updates to both the Partner Location Account (PLA) API and UI in Partner Center will be implemented beginning Dec. 1, 2025.

  • Date: August 26, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All CSP indirect providers and indirect resellers.

Details

We're updating the Partner Location Account (PLA) API and UI in Partner Center to make it easier for distributors to assign active, compliant indirect resellers as Partners of Record (POR). To ensure indirect resellers and distributors have sufficient time to prepare for this change, the updates will be implemented to both the PLA API and UI in Partner Center beginning Dec. 1, 2025. At that time, both the API and UI will check if the reseller is in compliance with the reseller program terms for new subscription orders as well as changes to existing subscriptions. The following changes to an existing order (doesn't apply to subscriptions utilizing autorenew) will be subject to the POR validation:

  • Seat count changes
  • Billing plan changes
  • Term changes
  • P2P transfers
  • Legacy-to-new commerce migrations

If the system indicates that there's an issue with the reseller’s compliance with the indirect reseller program terms, the system will display an error message explaining the issue. Distributors must work with the reseller in question to correct the error, or assign a different, valid POR to the purchase. Also, if the system detects that the reseller tenant isn't active, granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP) across the reseller’s customer accounts will be revoked.

Partner Center released a new POR validation API to help distributors programmatically check a POR they would like to attach to a subscription. Use the POR Validation API as the distributor's primary compliance check. It will provide real-time validation of a reseller’s PLA ID and confirm their POR eligibility before the distributor submits an order or makes changes. If the POR is invalid, the API will return an error code so a distributor can work with their reseller to resolve the issue before transacting.

Next steps

Distributors should do the following to avoid disruption of service:

To be compliant and avoid disruption of service, indirect resellers must:

The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement is being updated

The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement is being updated, effective September 22, 2025.

  • Announcement date: Friday, August 22, 2025
  • Workspace: All
  • Impacted audience: All audiences - Authenticated

Details

The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement has been updated and is now available for your review. Changes become effective for current partners automatically on September 22, 2025, without further action by either party.

As part of its standard business operations, Microsoft periodically reviews and updates the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement to ensure alignment with current practices and regulatory requirements. Beginning on September 22, 2025, the updated terms will take effect automatically, and no action, signature, or acknowledgment is required from partners.

Next steps

To review the updates, access the updated Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement.

Partner Center AI assistant (preview) is now localized and available in additional languages

Partner Center AI assistant (preview) is now available in localized and available in the following languages: English, German, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese.

  • Date: August 21, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All partners

Microsoft is excited to announce that the Partner Center AI assistant experience is now localized and available in the following languages: English, German, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese (European Portuguese), and Chinese (Chinese Simplified).

This expansion makes it easier for partners around the world to engage with the AI assistant in their preferred language, enhancing accessibility and productivity.

What is Partner Center AI assistant?

Partner Center AI assistant offers tailored insights and intelligent suggestions, provides quick answers to your day-to-day questions, and can help optimize your Partner Center tasks. Seamlessly integrated into your experience, the AI assistant continues your conversation as you navigate through Partner Center.

When needed, you can create a support ticket through the AI assistant panel. Responses are pulled from Microsoft product documentation, partner program guides, and your data in Partner Center.

AI assistant is continuously being enhanced to dive deeper across workspaces to provide you with individualized support. To stay up to date on AI assistant capabilities, see Partner AI assistant overview for updates.

If you have questions or need further assistance during your conversation with AI assistant, use the Contact Support option at the bottom of the AI assistant panel. This option is available after you engage with AI assistant for help. AI assistant automatically populates the problem summary and shares your conversation with the support agent.

Next steps

  • Learn more about Partner Center AI assistant capabilities and updates on new released capabilities, see Partner AI assistant overview. To review specific workspace capabilities, explore the various learn documents under Partner Center AI assistant.
  • Provide Feedback: We encourage partners to use the thumbs up/down control and comment box to leave feedback to help Microsoft improve the AI assistant experience. Learn more about our feedback loop.

Monthly update: Important actions partners need to take to secure the partner ecosystem

Important capabilities and updates to improve your security posture and protect your customers' tenants are now available.

  • Date: August 20, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and with advisors.

Available now

Action required: Graph.windows.net audience tokens retiring on August 31, 2025. To enhance our security measures, all Partner Center services that use Azure Active Directory graph API migrates to api.partnercenter.microsoft.com.

If you use the generateToken API, stop decoding the token in the API response and remove dependency on any of the claims in the token that the API returns. A new version of the generateToken API is available.

Affected API Current New
APP Only Auth - POST https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenantId}/oauth2/token 
Accept: application/json resource= https://graph.windows.net  &client_id={client-id-here}&client_secret={client-secret-here}&grant_type=client_credentials		 POST https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenantId}/oauth2/token
resource=https://api.partnercenter.microsoft.com &client_id={client-id-here}&client_secret={client-secret-here}&grant_type=client_credentials
Generate Token POST https://api.partnercenter.microsoft.com/generatetoken  POST https://api.partnercenter.microsoft.com/v3/generatetoken
Will no longer accepts token with resource https://graph.windows.net

Ensure your technical teams are aware of these changes and take the necessary steps to update your systems before August 31, 2025, to avoid disruption of business. To learn more about the necessary steps to prepare for this transition, see Deprecate Azure AD graph token.

