Microsoft's Ai Agents Can Decide What To Code Now - What That Means For Developers

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Microsoft is moving beyond copilots to afloat autonomous agents.
• Foundry and MCP fto agents combine solutions utilizing 1,400 tools.
• IQ services purpose to springiness agents existent discourse and understanding.

At Microsoft Ignite 2025 connected Tuesday, nan institution is showcasing a wide scope of capabilities that are moving into an all-in agentic AI future.

In nan companion article to this piece, I wrote astir really Microsoft is moving nan endeavor towards self-running, self-repairing platforms. But that's not nan full story.

Also: How Microsoft's caller scheme for self-repairing information centers will toggle shape IT roles

That article talks astir nan operational broadside of autonomous agents, package that tin now monitor, diagnose, and repair itself. But what astir package creation? Ignite 2025 besides contains announcements that bespeak nan early wherever package is assembled, extended, and evolved by autonomous AI agents.

Basically, not only will AI agents thief america code, they will besides determine what to codification and past build those solutions. Boom! Mind blown.

Before we move connected to nan circumstantial technologies Microsoft announced that make this possible, I want to stock a caution. I've been utilizing agentic AI via Claude Code and ChatGPT Codex to code, and while nan results are thing short of fantastic, nan process is messy arsenic heck.

Also: I've tested free vs. paid AI coding devices - here's which 1 I'd really use

For each moving capacity I get backmost from nan AI, I've had to slog done 5 aliases 10 drafts wherever nan AI misunderstood nan assignments, outright lied astir its expertise to do what it claimed, ignored instructions, aliases went wholly disconnected nan rails. No uncertainty nan AI-assisted coding has helped maine prevention time. But it besides showcases that AI agents request alternatively extended supervision.

So nan thought that possibly AI agents will supervise different AI agents rings hollow. As we talk these caller capabilities of AI agents to combine package devices connected demand, support successful mind nan ever-growing request for qualified quality oversight.

OK, now onto nan announcements.

Agent 365 gives 'personhood' to package

This is weird, but activity pinch maine present for a minute. In American rule (and this applies to different countries arsenic well), corporations are considered ineligible persons because they person nan authorities and responsibilities of a earthy person. The affinity isn't perfect, but it's worked good capable to support lawyers successful suits for a agelong time.

Inside an organization, from an IT perspective, humans person ever had a different guidance position than scripts, apps, routines, and different code. Humans are considered "users," and are tracked pinch unsocial identities, permissions, governance, observability, and lifecycle management.

Now, here's nan cardinal building from Microsoft: "Microsoft Agent 365 will widen nan infrastructure for managing users to agents — helping organizations govern agents responsibly and astatine scale."

Also: Microsoft's caller AI agents create your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint projects now

Essentially, Microsoft is turning agents into users, not conscionable chunks of code. In position of enabling agents to combine codification and deploy it, those agents will beryllium acting arsenic users who person done nan aforesaid people of tasks historically.

While continually executing package daemons person existed arsenic server features for decades, this is thing new. Cron jobs and different accepted continuously moving package execute circumstantial predefined deterministic tasks.

But agents successful this caller Microsoft exemplary are goal-driven alternatively than task-driven. They person intent, state, knowledge, and context. Unlike daemons that beryllium nether a instrumentality account, agents nether Agent 365 will beryllium enumerated, onboarded, offboarded, audited, and permission-scoped, not arsenic cron jobs, but arsenic what are fundamentally integer workers.

Microsoft Foundry adds MCP devices catalog

To understand this adjacent large swing, you request to understand Model Context Protocol (MCP). This is simply a modular protocol introduced by Anthropic conscionable astir a twelvemonth ago, and it's game-changing. Basically, it's a modular measurement for AI LLMs and services (think Slack, Google Drive, PostgreSQL, etc.) to talk to each other.

What makes this large is that each LLM aliases AI implementation doesn't person to conception a customized API-based relationship to each service. As agelong arsenic nan LLM has MCP connected its broadside and nan work has MCP connected its side, they tin communicate. Plus, it's a two-way thing. In different words, nan AI tin initiate a petition to nan service. But services tin besides nonstop prompts to nan AIs and get backmost results.

