Two Major Admin Control Updates for Copilot and Agent Management

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At Ignite Microsoft showcased and talked about two new admin controls for Copilot and Agents. These controls drew a significant amount of attention for their potential to simplify management and strengthen governance across Copilot experiences and AI agents. These capabilities are now emerging in preview, offering administrators early access to improved insights, expanded control surfaces, and more secure operational foundations. Copilot Overview Page Refresh in Microsoft 365 Admin Center First off is the redesigned landing page for Copilot in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center (MAC), giving admins an at-a-glance view of the Copilot journey across Chat, Agents, and M365 Copilot. This update  centralizes critical insights and success metrics, helping organizations accelerate adoption and maintain security posture. The refreshed page introduces success metrics such as Chat active users, assisted hours for licensed users, and satisfaction rate. Each Copilot pillar now includes multi‑...

Microsoft 365 Copilot Frontier: Finally available world wide.

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Microsoft 365 Copilot Frontier program:

Back in March, Microsoft the release of two new and promising agents: The researcher and The analyst agents. Initially these two agents were launched in the U.S. as part of what has been called the "Frontier" program. Frontier is designed to give Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed users access to experimental, high-impact features that are still in development—allowing users to shape the future of AI in the workplace. This early-access initiative is now available worldwide, offering organizations a first look at cutting-edge AI capabilities before they become mainstream.

The Researcher and Analyst agents are built on OpenAI’s advanced models and integrated deeply with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Here is a short description of their features:

Researcher (Frontier)

Think of Researcher as your AI-powered research assistant. It combines OpenAI’s deep research capabilities with Microsoft’s orchestration and search tools to help users tackle complex, multi-step research tasks. Whether you're pulling insights from internal documents, third-party data, or the web, Researcher can synthesize it all into coherent, actionable outputs.

Analyst (Frontier)

Analyst is optimized for advanced data analysis. It uses OpenAI’s o3-mini model and chain-of-thought reasoning to iteratively solve problems—just like a human analyst would. It can even run Python code in real time, allowing users to view and verify the logic and outputs behind the scenes. This transparency is a game-changer for data-driven teams. 

How to make sure they are available to your users (or not):

  1. Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center → Copilot → Settings
  2. Under User Access, select "Copilot Frontier"
  3. Set access to “All Users” or “Specific Users under "Web and Mobile apps" (Microsoft 365 Insiders can also benefit from getting new features directly to their desktop apps)
  4. Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center → Copilot → Agent & Connectors
  5. Search for "Frontier" and make sure both agents are set available for your users (You may also deploy the app directly from this view.
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