November 18, 2025
BlogMicrosoft Ignite 2025: Ten Things You Need to Know
Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference for IT professionals, developers and partners, is kicking off this week in San Francisco. CEO Satya Nadella is not the lead keynoter this year; instead, the newly minted CEO of Microsoft’s Commercial business, Judson Althoff, is doing the honors. (Nadella is busy extolling the virtues of Microsoft’s sprawling network of “fungible fleets” in its new AI superfactories.)
To no one’s surprise, this year’s Ignite will focus on all things AI-related — and especially agent-related.
Microsoft announced ahead of the start of Ignite on Nov. 18 that it is adding Anthropic’s models to Microsoft Foundry (the rebranded Azure Foundry), giving the company bragging rights to being “the only cloud providing access to both Claude and GPT frontier models to customers on one platform.” Microsoft execs said they will provide access to Claude across Microsoft’s Copilot family, including GitHub Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Copilot Studio. Microsoft committed to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic; Anthropic committed to purchase $30 billion in Azure compute capacity from Microsoft.
Directions‘ Top Ten Ignite Picks
Here are our picks for the top 10 announcements that could impact enterprise customers and partners moving forward into 2026. In no particular order:
1. The Agent 365 control plane: Microsoft inadvertently published some information about Agent 365 a week ago. As anticipated, this “control plane” is all about making autonomous agents more centrally manageable and secure by treating them more like user accounts. Agent 365 includes the Agent SDK, which is required to build Agent 365-aware agents and publish them to the Agent Store. These Agent 365-aware agents will integrate with Microsoft security controls, policies, compliance capabilities and Office apps without needing custom integrations, Microsoft says. The Entra Agent ID piece is available in the Microsoft 365 admin center for those in the “Frontier” early-access program. We’ve asked Microsoft about any additional licensing and pricing required for Agent 365, but no word back so far.
2. Work IQ links agents to work data: Microsoft has been working on adding AI smarts to its Office apps since 2021, if not before, under the “Context IQ” program. Work IQ looks to be either a rebrand or an evolution of Microsoft’s Context IQ technology. Like Context IQ, Work IQ is a layer that connects to organizational and personal data such as files, emails, meetings, etc. and can “build memory” based on users’ preferences, habits and workflows. As Context IQ is already part of the Microsoft 365 stack, Work IQ already is built in, as well. But now developers can access Work IQ to build agents via APIs.
3. Even more IQ madness — Fabric IQ and Foundry IQ: There are other “IQ” branded layers in the Microsoft AI stack that are meant to help agents understand what users are doing, where to find information, and what the business data means. Fabric IQ, now in preview, extends the unified semantic layer already provided in Power BI across 20 million models to business operations, Microsoft says. Foundry IQ, also in preview, is built on top of Azure AI Search and is meant to be the “next generation of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG),” according to the company, providing a way to connect agents with data from a single knowledge base.
To understand why these IQ pieces matters at a higher level, Directions analyst Barry Briggs recently blogged about why a semantic layer is so crucial to making AI useful.
4. Microsoft 365 E5 users get Security Copilot: Security Copilot will be included for all Microsoft 365 E5 customers. Eligible E5 customers will get 400 Security Compute Units (SCUs) per month for every 1,000 licensed users (US$1,600 in value), up to 10,000 SCUs per month (US$40,000 in value, with 25,000 E5-licensed users). If you need more, it’ll be $6 per SCU on a Pay-As-You-Go basis.) Microsoft will begin offering this bundle starting today for existing E5 customers who already have Security Copilot and for all other E5 customers “in the upcoming months.” Security Copilot will continue to be available for customers without E5 separately.
5. “Agent Factory” plan bundles Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio: As Microsoft has continued to add more “pro” capabilities to its Copilot Studio agent-building platform, it’s also been building out agent creation and management features in Microsoft Foundry. It is introducing a new “metered” Agent Factory plan that will allow developers to build and manage agents in Foundry and/or Copilot Studio and deploy their agents anywhere, including Microsoft 365 Copilot. We’ve asked for more details on how this new plan will be licensed and priced, but no word back so far. Update (Nov. 18): A Microsoft spokesperson said the company had “no comment”nothing to share” on how the new metered plan will be priced/licensed or if it will be required for developers who want to tie into Work/Fabric/Foundry IQ
6. A cheaper Microsoft 365 Copilot plan for SMBs: Microsoft quietly has been offering some hefty volume discounts to its largest customers interested in Microsoft 365 Copilot, priced at $30 per user per month. Starting in Dec. 2025, it also will offer a monthly $21 per user option for customers with fewer than 300 users. The new plan is called Microsoft 365 Copilot Business.
7. New Dedicated Word, Excel, PowerPoint agents: Microsoft 365 Copilot will feature dedicated Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents — first available through the Frontier test program — that can create Office content directly from Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. If you’re confused about the difference between the existing Office Agent, these new single-app agents and the existing “Agent Modes” in various Office apps, join the club. We’ve asked Microsoft to explain what’s what. No word back so far.
8. Windows 365 to become an agent destination: Windows 365 for Agents will allow developers to build and deploy agents that can do things like open apps, process data and automate tasks on Cloud PCs. Developers can access Copilot Studio in Windows or the Researcher agent in Linux in their secure Cloud PCs. Developers interested in trying out Windows 365 for Agents can join a waiting list.
9. SQL Server 2025 is GA: The latest version of SQL Server, which Microsoft calls “the AI-ready enterprise database,” is now generally available. This release provides advanced semantic search and improved natural-language access. It also features updated identity and encryption integration, GitHub Copilot integration, and support for database mirroring in Fabric. Microsoft says the 2025 release is the most significant SQL Server release in a decade for developers. In other database news, Microsoft says Azure DocumentDB (at one point called “Azure Cosmos DB:) is now GA and and Azure HorizonDB, a new PostgreSQL cloud database service for building or modernizing mission-critical apps, is now in private preview
10. Windows as an “agentic OS”: Because no Microsoft product can advance without an AI story, Windows 11 is in the process of becoming an “agentic OS” — much to the opposition of many long-time Windows loyalists. Microsoft is adding its own agents and an “Ask Copilot” link to the Windows taskbar to try to increase Copilot usage. It’s also building in agent connectors (like a File Explorer and Windows Settings connector); and testing in private preview an Agent workspace where agents can interact with software in an isolated, policy-controlled, auditable environment. Model Context Protocol (MCP) support in Windows 11, in preview, will let agents to access those connectors to complete tasks for users.
