Outdated Office Applications Will No Longer Support Voice Features Starting in January

Microsoft announced that the transcription, dictation, and read aloud features will cease functioning in older versions of Office 365 applications by late January 2026. Read Aloud allows users to hear documents and emails read back, while transcription converts speech into text in real-time, and dictation enables voice-to-text input across Office applications. The company advised customers to update their Microsoft 365 Office apps to a version higher than 16.0.18827.20202, released in early July, to retain access to these essential accessibility and productivity features. This deadline provides most organisations with approximately one year to plan and implement the necessary software updates. However, government cloud customers using GCC, GCC High, and DoD environments have an extended deadline until March 2026 to complete their updates.

To ensure continued high-quality performance of the Read Aloud, Transcription, and Dictation features, Microsoft is upgrading the backend service that powers these capabilities. Consequently, features will no longer function on Office clients running versions earlier than 16.0.18827.20202 after January 2026. Users with Office clients above the specified version will not be affected by the infrastructure upgrade and will experience no changes to their current functionality. Additionally, Microsoft plans to end support for Office apps on Windows 10 later this year, while continuing to provide security updates until 2028. Furthermore, Office 2016 and Office 2019 will reach the end of extended support on October 14, 2025.