Microsoft Ignite 2025 was nothing short of transformative. This year’s event marked a major leap toward an agent-driven future, where AI-powered digital coworkers become central to enterprise workflows. From Agent 365, a groundbreaking platform for managing autonomous agents, to Work IQ, a new intelligence layer for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft showcased innovations that redefine productivity, security, and governance.
The Agent Revolution & Agent 365
- Agent 365 described as a new “control plane” for AI agents centralizes governance of thousands of autonomous bots. It features a registry of all enterprise agents, digital “Agent IDs” for permission control, and IT tools to monitor, inspect, or shut down non-compliant bots. [theneuron.ai], [crn.com]
- Agent Registry & Governance — Agent 365 provides discovery, behavior mapping, and compliance tooling, enabling businesses to manage “shadow AI” before it spirals out of control. [theneuron.ai], [crn.com]
Microsoft 365 Copilot Enhancements
- Vocal Commands – Copilot users can now interact via voice, enabling hands-free writing, data queries, and task creation. [crn.com]
- Work IQ Intelligence Layer – Copilot gains enhanced understanding of your content, work habits, collaborations, and preferences via the “Work IQ” layer delivering better context, prediction, and interaction. [microsoft.com], [blogs.microsoft.com]
- Office App Agents & Agent Mode – Individual agents now exist within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with interactive chat modes, allowing iterative document, data, and presentation creation. [microsoft.com]
Identity & Security: Microsoft Entra Agent ID
- Entra Agent ID – Extends Zero Trust identity principles to AI agents. Each agent receives a dedicated identity, complete with lifecycle management, audit logs, and scoped permissions. [learn.microsoft.com]
- Agent-Centric Governance – Supports conditional access policies, entitlements, token flow control, and risk-based approvals – elevating security oversight around agent identities. [learn.microsoft.com]
- Security Copilot Integration – Agents within Entra leverage AI to manage risk, detect anomalies, and enforce policies automatically. [learn.microsoft.com]
Teams, Windows, & Windows 365 Agents
- Windows Native Agent Infrastructure – Windows now embeds agent connectors and a dedicated workspace to let agents run securely across the OS, apps, and files. [blogs.windows.com]
- Windows 365 Cloud PC Agents – A Windows 365 preview allows agent authors to run enterprise-grade bots in the cloud, separating development from underlying infrastructure. [crn.com], [blogs.windows.com]
Cloud AI & Data Platform Advances
- Azure Copilot Preview – Users can now experiment with Azure-native AI assistants during preview mode. [crn.com]
- Fabric IQ Workload Preview – Part of the Fabric data platform, this offers real-time analytics and context-aware agent support powered by AI. [crn.com]
- SQL Server 2025 GA – Introduces AI-enhanced vector search, change-event streaming with CloudEvents, tempdb improvements, and expanded resource limits in Standard edition.