Register for an office hours call and attend the live discussion or listen to the on-demand recording to receive answers to your questions.

MFA for Microsoft 365 admin center

Microsoft is enforcing multifactor authentication (MFA) for all users signing into Microsoft 365 admin center portal. Review the latest information and timeline. 

Security Workspace AI Assistant is now available to help you
  • Resolve partner queries
  • Clarify requirement details
  • Navigate learning resources efficiently
How to access the AI assistant

In Partner Center, select the AI button in the top-right corner of the dashboard. Then select the Security Workspace and choose Ask AI to begin.

Explore the new Security requirements UI in Partner Center

The Security requirements experience is redesigned to clearly separate mandatory and recommended controls, making it easier for partners to distinguish which security requirements must be completed as a condition of their continued CSP authorization. To learn more, see Security requirements section.

Coming soon

MFA For Partner Center: To enhance security, multifactor authentication (MFA) is enforced for all pages in the Partner Center portal and for API access.

  • MFA will be enforced for all pages in the Partner Center portal starting August 30, 2025
  • The API will be code-ready for MFA on September 30, 2025
  • MFA will also be mandatory for API access starting April 1, 2026

Adopting these updates promptly help avoid service disruptions and ensure your systems stay aligned with Partner Center’s security standards. To learn more, see Mandating multifactor authentication (MFA) for your partner tenant.

Next steps

Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) Program

The commercial launch of the Windows 10 Extended Security Update (ESU) offer is set for September 1, 2025

  • Date: August 19, 2025
  • Workspace: Customers and pricing
  • Impacted audience: All

The commercial launch of the Windows 10 Extended Security Update (ESU) offer is set for September 1, 2025, in advance of the end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025. This offer is designed to provide critical and important security updates for up to three years beyond the end of support date, so that commercial customers have the necessary time to transition to Windows 11.

Details

With Windows 10 End of Sale and end of support approaching in October 2025, many organizations need more time to transition to Windows 11. To help customers maintain security and compliance during this period, Microsoft is launching the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, offering critical and important security updates for up to three more years. This provides continued protection for devices that remain on Windows 10 beyond the official support deadline.

The Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program gives customers the option to receive security updates for PCs enrolled in the program. ESU is a paid program that provides individuals and organizations of all sizes with the option to extend the use of Windows 10 devices past the end of support date in a more secure manner.

Next Step

Individuals or organizations who elect to continue using Windows 10 after support ends on October 14, 2025, will have the option of enrolling their PCs into a paid ESU subscription. This enables them to continue receiving critical and important security updates through an annual subscription service after support ends.

To help prepare your customers for end of support of Windows 10 and details on purchasing an ESU subscription, see the following important resources:

Windows 10 Extended Security Updates available in CSP starting September 1, 2025

Keep your customers secure throughout their transition to Windows 11 with Windows 10 Extended Security Updates.

  • Date: August 18, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP partners

Details

Whether you’re working with your customers to invest in new Windows PCs or upgrading their existing devices, moving to Windows 11 takes a significant effort.

With Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU), they can still receive monthly Critical and Important security updates even after Windows 10 support ends on October 14, 2025.

Beginning September 1, 2025, Windows 10 ESU will be available for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, offering protection for one, two, or three years. This helps Windows 10 devices remain secure during the transition to Windows 11.

To simplify the experience for partners, ESU shifts from a software subscription to a perpetual offer type. With this change, partners can purchase all three years of ESU at once, with separate SKUs for each year. The SKUs will be available on the CSP price list in Partner Center and purchasable in the Partner Center catalog on September 1, 2025. Coverage for ESU will commence after October 14, 2025, to align with End of Support dates.

Next steps

Learn more about the ESU program for Windows 10 on Microsoft Learn.

Upcoming enforcement of POR API: New resources to support partner readiness

Starting September 1, 2025, Microsoft will enforce Partner of Record (POR) validation for all new Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) orders.

To help partners prepare, Microsoft released updated guidance, validation tools, and onboarding resources. This announcement outlines what’s changing, how to confirm reseller eligibility, and where to find support materials.

  • Announcement date: August 11, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) distributors and indirect resellers.

Note

To ensure indirect resellers and distributors have sufficient time to prepare, Microsoft will enforce Partner of Record (POR) validation for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) orders beginning Dec. 1, 2025.

