From Idea to Deployment: The Complete AI Lifecycle at Microsoft Ignite 2025

AI is not something that should simply be added to a finished product, like a cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. Its responsible and smart use means, instead, carefully considering how it can be most effectively used at every level - from the data centre that provides AI functionalities to the people and companies benefiting from its capabilities.

Just in time for the start of Microsoft Ignite, our company supports the complete AI lifecycle and develops tools and solutions to drive the next generation of digital transformation for businesses at all levels of their work.

We aim for a future where companies become frontier firms by harnessing AI to unleash creativity and innovation and bring about the next great ideas.

These are some of the key topics we will see in this year's Ignite products and features:

Deploy AI where people pursue their goals

At Microsoft, we believe that all great ideas begin with ambitions - and it's precisely these that we can identify and implement with the help of Microsoft 365 Copilot and the agent ecosystem.

Work IQ enhances intelligence quotient. It is the intelligence layer that enables Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI agents to know how to work, with whom to work, and what to work on. Building on company data, storage, and AI queries, Work IQ taps into comprehensive knowledge from emails, files, meetings, and chats as well as individual preferences, work habits, patterns, and relationships. This allows Copilot to recognize contexts, gain new insights, and suggest the next meaningful steps - as a native integration without using a hodgepodge of third-party connectors. Starting now, Work IQ expertise can also be accessed via APIs, allowing companies to develop their own AI agents precisely tailored to specific workflows and business needs.

Work IQ is also the basis for many of the updates to Microsoft 365 Copilot being presented today at Ignite.

Ubiquitous Innovation and Intelligence

In a frontier firm, innovations arise in all company areas, and employees in service and sales know their challenges best. This enables them to create AI agents that support them in their daily work.

But how are AI agents to know what to do with the data? Foundry IQ and Fabric IQ help them understand what users are doing. They bridge the gap between raw data and its relevance to the real business world and find the context for making decisions.

Fabric IQ combines analytical, time-series, and location-based data with companies' operational systems into a common model tied to the business purpose. This creates a continuously connected current view of the company, enabling people and AI to act in real-time. If companies are already using Power BI for their business intelligence reporting, their existing data modelling acts as an immediate accelerator. It gives AI agents the specific context that defines how the company functions.

Foundry IQ goes a step further: with its fully managed knowledge system developed to provide AI agents with information from multiple data sources. These include Microsoft 365 (Work IQ), Fabric IQ, special software applications, and the web. This central knowledge endpoint has integrated routing and intelligence, offering better conclusions, safer actions, and more value for developers.

Microsoft Agent Factory is a program that brings these IQ layers together, allowing companies to securely create their AI agents. With a single usage-based plan, they can start developing with IQ in Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio. They can deploy their AI agents anywhere, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, without requiring prior licensing or provisioning. Eligible companies can also receive practical support from top AI Forward Deployed Engineers and use tailored role-based training to enhance their AI expertise across all teams.

Transparency at All Levels

By 2028, companies are expected to deploy 1.3 billion AI agents to automate workflows. Yet, most firms don't have a way to monitor, secure, or manage these agents. But if they're not managed, AI agents will become the new shadow IT.

Microsoft Agent 365 allows for monitoring, managing, and securing AI agents - regardless of whether they were created with Microsoft platforms, open-source frameworks, or third-party platforms.

It equips them with many of the same apps and protections as individuals, each tailored to the needs of AI agents. This saves IT teams time and effort when integrating agents into business processes. Microsoft Agent 365 includes Microsoft's security solutions Defender, Entra, Purview, and Foundry Control Plane, which serve to protect and manage agents, productivity tools like Microsoft 365 apps and Work IQ for more efficient work, and the Microsoft 365 Admin Center for agent management.

This is just a small selection of the many new features and updates we will showcase at Ignite. As a reminder, you can watch the keynotes from our Microsoft leaders - including Judson Althoff, Scott Guthrie, Charles Lamanna, Asha Sharma, and Ryan Roslansky - live or on-demand.

Furthermore, you can learn more about all these announcements by browsing our official compilation of today's news: the Book of News.

Contribution by Frank X. Shaw, Chief Communications Officer, Microsoft

Press Contact:
Microsoft Switzerland
media_ch@microsoft.com

*Image Rights: Microsoft
Photographer: Microsoft Switzerland*

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