As AI governance concerns stall enterprise adoption, Microsoft is preparing to integrate its Agent 365 agent control plane with the next-generation Microsoft 365 suite for a fee.
Microsoft first previewed Agent 365’s integration with other products, including the Microsoft Foundry development platform, at November’s Ignite conference. Agent 365 serves as an enterprise AI control plane that includes AI agents built by Microsoft partners and connects to enterprise data through Microsoft Foundry IQ, Fabric IQ, and Work IQ.
This week, Microsoft announced a May 1 shipping date for Agent 365, a standalone price of $15 per user per month, and new features scheduled to begin public preview on the same day. These features include Entra ID for identity management, as well as integration with Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. This is a move similar to recent updates to AI agent platforms by competitors such as ServiceNow, as concerns about rogue AI agents grow among enterprises.
“These capabilities are smart enhancements from Microsoft that were desperately needed by organizations building on Copilot Agent,” said Forrester Research analyst Will McKeon-White. “This allows organizations to maintain an effective inventory of Microsoft agents, providing better access control and a slightly stronger layer of governance.”
Gartner: Agent 365 is a costly “work in progress”
Microsoft has revealed details about certain AI governance features that will be released in preview for the next two months. Defender assesses the risk of AI agent compromise and provides data security posture management and data loss prevention. According to a Microsoft blog post, the Purview integration manages the security posture of Foundry and Copilot Studio agents and assesses insider risk through detection, investigation, and response. New runtime threat protection, investigation, and hunting with Agent 365 through Microsoft Purview will enter public preview in April.
However, a Gartner First Take report published and sent to the press on March 9 says this is a work in progress with unfinished features, limited automation, and unanswered questions.
“Many features are incomplete or modify metrics available in other admin centers and dashboards,” the report states. “Agent 365 displays alerts (such as dangerous agents), but administrators must manually act on the alerts. This may work for a small number of agents, but at scale, automation or agent automation capabilities such as Guardian Agents are required.”
Another industry analyst questioned whether the “guardian agent” concept would be the ultimate solution to AI governance concerns.
“I think the risk increases exponentially when you have an agent monitoring another agent or remediating another agent. You’re going to have to shift the risk to the left,” said Matthew Flug, an analyst at IDC. “This will be the way you build agents on these platforms. You have to use the platform to build agents, and there will be governance before deployment.”
However, Gartner’s report also highlights a gap in agent coverage for Entra-based agent IDs in Agent 365, at least so far.
Gartner believes that Agent 365 does not have enough new or proprietary features to justify its current price, but this may change as the product matures.
gartnerFirst Take Report for Microsoft Agent 365
“There is no way to retroactively assign agent IDs to agents that were created before Entra ID agent registration was available,” the report states. “Unless rewritten, these agents will be unmanaged and not subject to Agent 365 policies. Some third-party providers are also likely to avoid outsourcing agent security to Microsoft, and if integration with the Agent 365 SDK is not an option, these agents will remain unmanaged by Agent 365.”
Ultimately, according to Gartner’s report, “Agent 365 functions more like a work in progress than a single, well-defined product.” “It is an evolving bundle of Microsoft features that comes at a premium cost. We don’t believe there are enough new or exclusive features to justify the current price point, but this may change as the product matures.”
Microsoft did not comment specifically on Gartner’s report, but a spokesperson pointed to a note in the report stating that Gartner analysts will continue to re-evaluate products as they develop.
Microsoft 365 E7 price hike
The upcoming integration of Agent 365 with the Microsoft 365 E7 productivity suite, also scheduled to ship on May 1st, drew particularly harsh criticism from Gartner and others. Microsoft 365 E7 bundles Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, Microsoft Entra Suite, and new Defender, Entra, Intune, and Purview security features with Microsoft 365 E5 and retails for $99 per user per month. This is an increase of $39 per user per month compared to the previous E5 version.
Another Gartner First Take report this week also noted that volume discounts were not as generous in E7 as in previous versions. E7 offers a 13.2% discount compared to purchasing the components individually, while E3 and E5 offer discounts of 14.5% and 16.4%, respectively. The report encouraged CIOs to use E7’s price as leverage in negotiations with Microsoft.
According to Gartner’s second report, “Organizations that have already licensed ME5 should seek discounts for ME7 that reflect lost volume band pricing, current discounts on Microsoft 365 products, the size of their commitment to Microsoft Copilot, the percentage of users who truly need Agent 365, and the risk of licensing Agent 365 early.”
Forrester’s McKeon-White said he agrees that the pricing is “frankly a little too high.” We’ll wait for the details of the actual deal, but for everyone to be able to fully participate in E7 with peace of mind, it will need to encompass all potential credit spend. [in my organization]. ”
Beth Pariseau, senior news writer at Informa TechTarget, is an award-winning IT journalism veteran. Any tips? send an email to her.
