In the Microsoft ecosystem, there may soon be “agentic users” who carry their own identity, their place in the org chart… and their license.
Information on this topic may possibly be announced next week at the Ignite conference. In the meantime, there are flashes of evidence. Notably a post published in early November in the Microsoft 365 admin center. It has since disappeared, as did the associated roadmap item. A new brand was glimpsed: Agent 365.
The agents in question would be created from preconfigured templates.
It would be up to admins to decide which of these templates to publish. By default, all users in the tenant would have access to them, in two places: Teams (Apps section) and the Microsoft 365 Agent store. Their requests to create agents based on these templates would reach the admins. Who, if approved, would have to assign an A365 license to each agent.
The message published in the admin center spoke of a phased rollout beginning in mid-November, on desktop (in Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot).
Agent 365, a step primarily of commercial nature
In light of these elements, the forthcoming evolution seems less technological than commercial. It is even whispered that the Agent 365 brand could take over from Microsoft 365 Copilot. Potentially a way to ease the internal branding confusion that the current branding has been causing.
After two years on the market, the adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot appears disappointing. At least according to Ed Zitron’s claims. The figure, which the critic—who has built a solid reputation as a foe of generative AI—stated this summer, was that the conversion rate within the Microsoft 365 base fell below 2%. A figure Microsoft did not dispute.
Usage—though not necessarily conversion—may have risen since, among other things with the free rollout of some Copilot Chat features in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook (essentially, web- and file-based conversations).
Moreover, several initially standalone subscriptions (Copilot for Sales, for Service, and for Finance, for example) have been merged into Microsoft 365 Copilot.
To consult in addition on the topic Microsoft 365 Copilot :
The access conditions for Anthropic models
The lessons from a large-scale test
