Microsoft launches new E7 suite to integrate AI agents, Work IQ

Microsoft launched a new suite for AI agents, Copilot Cowork in partnership with Anthropic and said Agent 365 will be available May 1. The moves are part of Microsoft's effort to differentiate in agentic AI with the context and trust layers.

The company is looking to address enterprise pain points with scaling AI agents while providing the security, compliance and observability to wrangle them.

For enterprises, Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 E7, which is a suite the builds frontier models and AI agents into one foundation. Microsoft 365 E7 includes everything in the Microsoft 365 E5 plan and adds M365 Copilot, Agent 365, and the Entra suite with Work IQ

The upgrade path for Microsoft 365 E7 will take time since E5 is a dominant plan that customers likely have under contract. As E5 plans expire, Microsoft customers will have E7 as an option and likely have more experience with AI agents.

• Microsoft CEO Nadella: AI efficiency drive on deck
• Microsoft launches Agent 365, a parade of AI agents at Ignite 2025
• Anthropic, Microsoft Azure, Nvidia ink $30 billion compute pact

According to Microsoft, E7 is priced at $99 per user.

Microsoft also announced Copilot Cowork, which is built with Anthropic and includes Claude to Microsoft 365. Copilot Cowork will be available on Microsoft's frontier program at the end of March. Microsoft's Copilot Cowork will be grounded by Work IQ.

In addition to the Copilot Cowork launch, Microsoft outlined the following:

• Agent 365 will be generally available May 1 with pricing listed April 1.
• Agent 365, which is designed as one place to observe, govern, manage and secure agents, is priced at $15 per user. In two months in preview, Microsoft said tens of millions of agents have been added to the Agent 365 Registry.
• Capabilities being added to Agent 365's public preview March 1 include Agent Registry, observability of behavior and performance, risk signals and security policy templates.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot will feature multiple models in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and M365 Copilot chat with OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure Foundry and custom AI agents available.

The importance of Work IQ

Microsoft launched Work IQ at its Microsoft Ignite 2025 conference as part of its unified intelligence layer. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said recently that Work IQ was part of a plan to differentiate with context and trust.

Microsoft's Work IQ does the following:

• Ingests Microsoft 365 signals from Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive files to identify relationships.
• Constructs a semantic graph linking work with people, projects and timelines.
• Builds a memory of how you work and with whom.
• Proactively suggests next steps, prompts and answers.
• Powers Copilot by helping it understand intent, create context and be relevant.
• Provides context to custom agents built in Copilot Studio automatically.

Microsoft said Work IQ will have more data sources to add context with more on deck with additional tools being added in public preview.

• Microsoft Q2 strong, Azure growth of 39%, OpenAI is 45% of RPO
• Constellation ShortList™ Agentic Platforms of the Enterprise

In a blog post, Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, said:

"Zero-shot artifact creation is nothing more than a parlor trick. Models can reason over data, produce draft documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, but they do not understand work. Real differentiation comes from intelligence—deep work context, embedded in the tools people already use."

In other words, Microsoft's bet is that its layer of productivity and work applications along with LinkedIn can provide a differentiated context graph to ground models and provide data on how work is actually done.