Details

Microsoft will enforce Partner of Record (POR) validation via API for all new Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) orders beginning on September 1, 2025. Transactions will be blocked if the indirect reseller assigned as POR is out of compliance. To be compliant, an indirect reseller must:

  • Have an active CSP tenant associated with an authorized Partner Location Account (PLA ID) (formerly MPN ID)
  • Accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) for indirect resellers
  • Be associated with a distributor in your CSP region

Beginning September 1, 2025, validation checks will block transactions if PLA ID (formerly MPN ID), region, or tenant status are noncompliant and system-generated error codes will indicate the reason for failure.

What’s new and important

To support distributors and indirect resellers preparing for this change, Microsoft released new tools and updated guidance to help validate PLA IDs (formerly MPN ID), confirm tenant status, and resolve common issues:

  • POR validation API: Announced in July, this real-time API allows distributors to check reseller eligibility before placing an order. It confirms whether a PLA ID (formerly MPN ID) is valid and associated with an active CSP indirect reseller tenant. You can learn more about this API in the Validate reseller partner of record Partner app developer article on Microsoft Learn
  • Updated documentation on error code definitions: We’ve updated the Partner with indirect resellers in the Cloud Solution Provider program article to include updated error messages and remediation steps for common POR validation failures
  • New indirect reseller instructions: This new Indirect Reseller POR Instructions guide outlines how indirect resellers can resolve compliance issues, including onboarding steps, PLA ID (formerly MPN ID) validation, and tenant activation

Next steps

Distributors should:

  • Share these resources with their indirect resellers
  • Confirm PLA ID (formerly MPN ID) validity and tenant status before September 1
  • Use the POR Validation API or Reseller Eligibility Report to precheck compliance

August Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) monthly updates and community reminder

This announcement contains information for Cloud Solution Provider partners for the month of August 2025.

  • Date: August 5, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers

Monthly views are now published including the updated partner launch calendars, the CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter, along with other CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

Always available—Launch content on demand

For a consolidated view of all recent and active launches in a single place, visit the partner launch calendars collection. You'll find a timeline for each launch and links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

The downloadable CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter aggregates recent CSP announcements, updates, events, and reminders in an easy-to-read document.

Partner Journey Maps provide detailed navigation along the journey of Microsoft’s highest priority transformations.

Need licensing readiness? The monthly CSP spotlight webinars cover the latest CSP licensing information available for all partners.

CSP Community Q&A reminder

The monthly CSP community Q&A session provides you with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions about changes affecting the program.

Register here to join upcoming calls.

Next steps

Review the Partner Launch Calendar, monthly newsletter, and register for upcoming Community Q&A calls.

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to bring questions about operational change in the CSP program. You can submit a question up to 48 hours before the call.

Questions on any other CSP article? Visit the Partner Center support page.

Action required: Microsoft Customer Agreement reacceptance

Action Required by October 7, 2025:
Customer acceptance of revised Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) required to avoid blocking of subscription management actions.

  • Announcement date: August 4, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Partners who attested for their customers before April 1, 2023

Details

Beginning October 7, 2025, Microsoft will enforce a policy that affects Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners who previously attested to the MCA on behalf of their customers using the legacy API, Partner Center UX, or bulk attestation tool before April 1, 2023. If those customers haven’t reaccepted the updated MCA terms before October 7, 2025, partners will be blocked from completing these Partner Center actions:

  • New purchases
  • Quantity increases
  • Term duration or billing plan changes
  • Upgrades

To identify customers requiring reacceptance of the MCA, you can use the MCA bulk attestation tool or look for banners in the Partner Center Customer workspace in the MCA section of the Account Page. Once the partner attests using the existing Partner attestation methods, the new Partner attestation API or has the Customer direct acceptance the MCA, the action is unblocked. Only direct bill partners and distributors (formerly indirect provider) have the authority to confirm a customer's acceptance of the MCA through Partner Center or APIs. This ensures that entities with the appropriate contractual relationship and compliance responsibilities handle the attestation. No action is needed if your customer directly accepted the MCA.

Note

The update feature of the bulk attestation tool will be removed on October 7, 2025. After that date, the tool will only provide a list of customers that require action. You'll still be able to use the current API, the Partner Center UX, until January 5, 2026. After January 5, 2026, there will be two methods for accepting the MCA: through a new, enhanced partner attestation API or direct customer acceptance in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Next steps

  • Ensure your teams are equipped to guide customers through this updated MCA process to ensure alignment with the latest terms, future readiness and confirm customer acceptance via Partner Center or Microsoft portals.
  • Take action for your customers before October 7, 2025, to avoid any blocking actions for those customers.

August price list won't include a September preview for NCE license-based services

We're informing all Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners of an important update regarding the new commerce (NCE) license-based services preview (future) price list scheduled for publication on August 1, 2025.

  • Date: August 1, 2025
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, direct-bill partners, and indirect providers who use NCE license-based price lists in all regions/markets

There will be no NCE license-based services preview price list published on August 1 for September price preview. No changes are scheduled at this time for the September 1 license-based services price list.

Next steps

  • Share this information with all appropriate contacts in your organization.
  • Review the NCE license-based price list in the Partner Center Pricing workspace to find the offers included each month.