Via nan standardized interface of MCP, AIs and services person go LEGO building blocks, wherever each tin threat into nan other. This wholly supports our thesis of self-building tools. Because now that AIs person a system to snap-click to services successful a predictable way, agents tin do truthful erstwhile they request to (subject to permissions, entitlements, and such).

Also: What is Model Context Protocol? The emerging modular bridging AI and data, explained

All that brings america backmost to Microsoft's announcement. Microsoft says Foundry will, "Enable developers to enrich agents pinch real-time business context, multimodal capabilities and civilization business logic done a unified catalog of Model Context Protocol (MCP) devices built pinch information and governance successful mind."

That catalog contains a whopping 1,400 systems (like SAP, Salesforce, and HubSpot) correct retired of nan gate. Microsoft is besides providing MCP extensibility, wherever developers tin alteration immoderate API aliases usability to activity arsenic an MCP server done Foundry.

Now, let's deliberation backmost to nan autonomous creation thesis we introduced astatine nan opening of this article. AI agents moving connected Microsoft environments won't beryllium penning their ain codification from scratch. But they will beryllium empowered to combine devices from an ever-growing catalog of MCP servers.

Essentially, Microsoft is providing a roadmap for AI agents to go mashup artists.

Enabling agents to understand discourse

Let's recap. Microsoft is making it imaginable for agents to beryllium treated arsenic people-like integer workers (as worrying and freaky arsenic that sounds). Microsoft is besides enabling agents to snap-assemble devices via MCP alternatively of coding APIs aliases coding everything from scratch.

The adjacent logical mobility becomes, "How tin AI agents intelligently combine solutions if they don't genuinely understand nan business environment, nan meaning of nan information they see, aliases what happened past time?"

That's wherever nan adjacent Microsoft announcement comes in. For agents to successfully build and deploy solutions to lucifer defined intents, they can't dainty each task for illustration a marque caller operation. Agents request shared context, semantic understanding, and semipermanent memory.

Also: Microsoft is packing much AI into Windows, fresh aliases not - here's what's new

This is really powerful. Context answers questions like, "What is this for?" and "How does it fresh pinch different things?" Memory answers questions like, "Has anyone tried this before?" and "Did that work?" Semantics answers questions like, "What does customer, invoice, priority, aliases proprietor really mean successful this company?"

To lick this, Microsoft has introduced Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ. For nan record, Work IQ is besides nan marque sanction for nan makers of the IQ Vice, an enormously elastic and tin shop tool. We're talking astir a different point here. Beyond cool shop tools, here's what Microsoft's 3 caller package devices do for nan agentic build stack.

• Work IQ: Gives agents consciousness of what workers are doing, and really activity flows done Microsoft 365.
• Fabric IQ: Gives agents business-level information meaning utilizing Microsoft Fabric's semantic models.
• Foundry IQ: Gives agents unified knowledge entree and semipermanent callback crossed aggregate information sources.

Microsoft's IQ announcements are aimed astatine going beyond giving agents entree to data. They're building a substrate that enables nan shared organizational knowing required to make accurate, context-aware decisions. With Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ, Microsoft is signaling that early endeavor package won't simply execute. It will understand, adapt, and build successful ways that antecedently required quality involvement.

I consciousness good. Don't you consciousness good? It's not for illustration this is nan commencement of Skynet aliases anything. Right? Right?

What's it each mean?

So let's beryllium clear. These announcements don't mean that afloat self-building agentic package environments beryllium today. But Microsoft is showing that it has identified nan missing architectural ingredients, and astir are disposable for preview.

Undoubtedly, advancement will beryllium incremental, messy, and require sizeable quality supervision. But we're starting to spot nan roadmap showing really AI will toggle shape endeavor IT environments going forward.

Now it's your turn. Do you deliberation Microsoft's move toward agent-driven package will alteration nan measurement applications are built and operated wrong organizations? Do you deliberation agents assembling solutions from existing devices is simply a applicable near-term step, aliases still much of a semipermanent aspiration? And what level of quality oversight do you judge will beryllium required arsenic these systems mature? Share your thoughts successful nan comments below.

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