MC1472028Outlook: Change the organizer of meetings

What and Why:

Microsoft is introducing Change organizer for eligible Outlook meetings and recurring meeting series. Users can ask another person in their organization to become the organizer, and the selected person must accept before ownership changes. This supports personal and team productivity by maintaining meeting continuity during role changes, leave, and offboarding.

Rollout Schedule:

Phase 1 supports eligible non-online meetings:

• Worldwide: Late September through late October 2026
• GCC: Early October through late October 2026
• GCC High: Early November through late November 2026
• DoD: Early November through late November 2026

Phase 2 will add eligible online meetings. For Teams meetings, the transfer will generate a new Teams meeting link owned by the new organizer. Phase 3 will add transfer support for eligible Teams meeting artifacts, including chat, meeting options, transcripts, recordings, agenda, notes, and attendance reports. Phase 2 and Phase 3 timing will be announced separately.

Impact on Your Organization:

Who is affected:

• Users who organize eligible meetings or recurring series.
• Users selected to become a new organizer.
• Delegates with permission to edit meetings on another user's primary calendar.
• Help desk teams supporting meeting ownership transitions.

Platforms/Services:

• Outlook on the web
• New Outlook for Windows
• Teams Microsoft 365 Calendar
• Exchange Online

Classic Outlook for Windows is not supported.

What will happen:

• The current organizer can select one person in the same organization or tenant and send an organizer change request.
• The meeting remains with the current organizer until the selected person accepts.
• The organizer or an authorized delegate can cancel a pending request.
• For recurring series, future instances move to the new organizer's calendar. Earlier instances remain with the previous organizer.
• The previous organizer is not automatically added as an attendee.
• Internal Exchange Online attendees receive a silent update and do not need to respond again. Their Reminder, Category, Show As, and Private settings are preserved.
• External and on-premises attendees receive a cancellation and a new invitation, which requires a response.
• The meeting body, attachments, and sensitivity labels are preserved. The new organizer might require separate access to OneDrive attachments or links.
• Phase 1 does not support online or Teams meetings.
• This feature is enabled by default and requires no tenant configuration.

The meeting must be in the future, use a work or school account, and be stored on the organizer's primary calendar. Draft, canceled, encrypted, group calendar, group mailbox, and shared mailbox meetings are not eligible.

Action Required/Recommendations:

No administrative action is required.

• Review meeting ownership processes for role changes, leave, and offboarding.
• Inform help desk teams that Phase 1 supports only eligible non-online meetings.
• Update internal meeting management and offboarding documentation.
• Tell users that the new organizer must accept the request and that the previous organizer is not automatically retained as an attendee.
• Advise users that external attendees must respond to a replacement invitation.
• Ask users to confirm that the new organizer can access linked OneDrive content.
• Prepare users for a new Teams meeting link when online meeting transfers become available.
• Review the Microsoft Support article, Change the organizer of a meeting in Outlook.

Compliance Considerations: