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Microsoft Ignite is back - and once again, it’s packed with the updates, innovations and new capabilities. Each year, Ignite shows us what’s coming next across Microsoft’s ecosystem, but 2025 marks a turning point. This is the year AI becomes fully lifecycle-driven: planned, deployed, governed and scaled as part of the organisational fabric.
This year’s Ignite takes on one big theme: AI isn’t an add-on anymore - it’s the new operating model for modern work.
From agents to automation, from data to governance, Microsoft is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and redefining the digital workplace in the process. Whether you're building solutions, modernising systems or transforming your business, Ignite 2025 is full of breakthroughs designed to help you move faster, scale smarter and innovate without friction.
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Artificial Intelligence
Work IQ
Referenced at Ignite 2025, at the heart of Microsoft 365 Copilot is Work IQ, the intelligence layer that makes Copilot context-aware by default. Work IQ understands you, your role, and your company, connecting personal and organisational knowledge to deliver insights and assistance tailored to your workflow. It works across Microsoft 365 apps, helping you streamline tasks, uncover insights in seconds, and access AI agents securely - all within the flow of your work.
Microsoft Agent 365
AI agents are becoming part of every workflow - but until now, there’s been no way to manage them like the rest of your digital estate. That changes with Microsoft Agent 365, now available through the Frontier program.
Agent 365 is essentially Entra + Defender + Purview + Microsoft 365 Admin Center - but for agents. It extends enterprise-grade identity, security and governance to AI workflows.
Agent Registry: A complete inventory of every agent in your organisation - including shadow agents created outside formal channels.
Access Control: Conditional Access for agents, ensuring they're only able to reach the resources they actually need.
Agent Visualisation: A real-time graph showing how agents interact with people, data and apps - ideal for spotting risk and understanding impact.
Interoperability & Work IQ: Agents can plug into your organisational context, unlocking smarter reasoning and seamless workflow integration.
Security & Data Governance: Protects agents from compromise and prevents sensitive data from being misused, overshared or exfiltrated.
This is arguably one of the most important Ignite announcements - Agent 365 isn’t just a tool, it’s the foundation for managing AI at scale.
Sales Development Agent
Microsoft is introducing the Sales Development Agent through the Frontier program - an autonomous tool that researches, qualifies, and engages leads at any time to help boost revenue.
Researches leads
Crafts personalised outreach
Follows up automatically
Hands hot leads to human sellers
Designed to scale revenue without scaling headcount, this is one of the clearest examples of where agentic AI will deliver immediate ROI.
Work IQ Powered Agents
Microsoft has introduced three new agents built on Work IQ, the intelligence layer behind Microsoft 365 Copilot. These agents help streamline workforce operations, strengthen employee engagement, and speed up development across the organisation.
Workforce Insights Agent: Real-time visibility into organisational structure, attrition risk, activity patterns and workforce distribution.
People Agent: Help employees find the right people based on skill, role or previous collaboration.
Learning Agent: Personalised microlearning journeys for AI skills and role-based development.
These aren’t “nice-to-have assistants” - they fill real gaps in HR, L&D and change management.
SharePoint & Teams Admin Agents
Microsoft is introducing two new admin-focused agents to simplify IT management while boosting security and compliance:
Teams Admin Agent: Available in the Teams admin center, this agent autonomously handles tasks like meeting monitoring and user provisioning. By automating recurring or complex workflows, it enables faster, more consistent support, reduces user issues, and ensures uniform policy application.
SharePoint Admin Agent: Found in the SharePoint admin center, this agent uses AI-driven insights to monitor inactive or ownerless sites, overshared content, and permission sprawl. It can automatically apply remediations such as archiving or access adjustments, helping reduce operational overhead, optimise storage, and maintain strong governance as Microsoft Copilot adoption grows.
New Copilot Chat Value
Microsoft is making Copilot more accessible than ever, lowering the barrier to intelligent assistance across the organisation. By March 2026 (preview), users without a full Copilot license will benefit from these additional AI features in Copilot Chat:
Outlook: Copilot Chat will work across an entire inbox, calendar, and meetings - not just individual messages. Users can triage emails, schedule and prepare for meetings, and surface insights across their inbox to stay ahead.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint: Agent Mode will be available to all users. It helps automate multistep tasks, refine content, and use web data or referenced files to create high-quality documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot is becoming more accessible and capable, with major updates that bring advanced AI assistance to more users, lower barriers to entry, and make intelligent productivity the default across Office apps.
Dedicated Office Agents: New agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (via the Frontier program) allow users to generate high-quality content directly from Copilot Chat. Each agent handles multi-step reasoning and asks clarifying questions to tailor results:
Excel Agent: Converts data into charts, summaries, and insights for forecasts, plans, and decision-making.
Word Agent: Organises complex information into clear, structured documents, ideal for policies, reports, and plans.
PowerPoint Agent: Creates narrative-driven presentations using organisational context and branding.
Agent Mode Expands Across Office Apps: Agent Mode is now fully integrated in PowerPoint and enhanced in Excel and Word:
PowerPoint: Generate branded, structured slides, update existing decks, and insert tables, images, and content seamlessly.
Excel: Bring in external data, choose reasoning models (OpenAI or Anthropic), and automate calculations.
Word: Use Work IQ to automatically select contextually relevant sources, ensuring accurate, up-to-date documents.
Outlook Enhancements: Copilot in Outlook now works across the entire inbox, calendar, and meetings:
Interactive voice mode for hands-free email triage.
One-tap actions like summarising, triaging, and replying.
Schedule meetings through chat, complete with agendas, rooms, and invites.
Automatic conflict resolution for flexible events.
Work IQ Improvements: The intelligence layer behind Copilot, Work IQ, adds:
Conversational memory: Retains context across sessions for personalised, relevant responses.
SharePoint reasoning: Uses metadata and content understanding to deliver accurate, context-aware answers.
Voice and Copilot Notebooks:
Voice: Natural cross-app interaction, interruptible and seamless on mobile and desktop.
Notebooks: Live project insights, shared notebooks, video overviews, and AI-generated summaries for easier collaboration.
Copilot Pages, Sora 2, and SharePoint Creation
Copilot Pages: Turn ideas into interactive, embeddable content, convertible to PowerPoint.
Sora 2: AI-generated video creation inside Copilot Create with voiceover, music, and branding.
SharePoint: Create pages and lists directly via Copilot Chat using natural language prompts.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business: A new Copilot License designed specifically for organisations on Microsoft 365 Business plans with fewer than 300 users. Same Copilot capabilities. Lower barrier to entry. Friendlier price point. Launching at $21 per user per month. Read more here.
Power Platform & Copilot Studio
Microsoft Power Apps and Copilot Studio are introducing major updates to help makers build, manage, and govern enterprise-ready apps and agents more efficiently.
Unified Maker Workspace: A new AI-powered maker workspace (preview) combines planning, data modeling, and app building into a single intelligent canvas. Makers can generate multi-page, business-ready apps by chatting with Microsoft 365 Copilot and refining results with point-and-click editing. Design, data, and logic are connected in real time, reducing context switching and letting changes sync instantly.
Power Apps Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server: The MCP Server (preview) standardises communication between AI agents and app services. Agents can call app capabilities - approvals, forms, records, user input - without custom integrations. MCP also powers the updated agent feed, enabling richer experiences, task assignment, and agent performance metrics.
Copilot Chat in Model-Driven Apps: Starting 17th December, makers can preview unified Copilot Chat in model-driven apps. It carries context from productivity apps into business apps, reducing context switching and helping users get work done more efficiently.
Copilot Studio Enhancements: New features give makers and admins greater control and confidence:
Agent evaluations (preview): Automated tests provide objective metrics and version comparisons.
Computer use (preview): Hosted browsers and Cloud PC pools let agents automate tasks across apps and websites.
