Ignite 2025 Highlights: The Next Evolution of Copilot and AI Agents

The dust has settled after an eventful few days at Microsoft Ignite 2025, and I wanted to take the opportunity to provide a retrospective on the key announcements made in the agent and Copilot space — some we’ve covered in depth and others we haven’t. Here are my top five highlights.

Microsoft Agent 365

By far the announcement at this year’s Microsoft Ignite conference that generated the most excitement was the introduction of Microsoft Agent 365. This new control plane has been expressly designed to address the increasing sprawl in agent ecosystems.

Agent 365 is integrated into the Microsoft 365 admin center. It enables administrators to manage, from one place, agent registration, access control, visualization, interoperability, and security, regardless of how or where those agents were built.

Impact: Agent 365 represents a significant advancement in the creation of a scalable agent-based AI strategy. It allows companies to onboard and operate agents at an unprecedented rate because underlying security and governance issues are addressed from the outset.

These agents can be managed just like any other human worker — from an IT standpoint. You can read a complete analysis by my colleague Tom Smith here and an insightful take on the news by my colleague Ronak Mathur here.

Work IQ

Work IQ is one of the three layers in the new intelligence framework — which also includes Fabric IQ and Foundry IQ — Microsoft introduced at Ignite 2025. This feature utilizes user data from various sources, including email, document files, and more, while also considering user habits and previous workflows. It continually learns from this information.

As a result, it provides M365 Copilot and agents with the most contextually accurate knowledge available in real-time. This up-to-date knowledge bank allows users to achieve incredibly specific outcomes for tasks and requests assigned to Copilot and agents.

Impact: Work IQ is context-aware, so when it comes to inference, it can ensure the actions carried out by Copliot and agents are more relevant and aligned with company outcomes. Learn more about Microsoft’s comprehensive intelligence layer in my analysis here.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents

Building on the launch of Agent Mode in M365 Copilot — read up on that launch here — Microsoft used Ignite as the platform to announce an extension of this innovation. Dedicated Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot will enable users to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets in Copilot Chat.

“These agents don’t just create; they guide users with clarifying questions, helping shape outputs that match specific goals and use cases,” said Microsoft Product Leader Sangeeta Kulkarni.

“This chat-first approach makes it easy to get started, whether you’re drafting a strategic plan, analyzing data, or building a presentation.”

Impact: Microsoft has been pushing for the adoption of Copilot and agents by making it increasingly easier to interact with these tools. Embedded, active agents in the most popular Office applications take this one step further, enabling users to incorporate Copilot into the workflows they use every day.

AI Agent & Copilot Summit is an AI-first event to define opportunities, impact, and outcomes with Microsoft Copilot and agents. Building on its 2025 success, the 2026 event takes place March 17-19 in San Diego. Get more details.

Microsoft Teams Agents Third-Party Collaboration

In yet another groundbreaking use case for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Microsoft’s agents operating in Teams Channels can now communicate with apps and agents outside the Microsoft ecosystem via MCP servers such as GitHub or Asana.

This development builds on other innovations in Teams, including Teams Mode for M365 Copilot and collaboration agents, like the Teams Facilitator agent, which takes notes and drives efficient meetings.  

Impact: This isn’t just a simple update; it’s a significant step forward that will enable far more streamlined, frequent human-agent interactions, bringing agentic workflows to Teams tasks that were previously reserved for human workers.

OpenAI’s Sora 2 in Microsoft 365 Copilot

While Microsoft Copilot is one of the world’s best-known GenAI services, many other tools are continually being developed and launched. Some of these achieve success in consumer markets as independent products. One such tool is OpenAI’s Sora 2, a groundbreaking video and audio generation model that has taken social media by storm in recent months.

Microsoft is integrating this model into M365 Copilot to enable users to create incredibly high-quality video clips in a governed environment within the Create experience in M365 Copilot.

Impact: Tools like Sora 2 are popular, but for them to enter enterprise environments, there must be guaranteed security and safeguards in place. Microsoft is enabling users — currently licensed M365 users in the Frontier Program — to leverage these groundbreaking video interaction capabilities while ensuring oversight from IT admins and applying enterprise-grade Microsoft Purview security and compliance measures.