Microsoft packages Copilot, Agent 365, and security controls into Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite

What Microsoft announced

On March 9, 2026, Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite, a new top-tier enterprise bundle that combines AI assistants, agent management, and the Microsoft security stack into one package. Microsoft said the suite will be available on May 1, 2026 for $99 per user per month. The positioning is important: Microsoft is no longer talking only about Copilot as an assistant inside Office apps, but about a governed environment where enterprises can deploy, observe, and secure AI agents across work.

The suite includes Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft Entra Suite, Microsoft Intune Suite, Microsoft Purview, and advanced Defender protections. That means the product is designed as more than a productivity add-on. It is meant to be the control surface for enterprise AI operations, combining identity, devices, compliance, and agent execution in the same commercial tier.

Key elements in the launch

Agent 365 is presented as the system for observing, securing, managing, and governing agents.

Work IQ is described as the semantic layer that gives Copilot and agents understanding across organizational data, apps, and workflows.

Microsoft also introduced a Cowork research preview, built with Anthropic technology, for longer and more complex multi-step tasks.

Through the Frontier program, Microsoft said enterprises can access Claude in mainline chat alongside the latest OpenAI models.

Why it matters

This launch shows how enterprise AI is moving from assistant adoption to agent operations. The winning platform is increasingly the one that can govern permissions, connect to enterprise systems, monitor actions, and give security teams enough visibility to approve broader deployment. Microsoft is trying to make that layer native to the Microsoft 365 estate rather than a separate third-party toolchain.

The product also reflects a more multi-model future. By highlighting both OpenAI and Claude, and by connecting agents to the Apps SDK and MCP Apps, Microsoft is signaling that enterprise buyers want flexibility in model choice without giving up centralized governance. In practice, Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite is less about selling another Copilot license and more about defining the operating model for production AI agents inside large organizations.

Source: Microsoft official announcement