Agent 365: Unified Control Plane for AI Agent Management - Microsoft Ignite 2025

The Agent Management Crisis

Organizations are embracing AI agents at breakneck speed. Marketing deploys agents to personalize campaigns. Finance builds agents to process invoices. HR creates agents to screen candidates. Customer service launches agents to handle tickets. IT develops agents to automate infrastructure management.

Six months later, reality hits:

• Shadow agents proliferate: No one knows how many agents exist, what they do, or who owns them
• Security gaps emerge: Agents created with ad-hoc credentials, bypassing authentication policies
• Compliance failures: Auditors ask "What did your agents do?" and no one has logs
• Integration nightmares: Each agent uses different methods to access Microsoft 365 data—email, calendars, SharePoint, Teams
• Performance mysteries: Users complain agents are slow, but there's no observability to diagnose why
• Collaboration chaos: Agents can't work together—they're siloed, duplicating effort and creating inconsistencies

This is the agent sprawl problem—and it's what Agent 365 solves by providing a unified control plane for agent lifecycle management, security, and governance.

Agent 365: The Unified Control Plane

Agent 365 is Microsoft's comprehensive platform for building, managing, and governing AI agents that integrate with Microsoft 365. Think of it as "Azure AD for AI agents"—but much more: identity + observability + security + integration + governance.

Core Agent 365 Capabilities

Microsoft Agent Framework and Agent 365 SDK

Building agents that integrate with Agent 365 is straightforward using the Microsoft Agent Framework and Agent 365 SDK.

Microsoft Agent Framework: The Foundation

The Microsoft Agent Framework provides the building blocks for creating enterprise-grade agents:

• Agent templates: Pre-built patterns for common scenarios (data analysis agent, workflow automation agent, customer service agent)
• Prompt management: Version control and testing frameworks for agent prompts
• Tool integration: Standardized interfaces for agents to invoke tools (APIs, databases, external services)
• State management: Handle multi-turn conversations and long-running workflows
• Error handling: Built-in retry logic, fallback mechanisms, and graceful degradation
• Testing infrastructure: Validate agent behavior before deployment

Agent 365 SDK: Instrumentation and Integration

The Agent 365 SDK is the bridge between your agent and the Agent 365 control plane. Key capabilities:

Building Your First Agent 365 Agent

Here's a simplified workflow for creating an agent with Agent 365 integration:

# 1. Install Agent 365 SDK
npm install @microsoft/agent365-sdk

# 2. Create agent blueprint (defines identity, permissions, capabilities)
agent365 blueprint create --name "MeetingPrepAgent" \
  --description "Prepares meeting briefs from emails and calendar" \
  --permissions "Mail.Read,Calendars.Read,Files.Read.All"

# 3. Implement agent logic with SDK
import { Agent365Client, AgentIdentity } from '@microsoft/agent365-sdk';

const agent = new Agent365Client({
  identity: AgentIdentity.fromManagedIdentity(),
  telemetry: { enableDetailedLogging: true }
});

// Agent logic: Read upcoming meetings, gather context
async function prepareMeetingBrief(meetingId) {
  agent.logDecision('Starting meeting prep', { meetingId });

  // Access calendar via Agent 365 SDK
  const meeting = await agent.calendar.getMeeting(meetingId);

  // Access emails related to meeting participants
  const emails = await agent.mail.search({
    participants: meeting.attendees,
    dateRange: 'last30days'
  });

  // Generate brief using AI
  const brief = await generateBrief(meeting, emails);

  // Store brief in SharePoint
  await agent.sharepoint.uploadFile(brief, `/MeetingBriefs/${meetingId}.md`);

  agent.logDecision('Meeting prep completed', { meetingId, briefLength: brief.length });
}

# 4. Test agent locally with validation
agent365 test --agent MeetingPrepAgent --scenario meeting-prep-test.json

# 5. Deploy to Agent 365
agent365 deploy --agent MeetingPrepAgent --environment production

# 6. Monitor via Agent 365 dashboard
agent365 monitor --agent MeetingPrepAgent --live

Once deployed, the agent appears in the Agent 365 dashboard with full observability, security monitoring via Defender, and data governance via Purview.

Real-World Success: Telstra's Meeting Prep Agent

The BRK305 session showcased Telstra's Meeting Prep Agent—a production system built with Agent 365 that automates meeting preparation for thousands of employees.

The Business Problem

Telstra employees spend 45-60 minutes preparing for important meetings: reviewing past communications with attendees, researching their organizations, gathering relevant documents, and identifying key discussion topics. For executives with 15-20 meetings per week, this is 10-15 hours of preparation time.

