Microsoft Build 2026: Microsoft helps developers adopt agent AI

The company’s IT organization, Microsoft Digital, is evolving its approach to agent AI. What started as early experiments in AI-powered productivity has grown into a coordinated effort to deliver intelligent, scalable solutions across the enterprise.

As AI capabilities evolve, we saw an opportunity to move beyond improving individual productivity and do something more transformative: empowering developers to build intelligent agents that can automate workflows, streamline operations, and create new business value.

Making this vision a reality required more than new tools. We had to rethink how we drive development, manage innovation, and operate at scale.

“We’ve made great strides in empowering developers to build agents that power our productivity. We’re Customer Zero at Microsoft, which means we’re the first to deploy and use the technologies and services we later sell to our customers. These learnings give our developers a unique perspective and story to share about their journey with AI and agents.”

Brian Fielder, Microsoft Vice President of Digital

Today, we’re sharing the foundation we’ve built to support this change.

We’re inspiring employees across Microsoft to create and use AI agents, from simple, task-centric solutions to enterprise-grade applications available across the company. All of this is supported by a secure, managed, and extensible platform.

“We’ve made great strides in enabling developers to build agents that increase their productivity,” said Brian Fielder, vice president of Microsoft Digital, the company’s IT organization. “At Microsoft, we are customer zero, which means we are the first to deploy and use the technologies and services that we later sell to our customers. These learnings give us a unique perspective and story to share about our developers’ journeys with AI and agents.”

As Microsoft Build progresses, we’re sharing what it actually takes to make an impact from your experiments. Through this collection of stories and resources, we highlight how we enable developers to build with agent AI, from establishing governance and platform capabilities to accelerating adoption and delivering real-world outcomes. Our goal is to provide actionable insights you can use to accelerate your AI journey.

“We hope you find our journey practical and useful,” says Fielder. “When it comes to agents, we are rapidly accelerating and expanding at the enterprise level. Our story continues to evolve and we look forward to sharing it with you.”

Developer guidance: How to manage agent AI at Microsoft

These articles outline our vision for Agent AI, showing how we’re building a secure, managed, and extensible foundation for AI agents, from Work IQ and Copilot Studio to Agent 365, Azure DevOps, and Model Context Protocol, to help developers create scalable, high-value solutions across the enterprise.

In this preparation guide, we’ll share what we’ve learned about deploying AI agents at scale across Microsoft, including governance, implementation, deployment, support, and measurement.

Tackle agent governance with confidence with a guide that provides practical steps to empower your employees while maintaining security and compliance.

Future posts

Leverage intelligence: How Work IQ guide helps Microsoft 365 Copilot better understand how people work at Microsoft
Agent 365 deployment guide based on Microsoft experience
Agent Modernization: Securing Python at Scale for Agent AI at Microsoft

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These stories share the IT playbook for becoming a Frontier Firm, highlighting realistic paths to enterprise AI maturity through agent-driven transformation, operational scale, responsible innovation, and partnerships, and show how IT leaders can balance governance, modernization, and employee engagement while building AI-first organizations.

Microsoft Digital puts Microsoft on the path to becoming the frontier company of the future. Learn how we do it and how the same principles can support your own journey.

Working as an IT developer at Microsoft in the age of AI

These stories explore what it means to work at Microsoft Digital in the age of AI, showing how developers and knowledge workers are reimagining engineering, the employee experience, and the growth of their careers through AI-powered tools, new ways of working, and personal journeys that reflect Microsoft’s evolving IT culture.

As Microsoft transforms into a frontier company, we asked our employees what it takes to succeed at Microsoft Digital, our IT organization.

Important points

Our efforts to enable agent AI across Microsoft Digital have revealed several key principles to help organizations move from experimentation to scalable enterprise-wide impact.

Treat your organization as customer zero. First use your unique AI capabilities to generate real-world insights, validate scenarios, and build trust before scaling for your customers.
Build a foundation for scale. Establish a secure, managed, and extensible platform that enables developers to create AI agents from simple solutions to enterprise-grade applications.
Empower developers to drive change. Take productivity gains further by empowering developers to build intelligent agents that automate workflows and unlock new business value.
Align governance and innovation. Rethink how you enable development, manage AI, and operate at scale to balance flexibility and responsible use.
Connect tools, platforms, and workflows. Integrate AI capabilities across your ecosystem and link platforms, governance models, and development tools to support consistent and scalable adoption.
Turn experiments into impact. Focus on turning early AI exploration into a coordinated, enterprise-wide effort that delivers measurable outcomes.