Microsoft launches Frontier Suite to package Copilot, Agent 365, and model diversity for enterprise AI

What Microsoft announced

On March 9, 2026, Microsoft said it is bundling several of its biggest enterprise AI moves into what it calls the first Frontier Suite. The announcement combines Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, broader model choice inside Copilot, the upcoming general availability of Agent 365, and a new Microsoft 365 E7 package. The framing matters: Microsoft is explicitly arguing that enterprise AI adoption has moved past experimentation and now needs a combination of usable intelligence and centralized control.

The company said customers will see Claude and next-generation OpenAI models inside Microsoft 365 Copilot, with Claude available in mainline chat through the Frontier program. It also highlighted a research preview called Copilot Cowork, built in close collaboration with Anthropic, for long-running multi-step work. In other words, Microsoft is signaling that enterprise AI will be multi-model by design rather than tied to a single foundation model provider.

What is in the suite

Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot adds new agentic experiences across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Agent 365 reaches general availability on May 1, 2026 at $15 per user as a control plane to observe, govern, manage, and secure AI agents.

Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite also reaches general availability on May 1, 2026 at $99 per user, combining Microsoft 365 E5, Copilot, Agent 365, Entra Suite, and advanced Defender, Intune, and Purview protections.

Microsoft used the post to show demand signals as well. It said paid Copilot seats grew more than 160% year over year, daily active usage is up 10x, and the number of large deployments with more than 35,000 seats tripled year over year. Inside the Agent 365 preview, Microsoft says tens of millions of agents have appeared in the registry, and more than 500,000 agents are already visible inside Microsoft itself.

Why it matters

The larger shift is that Microsoft is no longer selling only an assistant. It is selling a governed multi-model work platform where humans, agents, security controls, and pricing are bundled together. That is a different market position from standalone chat products or isolated agent demos.

If this model works, enterprise AI procurement will start to look more like buying a managed operating layer for knowledge work: one place to choose models, deploy agents, monitor behavior, and tie the whole system into existing identity and security tooling. That makes Microsoft’s announcement important not just as a Copilot update, but as an attempt to define what large-scale enterprise agent deployment should look like.

Source: Microsoft Official Blog