Real-time monitoring (GA): Integrate internal or third-party security tools to safeguard agent runs.
Microsoft Entra Agent ID: Unique IDs enable discovery, lifecycle governance, and enterprise access control.
File Creation and Context Access: Agents can now generate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files using natural language. Scoped access to Teams, calendar, directory, People, OneNote, and shared mailboxes ensures secure, context-rich interactions.
Dynamics 365
Microsoft is modernising how AI agents connect with ERP systems through the Dynamics 365 ERP MCP server and a new Analytics MCP server, both in preview. Together, they unify business logic, data, and AI under a common protocol - reducing integration complexity and speeding time to value.
Dynamic ERP MCP Server: The ERP MCP server evolves from a fixed toolset to a configurable framework. Actions and APIs can now be registered or updated without code rewrites, enabling faster automation of finance and supply chain processes, direct AI integration with live business logic, and adaptive system evolution while maintaining compliance.
Analytics MCP Server: This server brings model-context principles to reporting and analytics, giving agents governed access to ERP metrics, dimensions, and semantic models. Insights can surface directly in apps like Copilot, helping decision-makers act on trends and forecasts quickly.
These updates create a unified, agentic ERP layer - allowing systems to not only record transactions but analyse, act, and adapt continuously, connecting operational data with business performance management.
AI Security & Governance
Microsoft is adding new tools to help organisations secure, monitor, and govern AI agents and Microsoft 365 environments.
Microsoft Baseline Security Mode (GA): Baseline Security Mode lets IT and security teams apply recommended configurations across Microsoft 365 with a few clicks. Through a guided experience, teams can identify gaps, simulate changes, and deploy protections across Office, SharePoint, Teams, Microsoft Entra, and more - reducing risk from known vulnerabilities and building resilience against emerging threats with minimal disruption.
Agent Dashboard (Preview): The new Agent Dashboard provides centralised reporting on AI agent usage and adoption across the organisation. IT and leadership teams can track trends, adoption by group, and agent highlights, supporting governance and maximising impact.
Microsoft Purview Updates (Preview):
DLP for Copilot prompts: Protects sensitive data like credit card numbers or personal details by blocking AI agents from responding and using it for grounding.
Overshared link remediation: Identify and fix overshared links at scale in SharePoint to reduce exposure - part of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM).
AI Observability in DSPM: Full visibility into all agents, helping security teams proactively manage risk and ensure compliance.
These features help organisations deploy, monitor, and secure AI agents at scale - providing control, insight, and peace of mind.
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Microsoft Edge
Copilot Mode & AI
Microsoft Edge for Business is introducing Copilot Mode, turning the browser into a proactive, agentic assistant that securely combines web and organisational data. Key features include:
Agent Mode: Executes multistep workflows on IT-approved sites with user oversight and visual cues. Requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Copilot-inspired new tab: Unified search and chat with access to files and suggested Copilot prompts.
Daily Briefing: Highlights meetings, tasks, and priorities using Microsoft Graph and browser history.
Other AI enhancements:
Multitab reasoning across open tabs
Intelligent browser history for quick retrieval
YouTube video summarisation
All AI features respect existing data protection policies. Broader availability is expected in February.
Security, Governance, & Admin Controls
Edge for Business continues to strengthen enterprise-grade security and manageability:
Contractor & externally managed devices: Starting in January 2026, Microsoft Edge for Business will extend Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) protections beyond BYOD to include devices managed by other organisations. Admins can deploy a managed Edge browser profile on these externally‑controlled devices so that organisational data remains within the tenant boundary - even when the endpoint is managed by a third‑party.
Simplified browser management: Cross-platform policy enforcement across macOS, iOS, and Android; enterprise preview builds distributed within Stable Edge with rollback options.
Watermarking and protected clipboard: Visual overlays for sensitive content and controlled copy/paste boundaries to reduce risk without disrupting workflows.