The Agent 365 Solution

Telstra built a Meeting Prep Agent that automatically generates meeting briefs:

1. Trigger: Agent monitors user calendars via Agent 365 SDK. When a meeting is scheduled 24 hours in advance, agent activates.
2. Context gathering:
   • Retrieves email threads with meeting participants (last 90 days)
   • Searches SharePoint for relevant documents (proposals, contracts, presentations)
   • Queries CRM for customer history and open opportunities
   • Analyzes previous meeting notes from OneNote
3. Brief generation: AI synthesizes information into structured brief:
   • Participant backgrounds and relationships
   • Recent communication summary
   • Key discussion topics and action items
   • Relevant documents and where to find them
   • Suggested talking points
4. Delivery: Brief posted to Teams meeting chat and emailed to organizer
5. Observability: Every agent action logged in Agent 365 dashboard—Telstra IT can track which meetings were prepped, average prep time, user satisfaction

Results

Agent 365 Benefits for Telstra

• Security: Agent authenticated via Entra managed identity—no shared credentials. Conditional access enforced (agent only accesses data user could access).
• Compliance: Every data access logged for audit. Purview data governance ensures agent doesn't access restricted information.
• Observability: Dashboard shows agent performance—3,200 briefs generated per week, 97.3% success rate, average generation time 18 seconds.
• Integration simplicity: Agent 365 SDK handled all Microsoft 365 authentication, rate limiting, and API complexity. Development time: 6 weeks (vs. 6 months estimated for custom integration).
• Scalability: Agent scales automatically via Azure—handles meeting prep for 15,000+ employees without performance degradation.

Technical Demonstrations: Agent 365 in Action

The BRK305 session included live demonstrations showcasing key Agent 365 capabilities:

Demo 1: Agent Blueprint Creation and Deployment

Demonstrated the complete workflow for registering an agent with Agent 365:

1. Create blueprint: Define agent metadata (name, description, owner, purpose)
2. Specify permissions: Declare required Microsoft 365 API scopes (e.g., Mail.Read, Calendars.ReadWrite)
3. Configure identity: Register agent in Entra, assign managed identity
4. Set governance policies: Define data access constraints (e.g., "only access data from sales department")
5. Deploy via CLI: Single command pushes agent to Agent 365 registry
6. Validation: Agent 365 automatically tests identity, permissions, and compliance before activation

Demo 2: Real-Time Observability Dashboard

Showed the Agent 365 unified dashboard with live agent telemetry:

• Agent inventory: List of all registered agents (95 total, 87 active, 8 dormant)
• Activity timeline: Real-time stream of agent actions (email sent by SupportAgent, calendar read by SchedulerAgent, file uploaded by ReportAgent)
• Performance metrics: Average decision time, API latency, success rates per agent
• Security alerts: Defender flagged one agent for unusual data access pattern—investigation showed legitimate but unexpected use case
• Compliance status: Purview integration shows data governance compliance per agent (all green)
• Cost tracking: Azure consumption per agent (helps optimize expensive agents)

Demo 3: Multi-Agent Collaboration

Demonstrated how agents discover and collaborate via Agent 365:

This orchestration happened automatically—no custom integration code. Agent 365 handled authentication (each agent verified the other's identity), authorization (agents only invoked permitted operations), and observability (full audit trail).

Expanded Interoperability: Beyond Microsoft 365

While Agent 365 excels at Microsoft 365 integration, it's not limited to Microsoft ecosystems. The platform supports hybrid and multi-platform scenarios:

Managed Connectivity to Non-Microsoft Platforms

• Salesforce: Agent 365 SDK provides connectors for CRM data (leads, opportunities, accounts)
• ServiceNow: Access and update tickets, manage incidents
• SAP: Read ERP data for agent workflows (inventory, orders, financial records)
• Google Workspace: Agents can access Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar
• Slack: Post messages, monitor channels, respond to mentions
• Custom APIs: Agent 365 SDK includes HTTP client with authentication, retry logic, and telemetry

Key benefit: All external integrations inherit Agent 365 observability and security. Even when agents call Salesforce or SAP, those actions are logged, monitored, and governed by Agent 365.

Agent Collaboration Across Platforms

Agent 365 enables cross-platform agent collaboration. An agent built with Google Vertex AI can register in Agent 365 registry, authenticate via Entra, and collaborate with Microsoft-native agents—all with proper security and governance.

Implementation Roadmap: Deploying Agent 365

Ready to establish unified agent governance with Agent 365? Here's how Technspire guides Swedish organizations through implementation:

Why This Matters for Swedish Organizations

Sweden's organizations are leaders in AI adoption—but without governance, agent sprawl creates risk. Agent 365 addresses critical Swedish concerns:

• GDPR compliance: Agent 365 + Purview ensures agents respect data sovereignty, access controls, and privacy rights. Full audit trails for regulatory inquiries.
• NIS2 critical infrastructure: Energy, healthcare, finance, transport—Agent 365 provides security monitoring (Defender integration) and incident response capabilities required by NIS2.
• EU AI Act readiness: Agent 365 observability supports AI Act requirements for transparency, explainability, and human oversight. Decision logs prove compliance.
• Resource efficiency: Smaller Swedish IT teams can manage large agent fleets when Agent 365 provides centralized control—no custom monitoring infrastructure required.
• Public sector trust: Government and municipal organizations demand demonstrable agent governance—Agent 365 provides audit-ready evidence.
• Multi-vendor ecosystems: Swedish organizations often use best-of-breed tools (SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft, local platforms)—Agent 365 integrates across all of them.

The future of enterprise AI is multi-agent ecosystems—dozens of specialized agents collaborating across business processes. Agent 365 transforms this vision from governance nightmare into managed reality. By providing unified discovery, security, observability, and integration, Agent 365 enables organizations to scale AI agents confidently, knowing every agent is governed, monitored, and compliant. For Swedish organizations navigating GDPR, NIS2, and AI Act requirements while innovating with AI, Agent 365 is the foundation for responsible, scalable agent deployment.