For everyone working with Microsoft technology, Ignite is the highlight of the fall when it comes to announcements and the direction for the coming year. Microsoft often waits until Ignite to launch “everything” they’ve been working on since summer, but with GenAI, everything moves much faster and updates have been rolling out continuously throughout the fall.
I wrote a bit about that on Monday: https://chansen.no/microsoft-365-copilot-news-before-ignite-starts/
But of course, there are plenty more exciting announcements to cover!
Work IQ
Microsoft introduces Work IQ, which essentially builds on Microsoft Graph. Work IQ understands who you are, what you’re working on, and which files you have access to.
Work IQ is built on three core elements:
- Data: Microsoft Graph is the foundation. Graph collects data about you and your work—emails, files, meetings, contacts, Teams conversations, etc. Work IQ connects to these personal and organizational data sources in the same way as Graph. Simply put, Graph represents the data layer in Work IQ.
- Memory: This is a new component added by Work IQ. It builds a “personal memory” based on your preferences, work habits, and previous interactions. For example, Copilot (via Work IQ) remembers things you’ve told it before or context from earlier chats, so it can provide more coherent and personalized answers later. This memory spans across sessions but is fully under your control—you can view or delete this conversation memory if you want.
- Inference: This is the intelligence Work IQ adds on top of the data. It means Work IQ doesn’t just retrieve information (as Graph traditionally does) but also draws conclusions and understands context. With Work IQ, Copilot can detect patterns in how you work, understand the “intent” behind requests, and offer proactive suggestions. Example: Work IQ might know that “Q1-report.docx” is linked to the budget you’re working on, so when you ask Copilot “What’s the status of the budget?”, it will automatically use that file in its response. This ability to reason over data and context is the new inference layer in Work IQ.
Microsoft Agent 365 – AI Agents Get Their Own Identity
Most organizations are already accumulating a lot of agents. Until now, there hasn’t been a good and simple way to manage these agents. With Agent 365, we now have a control platform for agents, and agents get their own identity like regular users in Entra ID. This enables several new capabilities, and Microsoft divides Agent 365 into five parts:
- Registry: A consolidated overview of all agents operating in the organization.
- Access Control: Better control over agents and what they can do, managed through Conditional Access.
- Visualization and Insights: Real-time monitoring of agent activity, relationships, and impact. A dedicated dashboard with graphs and analytics helps detect abnormal behavior and measure value creation.
- Integration: Allows agents to use apps and data in workflows. Agents can have their own mailbox, Teams identity, etc., and connect to Work IQ for context. Also supports third-party agents via SDK (“Agent 365 wrapper”).
- Security: Full application of security tools to agents. Defender monitors agent actions, Purview prevents data leakage, Entra ID logs who/what/where for agent sign-ins, and lifecycle rules prevent unused agents from lingering.
Collaboration Between Microsoft and Anthropic
Earlier today, Microsoft and Anthropic announced a new partnership, which includes the ability for Microsoft to run Anthropic’s models in Azure. This is great news since we recently got Claude models available for the Researcher agent, but with the limitation that they run outside Microsoft’s datacenters. For many organizations, this meant they didn’t enable the feature. I hope this opens the possibility to run Claude directly in Microsoft’s datacenters for M365 Copilot users, within Microsoft’s data protection boundary—just like standard Copilot.
“Agent Mode” in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
In my previous article, I wrote about Word and Excel agent mode. My expectations were low the first time I tested them—especially when they called it “vibe working”—but I was pleasantly surprised. They lacked some functionality back then, but now features are finally coming together. Excel can, starting this week, find information on the internet and use it directly. Today, PowerPoint agent mode was also launched.
Agent mode in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint can work for you or alongside you in the window you have open.
Office Agents in Copilot Chat
We’re also getting Excel, Word, and PowerPoint agents in Copilot Chat. These are not the same as above but separate agents in Copilot Chat that can create documents directly from chat. These agents appear to use Anthropic’s models. They briefly appeared earlier today, and I managed to test them a little. I didn’t test Word, but Excel and PowerPoint delivered good visual results. I only tested with text queries, not internal data, so it’s too early to say how good this will be.
M365 Copilot Business – $21 per user
A major announcement for all organizations with fewer than 300 users: starting in December, you can purchase M365 Copilot Business for $21 per user per month.
Copilot and Agents More Integrated into Windows
This wasn’t mentioned in the keynote, but more info will likely come during the week. Here are a couple of images showing how M365 Copilot is even more integrated into Windows and easily accessible. Did you know you can press Win + C, or the Copilot key, to open a small Copilot window or hold Win + C to start voice interaction with Copilot? You can also say “Hey Copilot.”
We also see how agents run as separate apps in Windows, making it easier to notice when agents have been working for 10 minutes and have a report ready for you.
Sora 2 in Create
We’ve long been able to create simple videos in “Create,” but they used sample videos. Now it can also use Sora 2 to generate clips for the video it assembles.
Several New Agents Launching This Week
Sales Development Agent
Microsoft continues to release new agents. This is one of several launched this week—a sales agent that can connect to your company’s CRM system.
We’ll also see new agents connecting to Work IQ and People Skills, which were introduced earlier this fall:
- People (Frontier): Helps you quickly find the right people based on role, skills, and past collaboration.
- Learning (Frontier): A personal guide for skill development and upskilling. Uses Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning (requires a separate subscription, possibly).
- Workforce Insights (Frontier): Gives leaders an overview of team structure, skill gaps, and agent usage.
Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry)
Microsoft Foundry is the new name for Azure AI Foundry, and one of the big announcements is that you can now set up Anthropic’s models in Microsoft Foundry.
There’s also a strong focus on security and control around agents, as mentioned earlier with Agent 365.
Edge for Business Gets Copilot Mode
Several companies have released their own AI browsers. Microsoft launched Copilot Mode earlier this fall for those logging in with consumer accounts (Hotmail, etc.). This is now coming to Edge for Business.
Agent Mode: Naturally, there will be an agent in Edge too. It can perform actions for you or alongside you. This will require an M365 Copilot license.
Daily Brief: You can get a daily brief based on your meetings, tasks, and priorities, using insights from Work IQ and your browsing history (🥸).
Multi-tab Reasoning: Copilot will be able to provide answers based on up to 30 open tabs, in addition to what it knows from Work IQ and the internet.
YouTube Summarization: Gives you summaries and answers questions about what you’re watching on YouTube.