These updates give IT teams control, flexibility, and security, while enabling AI-assisted productivity in a managed, enterprise-ready environment.
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Security
Microsoft Defender
Microsoft Defender now provides deeper integration across the cloud, AI, and agentic apps, giving organisations unified security visibility and proactive risk management. Key updates include:
Integration of Defender for Cloud & GitHub: Native integration with GitHub Advanced Security protects apps across the full lifecycle, from code to runtime, while Copilot Autofix and GitHub Copilot automatically generate suggested fixes, helping teams prioritise critical risks and accelerate remediation.
Serverless posture management in Defender for Cloud: Preview coverage for Azure Functions, Azure Web Apps, and AWS Lambda is coming in November (preview). IT teams will soon be able to gain visibility into serverless resources, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities.
AI agent protection: Unified posture management, risk reduction, and threat detection for AI agents across pro-code, low-code, and no-code platforms.
Unified cloud security: Consolidated dashboards bring posture management, threat protection, and asset inventories across Azure, AWS, and GCP into a single view, with role-based access control for compliance.
Predictive threat disruption: Includes Predictive Shielding, third-party attack disruption for AWS/Okta/Proofpoint, and a Threat-Hunting Agent to orchestrate hunting sessions with natural language queries.
Entra
Microsoft Entra is introducing secure access for AI agents, agentic workflows for identity and security teams, enhanced protections for employees using generative AI apps, and expanded passwordless authentication.
Entra Agent ID (preview): Assign unique, enterprise-managed identities to AI agents, enabling secure access, lifecycle governance, and full visibility across your organisation.
Register and manage AI agents with built-in identities automatically protected by organisational policies.
Govern agent identities and lifecycle with IT-defined guardrails.
Protect agent access to resources, block risky agents, and prevent access to malicious resources with conditional access and traffic inspection.
Supports agents developed in Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, Security Copilot, and via Agent Framework or SDKs.
AI-powered Security Copilot agents (preview):
Conditional Access Optimisation Agent: Ensures appropriate protections are applied to the right users.
Identity Risk Management Agent: Investigates and remediates risky users with AI insights.
App Lifecycle Management Agent: Automates discovery, onboarding, monitoring, and remediation of apps.
Access Review Agent: Streamlines user access and permission reviews with AI-powered recommendations.
Microsoft Entra Internet Access & AI (preview):
Real-time protection against prompt injection attacks across all AI apps.
Expanded visibility into network traffic to detect unsanctioned AI usage.
Network file filtering integrated with Microsoft Purview to block sensitive content sent to AI and SaaS apps.
New Entra ID features (preview):
Support for synced passkeys and passkey profiles for easier management.
Enhanced risk detection and remediation for faster response and improved SOC collaboration.
Secure self-service account recovery using Verified ID Face Check and government-issued ID.
These updates give organisations comprehensive identity and access control for the agentic AI era, combining automated governance with real-time protection for users, agents, and apps.
Intune
Microsoft Intune introduces new features, all in preview or coming soon, to help IT teams secure, manage, and recover endpoints more efficiently. Key updates include Security Copilot agents, admin controls, and expanded natural language support.
Security Copilot agents
Change Review Agent: Analyses change requests in context, checking for risks, conflicts, and compliance. Provides detailed insights and recommendations. Initially supports Multi-Admin Approval script requests.
Policy Configuration Agent: Accelerates policy creation by capturing intent from documents or natural language, mapping to recommended settings, and enabling review before deployment.
Device Offboarding Agent: Suggests devices for removal using activity signals and provides a simple offboarding workflow to strengthen security and efficiency.
Remote Windows recovery
Enables remote management of Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) at scale, allowing IT admins to recover devices remotely even if they cannot boot or the user is absent.
Admin controls and workflow enhancements
Centralised admin tasks: Prioritised task lists help IT teams act on critical items faster, simplifying management and accelerating vulnerability remediation.
Maintenance windows: Unified scheduling for updates reduces disruption and improves patch compliance (preview Jan 2026).
