Microsoft Ignite 2025: Copilot, Agents & AI Security

Johannes Schild

4. December 2025

Reading time: 5 min

Microsoft Ignite 2025: Copilot, Agents & AI Security

evoila in San Francisco at Microsoft Ignite!

Microsoft Ignite 2025 demonstrated where modern IT is heading: away from isolated tools and toward a connected, AI-powered work platform. Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, and new governance and security concepts are changing the way organizations work, make decisions, and scale. Those who act now can secure strategic advantages.

Three colleagues from the evoila team were on site in San Francisco. Here is a summary of the most important updates.

On-Site Highlights: Community and Partners

In addition to exciting keynotes and sessions, our team experienced three particularly valuable moments:

Strategic discussions with partners: Together, we refined measures and plans for 2026. Initial implementation steps are already underway.
Warm-up dinner with the community: Spontaneously organized and very well attended. MVPs, partners and friends of the evoila community used the evening for open exchange.

Microsoft 365 Copilot: More Than an AI Chat

Copilot is evolving into a platform. The new generation is significantly more context-aware and productive.

Office Agents with Contextual Intelligence
Copilot now works directly in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Using the new “Agent Mode,” documents can be created and iteratively refined through natural language. The integration of Work IQ enables personalized suggestions based on internal content — including access to SharePoint metadata and organization-specific templates.

Voice & Multimodality
Users interact seamlessly with Copilot via voice input. New features such as Copilot Pages and video creation with Sora 2 expand the experience. Copilot becomes a true multimodality platform — from text to visual representations to fully generated videos.

Outlook with Smarter Assistance
One-tap prompts and voice control significantly simplify email and scheduling workflows. Meetings can be planned directly from the chat, appointments coordinated, or summaries sent automatically.

Copilot Business for SMBs
The new licensing model (USD 21/user/month, available from Dec 2025) targets organizations with up to 300 users. It includes features such as automatic email summaries, document drafts, and data analyses. Implementing Copilot Business means: no large projects, no custom development — instantly productive.

“Microsoft Ignite 2025 showed us that Copilot was just the beginning – agents are the future of work. It’s not the automation of tasks that transforms companies, but the automation of value creation.

When work flows, processes organize themselves, and decisions are prepared proactively, true innovative power emerges.”

Anastasios Ntaflos

Microsoft MVP for M365 and Microsoft Copilot Business Area Lead Modern Workplace, evoila Germany GmbH

Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Foundry IQ: The New Intelligence Layer

Microsoft is connecting data, context and semantic understanding:

Work IQ: Learns from work behavior, identifies preferences and provides relevant content — including Conversational Memory.
Fabric IQ: Builds a semantic enterprise model. Agents gain understanding of customer relationships, product hierarchies and more.
Foundry IQ: Enables agents to generate reliable answers from diverse data sources (Next-Gen RAG).

Agent 365: Governance for the Agent Era

With hundreds of AI agents emerging, organizations need control. Microsoft’s answer: Agent 365 — the new governance framework within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Central Management & Identities
All agents in the organization are visible through a dashboard — including shadow agents. With Entra Agent ID, they receive their own identities and access controls.

Monitoring & Security
Microsoft Defender protects against threats in real time. Visualizations show which agents are active and how they are being used.

Compliance & Access
With DLP, eDiscovery and policy control, companies can precisely define what an agent is allowed to do. Agents can be managed like users — including lifecycle, security, visibility and auditability.

“Microsoft Ignite showed that AI governance is no longer a side topic but a competitive factor. Whoever delivers an intuitive governance solution first will shape the market — Agent 365 sets the benchmark.”

Lars Göbel

Managing Director, evoila Germany GmbH

Autonomous Business Agents: Sales, People, Learning

Microsoft is introducing the first specialized agents:

Sales Development Agent: Researches, qualifies and contacts leads automatically — even outside business hours.
Workforce Insights Agent: Provides leaders with live data on staffing distribution, skills or departments.
People Agent: Finds suitable employees for projects based on skills.
Learning Agent: Delivers personalized microlearning recommendations.

Large organizations benefit especially through greater transparency, faster onboarding and proactive recommendations.

Foundry & Power Platform: Building AI Yourself

Foundry – the Dev Ecosystem for Agents

Tools, models and connectors centrally available
Agent workflows including multi-agent coordination
Model Router reduces latency and cost

Power Platform & Copilot Studio

Build apps via chat — with agent support
Integrate AI features into low-code environments
Built-in security and evaluation considerations

Result:
Whether developer or power user — anyone can build productive agents. No infrastructure hurdles.

Security in the Agentic Era

Entra Agent ID & Access Protection
Each agent receives a unique identity — with definable roles, permissions and security rules.

AI-Powered Defense
Security Copilot supports access reviews, risk analyses and app security checks. Unified Agent Posture Management visualizes the security status.

Data Control & DLP
Sensitive content is protected by Data Loss Prevention (DLP) — Copilot is blocked or restricted when necessary.

Threat Hunting & Multi-Cloud
Threat analyses via natural language input and federated threat detection (incl. AWS, Okta, Proofpoint).

For SMBs
Baseline Security Mode enables recommended security configurations with just a few clicks. The Agent Dashboard shows how actively AI is being used.

Conclusion: Three Key Takeaways

Copilot is a platform, not a tool. It fundamentally changes daily work — through agents, voice, video and context.
Governance is essential. Agent 365 delivers the framework needed to deploy AI securely and transparently.
No ROI without a data strategy. Organizations with structured data foundations gain the most from AI.

Start Your AI Journey Now

Do you want to introduce Microsoft 365 Copilot in your organization or establish agent governance? Contact us — we support you in analysis, rollout, adoption and training. Together, we shape your AI future securely and sustainably.