What’s New and Why It Matters: key themes from the keynote at Microsoft Ignite 2025
For the past decade, Ignite has been Microsoft’s big stage for sharing what’s next in productivity. This year? No surprises—it’s all about AI. But not just any AI. We’re moving from AI that helps (think Copilot) to AI that acts. Yep, autonomous agents are coming to the workplace.
AI that gets stuff done!
Most of us know Copilot as the handy assistant that helps with writing, summarising, and pulling info together. Now imagine AI that doesn’t just assist—it takes action. These new “Agents” can dig into our files, emails, and meetings to understand the context and actually complete tasks for you. Think compliance checks, onboarding workflows, or even personalised sales processes—all automated. Picture it: it will be able to update your forms and spreadsheets FOR YOU!
The best part? Microsoft also gives YOU the ability to create and deploy these Agents – and some pretty thick icing on the cake: Agent Mode will be included with Microsoft 365 at no extra cost. Even if you don’t have a Copilot licence, you’ll still get access. Huge!
Why this changes everything…
“To really make the most of these agents, we’ll need to shift how we work. It’s not just about using a new tool—it’s about teaming up with AI like it’s a colleague. That’s going to change processes, habits, and maybe even job roles…”
Office Agent in Word and Excel
Watch this little demo video we made. The objective: use Agent Mode in Word to update a template using information from an email we received. You’ll see that the email (shown at the end) is not explicitly set out in the same way as the template – so Copilot understands the source information and decides how it fits into the template, then puts the information directly into the document for us.
Keeping it safe: Enter Agent 365
Of course, more AI means more governance. Microsoft’s answer? Agent 365—a central hub for managing your AI workforce, just like you manage human users today. With so many people already experimenting with unapproved AI tools, this is a big deal for keeping things secure and compliant.
The AI Agent era is here. Are you ready to work alongside an AI teammate? Or maybe you already are?
P.S. there was even Kiwi representation in the Ignite keynote ( we see you Scott Woodgate, General Manager Threat Protection Product Marketing at Microsoft)?!
Want to find out more from Ignite? Here’s our favourites….
Work IQ—the intelligence layer that enables Microsoft 365 Copilot to know you, your job, and your company inside and out.
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents in chat—alongside Agent Mode in the Office apps—enable you to work iteratively with Copilot to deliver high-quality Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Agent 365—the control plane for agents—enables you to manage and secure agents with confidence.
The Copilot + SharePoint advantage – Copilot can reason over metadata in SharePoint, help with page and site creation and Agents can simplify SharePoint admin.
