We have reached a pivotal point in the development of workplace AI. AI experimentation is no longer the primary goal for many customers; instead they are focused on how to deploy it securely, govern it, and connect it to measurable business outcomes. What differentiates AI execution at scale is the ability to combine AI intelligence with trust – ensuring your AI is grounded in organizational data, operates on a secure foundation, and provides full visibility into agent performance.

This combination has historically been difficult to deliver. Agents proliferate faster than governance frameworks can keep up, pressuring IT teams to approve deployments they cannot fully observe. Developer-built agents stall at the door because trust has to be negotiated customer by customer, tenant by tenant. These are infrastructure gaps that Microsoft 365 E7, the Frontier Suite, is designed to help close.

Intelligence and trust combined in one platform

Microsoft 365 E7 is designed for the human-led, agent-operated enterprise, where AI is not a layer on top of work but woven into how work gets done. Microsoft 365 E7 is a milestone moment because it offers a single solution that incorporates:

Microsoft 365 E5 for enterprise security and compliance
Microsoft Entra Suite for identity and access control
Microsoft 365 Copilot for AI in the flow of work
Microsoft Agent 365 to govern and scale agents

Each component is grounded in contextual understanding from Work IQ and built with the secure infrastructure that makes it all trustworthy.

At a surface level, Microsoft 365 E7 gives IT and security leaders a single place to observe, manage, and secure agents using the same Defender, Entra, and Purview infrastructure they already rely on to manage user security across their network. The more significant effect, though, is structural. Every enterprise that deploys Agent 365 establishes a shared governance foundation—a trust layer that agents, whether built by Microsoft, by partners, or by customers themselves, can operate within. Put simply, Agent 365 creates the conditions under which agents can be trusted.

“Agents are becoming a managed workforce. With Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, we build them; with Agent 365 we govern them. That combination will give us the observability, security and control to scale transformation and innovation—not as a set of pilots, but as an enterprise operating model.”

—Mark Luquire, Managing Director, EY

For partners, Microsoft 365 E7 and Agent 365 create a new category of opportunity that spans the full customer lifecycle, from advisory through ongoing managed services. Microsoft 365 E7 solves both the productivity and governance challenge in a single platform, while Agent Factory provides partners with the tooling to customize it for any industry or workflow.

Microsoft 365 E7 and Agent 365 will be generally available on May 1, 2026.

Building agents that are secure at the platform level

Agent Factory is the build layer for software developers, while Agent 365 is what makes the agents created distributable at enterprise scale. It also reframes a critical barrier to enterprise agent adoption: trust. Previously, getting an agent into an enterprise tenant required a bespoke negotiation with each customer’s IT team, including security review, compliance assessment, and governance alignment.

Agent 365 changes that equation at the platform level. When an enterprise deploys Agent 365, it establishes a trust architecture that partner-built agents can operate within from day one. Using the Agent 365 SDK, developers can make their agents governable, secure, and manageable inside Microsoft customer tenants before the first enterprise conversation begins. Admins govern Microsoft-built and partner-built agents through the same unified control plane, so your agents arrive in the enterprise already ready to be cleared for deployment.

"Agent 365 sets a new standard for enterprise AI by embedding governance at the core of intelligent automation. We're proud to be early adopters, building our Human Success agent on Agent 365 to help businesses measure organizational performance, engagement, and skill development in real-time."

—Andrew Roberts, Chief Product Officer, Zensai

Guide the end-to-end journey from AI advisory to AgentOps

The design work of translating business priorities into an agent roadmap is what positions partners as transformation architects rather than implementation vendors.

For system integrators, Agent 365 changes the shape of the engagement model: it creates a governance infrastructure that, once established, will need to be operated. This creates high-value opportunities to serve in an AI advisory capacity, helping IT and business leaders align on high-value agent scenarios, sequence investments intelligently, and chart a clear path from pilots to production.

There are further opportunities within deployment and adoption around standing up Copilot and agents with the right guardrails across identity, data, security, and compliance, using the same infrastructure enterprise IT already trusts. Partners who can architect deployments that combine Microsoft 365 Copilot with Agent 365, pairing simpler task-specific agents with longer-running agentic workflows like Copilot Cowork, will be positioned to demonstrate cost efficiencies at scale that justify the platform investment. That advisory capability, translating licensing decisions into architecture decisions, is where the highest-value system integrator engagements will be won.

The most durable opportunity, however, comes after deployment. IDC projects 1.3 billion agents in circulation by 2028, and as agents grow in number, scope, and complexity, AgentOps managed services have become a durable and expanding practice area. The partners who invest in this capability now are who customers will call when their agentic workforce becomes complex.

"Agent 365 helps organizations explore new ways of working, combining human direction with agent‑led execution at scale. As a launch partner, LTM looks forward to collaborating with enterprises to redesign processes, support employees with intelligent agents, and drive incremental improvements in productivity and agility."

—Rahul Koorichh, VP, Strategic Partnerships, LTM

The foundation is in place, so now the real work begins

The shift that Agent 365 enables—from trust as a per-deployment negotiation to trust as a shared platform capability—is a change that looks incremental until you see what it unlocks. For system integrators, it creates a governance practice that grows with every customer’s agent fleet. For software developers, it removes a barrier that has historically kept well-built agents out of the enterprises that need them most.

Microsoft 365 E7 establishes the platform. Software developers build the agents that run on it. System integrators build the practices that govern and grow it. Together, that ecosystem is how Frontier transformation moves from concept to reality, and the partners who move now will define the evolution of this platform. Let’s build something great together!

Next steps

Read the blogs regarding the March 9 announcements fromJudson Althoff, CEO, Microsoft commercial business,Jared Spataro, Chief Marketing Officer, AI at Work,Vasu Jakkal, CVP, Microsoft Security, andNicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and CVP, Global Channel Partner Sales.
Watch the archivedFrontier Transformation digital event.
Visit theFrontier Transformation Partner GTM page for customer-facing resources and GTM guidance.
Visit theCopilot Partner Directory andAgent Showcase pages to see the growing network of Copilot and Agents partners driving Frontier transformations.

How system integrators and developers win with Microsoft 365 E7 and Agent 365