Issues with Input Focus After macOS 26.1 Update

After updating my MacBook to macOS 26.1 yesterday morning, I began experiencing recurring issues where applications fail to gain or maintain input focus when brought to the foreground or opened. Affected applications include Notes, Outlook, Teams, various browsers, and potentially others.

Within our company, multiple MacBook devices exhibit the same behavior since updating to version 26.1. There have been no changes on the MDM side, which I manage myself.

I also found a report describing the same issue here: “Apps and windows have trouble getting and keeping input focus : r/MacOS"

I have already contacted Apple Support under Case ID 102755828980, but unfortunately they stated that they are unable to run further diagnostics because all our company devices are managed via MDM. So, we would need to uninstall that - which is not possible and we don´t have a spare device right now.

Do you have any suggestions on how we could test or identify the root cause of this issue? It is extremely disruptive in daily work.

Best regards,

Dominic