Microsoft wants developers to build multi-agent systems and is laying the groundwork across its tools and supporting protocols that will make it happen.

At its Build conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella laid out the plan to help build what he called the open agentic web, where AI agents make decisions and carry out tasks.

Microsoft outlined broad support for Model Context Protocol, Google Cloud Agent2Agent and a new project called NLWeb. NLWeb is an open project that is akin to HTML for the agentic web and makes it possible to create a conversational interface with the model of their choice and their own data. Microsoft noted that every NLWeb endpoint is also an MCP server.

The company also rolled out pre-built agents, custom agent building blocks and multi-agent tools. These tools were available through Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft Entra Agent ID, which is in preview. Microsoft also rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning and multi-agent orchestration in Copilot Studio.

Microsoft's vision is that an agent built in Copilot Studio can pull CRM data, hand it off to an agent to build a proposal in Word, schedule meetings in Outlook. Microsoft obviously sees its own applications playing a big role in these agent AI workflows, but also working across multiple third party systems.

If the agentic AI vision behind Microsoft sounds familiar that's because there are multiple players looking to be the conductor of the AI agent orchestra. Hyperscale cloud providers (Google Cloud, AWS, Azure) want to help you build, deploy and manage agents as do SaaS platforms (Salesforce, ServiceNow and SAP) as well as integration platforms (Boomi) and systems integrators.

However, there's no doubt that Microsoft has a developer army behind it.

Microsoft outlined the following moves on the agentic AI front:

  • Microsoft is launching centralized agent identity management via Entra Agent ID. Security was also a focus for agent deployments across the portfolio. Copilot Studio will have security controls for every stage of agent creation and operation as well as privacy controls, safeguards and protections for sensitive data. According to Microsoft, Entra Agent ID will "tackle the AI agent sprawl problem by assigning a unique identifier to every agent in an environment."

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  • Copilot Studio will get support for multi-agent systems to delegate tasks to one another. That capability will cover agents built with Microsoft 365 agent builder, Azure AI Agents Service and Azure Fabric. Microsoft rolled out a series of toolkits and software development kits for agents.
  • MCP will be broadly supported across Microsoft's developer stack. Developers will be able to build agents for Teams using A2A protocol. Agents will be able to exchange messages, data and credentials without intermediaries. Teams will also be able to recall interactions to give agents more context.
  • The company launched Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning, which is a low-code way to train models and create agents, multi-agent orchestration and capabilities to build agents across Microsoft applications. Microsoft also outlined the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit to create and customize agents using the AI stack they want.
  • Microsoft introduced the concept of Agentic DevOps, which means agents automate and optimize software development at each step. This approach will be layered in GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Azure.
  • MCP will be supported on Windows 11 so agents and applications can use tools. Microsoft said MCP on Windows 11 will be in early preview to gather feedback from developers. Microsoft said it is building a security architecture for MCP capabilities.

Other nuggets worth noting from Microsoft's barrage of Build news includes:

  • Azure AI Foundry added Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models from xAI.
  • Azure AI Foundry now has more than 1,900 models.
  • Microsoft said developers can create AI agents with connections to Azure Databricks for real-time enterprise data processing.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 has new MCP servers in preview to make Dynamics 365 data and actions accessible for AI agents.
  • Windows AI Foundry launched to provide a unified platform for local AI development. Developers can bring their own models and deploy them across various platforms.
  • Post-quantum cryptography algorithms are now in preview.

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:

"Microsoft pushes boardly across it's offerings. It is likely the less developer-centric Build conference on record, but Microsoft has to infuse AI across its platforms, of course in Azure, its data layer with fabric, and don't forget Windows and Edge. This Build conference is dual push deeper into the data foundation of AI on the one side and into the AI delivery platforms. Of note is also that Build is not only all about AI, but quantum keys arrive on the 800 million Windows machines."

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Data to Decisions, Future of Work

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Chief Information Officer

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@Microsoft, AI agents, Generative AI (GenAI)