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Microsoft teases agents that become ‘independent users within the workforce’. Licensing expert worries they’ll be out of control on day one. Microsoft has teased what it’s calling “a new class” of AI agents “that operate as independent users within the enterprise workforce.” “Each embodied agent has its own identity, dedicated access to organizational systems and applications, and the ability to collaborate with humans and other agents,” states a Microsoft product roadmap document. “These agents can attend meetings, edit documents, communicate via email and chat, and perform tasks autonomously.” Redmond will sell these “agentic users” in the “M365 Agent Store” and make them discoverable in its Teams collaborationware tools. Microsoft licensing specialist Rich Gibbons says he’s seen additional documentation provided to M365 admins that mentions a license called “A365” – he thinks that’s a reference to a product called “Agent 365” – and which states that “Admins assign the required A365 license at the time of approval. No additional Microsoft 365 or Teams license is required.” A Microsoft MVP named João Ferreira appears to have seen the same document, and also mentioned the A365 license and shared a screenshot of an Agent 365 management page. Ferreira says agents will have their own email address, Teams account, an entry in enterprise directories (either Entra ID or Azure AD), and even a place on the org chart. “They can participate in meetings, send and receive emails and chats, access enterprise data, and learn from interactions to improve over time,” he wrote. Microsoft’s documents suggest the agents will debut later in November. As the software giant’s annual “Ignite” conference kicks off next week, The Register fancies they may be one of the things Microsoft announces at the event. Ferreira said Microsoft will stage a “targeted release” of A365. Whenever it announces this offering, Redmond will doubtless make breathlessly optimistic pronouncements about their ability to improve productivity and profitability. Gibbons has looked past that and tried to guess what they’ll cost to run. “Microsoft recently launched the Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan (P3),” he wrote, noting that its base tier offers customers the chance to buy 300,000 credits. He says the software behemoth is “moving more and more to a consumption based pricing model, which is inherently much harder to forecast for customer organisations. Here, where we’re going to have AI agents doings things off their own back – how are you supposed to predict usage/consumption in those scenarios?!” “As well as the licensing and cost concerns, I am also wondering how an organization manages these agents,” he added. “If they can join meeting and send emails/messages to people – what happens if they go rogue? It could be sending sensitive data to the wrong people, providing incorrect information, or it could be sending strange or offensive messages…how is that to be prevented, monitored, and acted upon?” How, indeed.