Microsoft Build 2025: AI Agents Take Center Stage, Ushering in New Era of Autonomous Software
Microsoft's recent Build 2025 conference in Seattle showcased the company's ambitious vision for the future of AI, with a strong emphasis on AI agents. These agents, capable of performing increasingly complex tasks autonomously, are poised to revolutionize how we interact with technology and conduct business.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the current AI landscape as "entering the middle innings" of product development, suggesting that the initial hype is giving way to a period of focused refinement and practical application.
Raymond James analyst Andrew Marok highlighted that Microsoft's advancements are moving AI agents from isolated applications to a more interconnected network. According to Marok, the announcements made at Build 2025 were "highly additive to Microsoft's AI services," enabling users to achieve more while addressing concerns about the limited scope of existing agents.
GitHub Copilot, already used by 15 million developers, is evolving into a more agentic AI partner with features like agent mode and code review. Microsoft is also open-sourcing GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code, furthering its commitment to open-source, collaborative, AI-powered software development.
At Build, Microsoft unveiled new pre-built agents, custom agent building blocks, and multi-agent capabilities to help developers and organizations build and deploy agents securely. The introduction of Azure AI Foundry Agent Service empowers developers to orchestrate multiple specialized agents for complex tasks, incorporating Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into a streamlined SDK.
A key aspect of Microsoft's vision is the open agentic web, where AI agents can make decisions and perform tasks on behalf of users and organizations. To support this, Microsoft is advancing open standards such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and introducing new projects like NLWeb, which aims to provide a conversational interface for websites using the AI model of their choice.
Security is being prioritized as AI agents become more integrated. Windows 11 is embracing MCP as a foundational layer for secure, interoperable agentic computing, with features like proxy-mediated communication, tool-level authorization, and runtime isolation to protect user data and prevent vulnerabilities.
With the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning, customers can now train models and create agents using their own company data, workflows, and processes. This allows for the creation of highly accurate, domain-specific agents that operate securely within the Microsoft 365 environment.
Microsoft's Build 2025 made it clear: We are entering a new era where AI agents will play a crucial role in shaping the future of technology and how we interact with it. The focus on open standards, security, and empowering developers could pave the way for a truly transformative age of autonomous software.
What are your thoughts on the rise of AI agents? Share your predictions and concerns in the comments below!
Related issues news
Where is Microsoft Build 2025?
Microsoft's annual Build developer conference is happening this week in Seattle. No big surprise: All things AI and, specifically, agents, are at the top of the announcement list.
When is Microsoft Build 2025?
Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella presents during the opening day of Microsoft Build on May 19, 2025.
What is Microsoft Discovery?
Microsoft Discovery enables researchers to collaborate with a team of specialized AI agents combined with a graph-based knowledge engine, to drive scientific outcomes with speed, scale, and accuracy.
X talks about this news
Latest
Can you Like