Controlled deployments: Pause and resume options reduce risk and prepare for future AI-driven automation (preview Jan 2026).
Copilot integration
Natural language exploration unlocks deeper Intune insights, including Autopilot, Endpoint Privilege Management, and Advanced Analytics.
Admins can query data, navigate custom views, create new groups, or update existing ones directly from Copilot results (generally available).
Microsoft Purview
Microsoft Purview introduces significant advancements to help organisations secure data, enforce compliance, and manage autonomous agents across Microsoft 365 and third-party platforms. Key updates include AI-powered posture management, agent observability, and expanded controls..
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
Centralised, AI-powered DSPM combines Microsoft Purview visibility with external signals and agentic activity, providing proactive insights into organisational data risk.
Helps simplify data security posture, stitch together customer scenarios, and improve policy hygiene.
Includes new Security Copilot agents:
Data Security Posture Agent: Discovers sensitive content, assesses posture gaps, and improves policy hygiene (preview).
Data Security Alert Triage Agent: Enables analysts to triage, prioritise, and remediate critical alerts, automating incident response (generally available).
Agent and AI security enhancements
Agent observability and posture management: DSPM inventories all agents, including third-party agents, and provides risk assessment, risk scoring, and guided remediation for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Foundry agents.
Extended Microsoft Purview protection: Established security and governance policies now extend to autonomous agents, allowing them to inherit the same protections and policies as human users (preview).
Insider Risk Management (IRM) for Agents: Dedicated analytics flag risky agent behaviors, enabling proactive investigation and policy enforcement. Supports prompt injection prevention, unsupervised access detection, and chained actions risk mitigation (preview).
Extended governance: Tools like Communication Compliance, Data Lifecycle Management, Audit, and eDiscovery now cover more agent interactions, ensuring secure retention and full accountability (generally available).
Data security and compliance capabilities
DLP, Information Protection, Insider Risk Management, and Data Security Investigations have been enhanced to cover Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and agentic interactions.
Real-time controls prevent sensitive data from being returned in AI-generated responses or used for grounding in Microsoft 365 and web services (preview).
Security Copilot
Twelve new Security Copilot agents are built into Microsoft Defender, Entra, Intune, and Purview, with 30+ partner agents providing end-to-end protection. They integrate into workflows to automate tasks, surface threat intelligence, and support identity, data, and endpoint security.
Capabilities:
SOC teams: Automate alert triage, prioritise threats, enable natural-language threat hunting, and accelerate response.
Identity teams (Entra): Manage risky users, optimise conditional access, and streamline access reviews.
Data security teams (Purview): Discover and remediate sensitive data exposure with proactive insights.
IT teams (Intune): Turn requirements into policies, assess changes, and identify devices for removal.
Interactive agent experience:
Scoped, focused chats tailored to each agent’s expertise.
Leverages Microsoft threat intelligence and unified Sentinel data for context-aware insights.
Microsoft 365 E5 Inclusion: To help security teams get started, Security Copilot is also now available to all Microsoft 365 E5 customers, providing immediate access to context-aware guidance and actionable insights.
Security for AI
A new dashboard in preview for CISOs and AI risk leaders, providing a single view of AI posture and risk across Microsoft Security solutions.
Unified observability: Aggregate risk signals from Defender, Purview, and Entra for complete AI asset visibility.
Consolidated AI risk profile: Connect security and data posture insights across configurations, data, models, and threats.
Accelerated risk mitigation: Receive AI-powered recommendations and Security Copilot guidance directly within Microsoft tools.
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Windows
Windows & AI Productivity
Windows continues to enhance productivity through native AI integration, Copilot features, and Cloud PC support.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) on Windows:
Standardised framework enabling AI agents to connect with apps and tools to automate tasks.
Agents can access apps through agent connectors registered in the on-device registry.
Users configure which apps can be accessed via a new agent connectors settings page.
