AI agents are already changing how work gets done across industries. They automate tasks, collaborate with people, and accelerate productivity. In fact, IDC predicts there will be 1.3 billion agents by 2028.1
As agents multiply in numbers and sophistication, companies face a new kind of challenge: how to manage and govern agents responsibly and at scale, without rebuilding the trusted systems they rely on.
The clearest path forward is to manage agents the way you manage people, using the same infrastructure, apps, and protections that power your business today.
Introducing Microsoft Agent 365
Agent 365 is the control plane for AI agents. Whether your agents are created with Microsoft platforms, open-source frameworks, or third-party platforms, Agent 365 helps you deploy, organize, and govern them securely.
This is the next evolution of the existing systems that already run your enterprise.
Agent 365 helps you manage and secure agents with confidence
Agent 365 delivers unified observability across your entire agent fleet through telemetry, dashboards, and alerts. IT leaders can track every agent being used, built, or brought into the organization, eliminating blind spots and reducing risk.
Agent 365 unlocks five capabilities that make enterprise-scale AI possible: Registry, Access Control, Visualization, Interoperability, and Security.
1. Registry
The best way to prevent agent sprawl is to start with a registry that acts as a single source of truth. With Microsoft Entra registry, IT leaders gain a comprehensive inventory of all agents in their organization—including those with Entra agent ID, agents that they decide to register in the Microsoft Teams Store, and soon, shadow agents as well. It also allows IT admins to quarantine unsanctioned agents to ensure that they cannot be discovered by users or, connect to other agents or organizational resources.
This single registry tracks the agents for every relevant role within your organization—IT, developers, security, and business leaders. And with the Agent Store, users can easily discover the right agents for their role and workflows directly within Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams.
2. Access control
As organizations deploy more agents, access control becomes critical. By requiring all agents in your organization to have a unique agent ID, you can manage them and limit their access only to the resources they need. IT can set guardrails for who creates, onboards, and manages agents.
With agent Policy Templates, IT leaders can enforce standard security policies from day one. As agents integrate into organizational workflows, Microsoft Entra enforces adaptive, risk-based access policies that respond to real-time context and risk, and blocks agents that may have been compromised from accessing organization resources. Agents operate with the principle of least privilege, accessing only resources they need to complete their tasks, reducing the risk of misuse by malicious actors or accidental data loss.
3. Visualization
Oversight is most effective when it leads to actionable insight. Agent 365 empowers organizations to move beyond monitoring by providing the intelligence they need to drive action. Its unified dashboard and advanced analytics provide a complete map of connections among agents, users, and resources across your organization. Plus, role-based reporting delivers tailored metrics—ensuring IT, security, and business leaders see what matters most, right in their flow of work.
With built-in agent performance measurement, leaders can track agent performance, speed, and quality to assess return on investment (ROI) to make informed deployment decisions. End users also get visibility into task adherence and the business impact of agents they oversee.
Additionally, Agent 365 strengthens compliance with detailed logging, reporting, and e-discovery, along with policies to detect, retain, and investigate unethical agent interactions—helping organizations stay audit-ready.
4. Interoperability
Agents need access to the same data and applications that people in your organization use every day—from productivity apps like Word or Excel to business data in SharePoint or Dynamics 365. This interoperability allows the agents to have the same context as users and integrate with your organization’s unique workflows.
Agent 365 unlocks access to Work IQ. Agents help accelerate time to value by accessing Work IQ, your organization’s unique data, relationships, and context and integrate directly with Microsoft 365 apps.
Interoperability also means freedom of choice. Agent 365 works across Microsoft platforms, open-source frameworks, and partner clouds. Flexible build paths let teams use Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Agent Framework, or the Agent 365 SDK.
5. Security
Security is non-negotiable, which is why Agent 365 delivers comprehensive protection from external and internal threats for agents and data.
Like any other mission-critical system, agents require a defense-in-depth approach. Security leaders can proactively remediate vulnerabilities and misconfigurations based on comprehensive security posture for agents, use AI-powered intelligence to block attacks, and prevent data exfiltration right as they occur. Microsoft Defender enables organizations to detect both known and emerging threats targeting agents, investigate incidents, and respond rapidly thanks to a complete view of the cyberattack chain. Working together with Microsoft Entra, it blocks attacks in real time.
Microsoft Purview provides visibility into AI-related data exposure risks and prevents agents from processing or leaking sensitive data. It identifies risky agent behavior in real time and applies adaptive policies if something doesn’t look quite right. It also gives organizations the ability to audit agent interactions, assess compliance readiness and policy violations, and recommend controls for evolving regulatory requirements.
From concept to scale
Agent 365 marks a new chapter in how organizations build, secure, and scale their agents. This is a shift from isolated experiments to enterprise readiness, where agents operate as part of a unified, governed, and productive system.
And the excitement is real. Our partners are already getting on board, bringing their innovation and momentum to Agent 365’s fast-growing ecosystem.
- Microsoft agents like Sales Development Agent, agents built in Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, equipped with agent IDs, productivity tools, and Work IQ to operate while understanding the context of work.
- Broader ecosystem of agents such as Adobe, Databricks, Cognition, Genspark, Glean, Kasisto, Manus, NVIDIA, n8n, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday, and more.
- Open-source agents published on GitHub for Anthropic, Crew.ai, Cursor, LangChain, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Vercel.
This growing ecosystem of Agent 365 empowers high-performing human and agent teams to work smarter, faster, and more creatively.
Get started with Agent 365 in Microsoft 365 admin center
The best place to begin with Agent 365 is right inside Microsoft 365 admin center. Through Frontier, Microsoft’s early-access program for AI innovations, IT teams can explore new capabilities, test scenarios, and build confidence in agent adoption.
Security professionals will find Agent 365 in the tools they already use:
- Advanced identity and network controls in Microsoft Entra.
- Data protection and compliance safeguards in Microsoft Purview.
- Threat protection in Microsoft Defender.
This gives IT a single control plane to manage users, apps, and agents, while enabling security, identity, and compliance teams to operate confidently within their existing environments.
To learn more, join us in person or online at Microsoft Ignite, November 18–20, 2025!
Check out these featured sessions and discover how Agent 365 is shaping the future of organizations—enabling agents to work securely, compliantly, and at scale.
1IDC Info Snapshot, sponsored by Microsoft, 1.3 Billion AI Agents by 2028, May 2025 #US53361825