Built-in Agent Connectors:
File Explorer connector: Secure access to local files; supports natural language search, metadata filtering, and image classification.
System Settings connector: Allows agents to modify complex device settings like Bluetooth, network, and more.
Agent Workspace (private preview): Isolated, auditable environment where agents interact with software in parallel with user activity, ensuring enterprise security and compliance.
Copilot & AI Features:
Ask Copilot via taskbar or Start menu for unified AI agent control.
File Explorer enhancements: hover or click files for AI insights.
Improved Windows search with Microsoft 365 federation for semantic search of local and cloud files.
Writing assistance and accessibility: fluid dictation, Narrator, Magnifier with advanced TTS.
Voice integration via “Hey Copilot” or Copilot key (Win+C).
Windows Security & Recovery
Windows strengthens enterprise security, recovery, and endpoint management.
Autopatch Update Readiness (preview):
Real-time insights: IT admins gain complete visibility into device readiness, seeing which devices are ready for updates or at risk.
Proactive management: Shifts from reactive troubleshooting to preventive maintenance, helping prevent update failures before they disrupt work.
Unified dashboard in Intune: Identify devices at risk, understand blockers like policy conflicts or missing telemetry, and remediate immediately.
Actionable guidance: Provides clear remediation steps and flags non-compliant devices early.
Predictable and transparent process: Makes update management across large device estates more manageable and less stressful.
Enhanced telemetry: Ensures devices report accurate signals to track readiness and maintain compliance efficiently.
Windows Recovery Enhancements:
Intune-managed recovery: Remote control of the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) for individual or groups of devices. IT teams can choose the right recovery tools and orchestrate endpoint recovery workflows. Intune enables them to deploy recovery scripts or initiate recovery actions directly on devices.
Point-in-Time Restore (PITR) lets users and IT quickly roll back a device to its exact state before a problem, restoring the OS, apps, settings, and files - no deep expertise needed.
Cloud Rebuild fully reinstalls Windows 11 on a malfunctioning PC, restoring reliability and, with Intune, Autopilot, Backup, and OneDrive, also brings back apps, data, and settings - minimising downtime.
Windows 365 & Azure Virtual Desktop
To help organisations stay ahead of evolving threats, Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop are introducing new security features that strengthen access controls and protect sensitive input.
External Identities: Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop now support external identities, allowing contractors, partners, or BYOD users to securely log into Cloud PCs or virtual machines. This expands collaboration opportunities while maintaining strong security, enabling organisations to safely extend access beyond their internal workforce. This capability is generally available.
Windows Cloud I/O Protection: This feature protects keyboard input and output on Cloud PCs, helping defend against keylogger malware and keystroke injection attacks. By securing data as it enters and leaves the device, IT teams can reduce the risk of credential theft and other input-based attacks. This feature is currently in preview.
Windows 365 Link: Expanding to more countries in 2026, Windows 365 Link gives users a simple, secure device purpose-built for connecting to Cloud PCs.
Windows 365 Reserve: A temporary Cloud PC solution ideal for device delays, incidents or short-term staff. Reserve Cloud PCs come pre-loaded with your apps, settings and Intune policies, letting users log in from any device while IT keeps tight control and can revoke access instantly.
Windows 365 Cloud Apps: Lets IT stream only the apps users need - not a full desktop. Great for reducing overhead and modernising VDI. Runs on shared Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs, streaming apps like Outlook, Word or custom line-of-business apps via Intune.
AI-enabled Cloud PCs: Enhanced Cloud PCs with built-in AI features, including smarter Windows Search that understands user intent and “Click to Do” actions that let users complete tasks directly from on-screen content without switching apps.
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Do any of these updates spark your curiosity?
If you’re interested in any of these exciting Microsoft updates and want to see how they can improve your organisation’s security, management, productivity, or overall efficiency, don’t hesitate to Get in touch! Our Microsoft experts are here to guide you through these new features and help you make the most out of them. Let’s work together to ensure your business is ahead of the curve!
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