The Advania Team has landed in San Francisco for Microsoft Ignite 2025, Microsoft’s premier technology summit for developers, IT professionals and partners.
As you’d expect, there will be plenty of key announcements, product updates and roadmap insights shared across the next few days. In this blog, our Director of Digital Transformation, Alex Dorrian, shares the most exciting developments from the Day One Keynote.
In this period of AI adoption and technology-driven business transformation, it’s hard not to feel like you’re at the forefront of innovation at an event like Ignite. The Advania team and I feel equally thrilled and privileged to be here on the ground to learn more about the key updates from Microsoft, and how they will impact our customers. As expected, the first day has been jam packed with exciting announcements.
In a change from previous years, Satya Nadella stepped aside to allow Judson Althoff (Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer) to set the tone for the Microsoft flagship event during the keynote.
Here’s a summary of the key takeaways from day one.
Introducing the intelligence layer
One of the biggest talking points from the first day was the news that Microsoft has introduced a unified intelligence layer. Named “IQ”, this release was a strong theme throughout the Keynote, and consists of three core components:
- Work IQ: A context engine for Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI agents that connects to organisational data sources (SharePoint, Outlook, Teams), builds personalised memory, supports conversational context, and offers APIs for custom agent development. This is a step forward from using traditional Connectors and should unlock additional capabilities for AI tools.
- Fabric IQ: A semantic layer for Microsoft Fabric that consolidates data in OneLake, introduces ontologies and semantic models, and powers operational agents with real-time integration and rule-based reasoning. This helps enterprises leverage their stored data more effectively, distilling actionable insights and fuelling AI.
- Foundry IQ: A managed knowledge system integrating data from Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Azure, apps, and the web, providing a single endpoint for knowledge retrieval that provides agentic AI with vital context for accurate, secure, and optimised actions.
Agent Factory – the new area for agentic AI
Agent Factory is designed to help organisations rapidly build, deploy, and scale AI agents with enterprise-grade governance and flexibility. It provides a unified framework that integrates these new intelligence layer offerings (Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ) with tools like Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, enabling context-rich, secure agent development. Through a single metered plan using Agent Commit Units (ACUs), businesses can eliminate licensing complexity and deploy agents across Microsoft 365, Azure, or external environments.
Key updates to Copilot for M365
As well as new products and platforms, a range of updates for M365 Copilot were also announced including voice interaction for hands-free commands across apps, Agent Mode in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for automating complex workflows, and contextual memory powered by Work IQ for personalised, predictive assistance. Copilot now supports embedded agents, enabling task-specific automation within documents and spreadsheets, and advanced analytics through Copilot Metrics (more on that below) to measure adoption and ROI.
Copilot Chat is also set for some additional updates. It now integrates seamlessly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams, enabling users to interact without leaving their workflow. Powered by the Work IQ layer, it delivers personalised, memory-driven responses and supports multi-agent collaboration for specialised tasks like data analysis and compliance checks. The roadmap has this extending to Outlook and Calendar in the near future.
Meet Copilot Metrics
Introduced as a new analytics capability, Copilot Metrics will help organisations measure the impact and adoption of AI across Microsoft 365. This provides detailed dashboards and KPIs on how Copilot is being used, including metrics like engagement rates, task completion improvements, time saved, and productivity gains. It also offers role-based insights for IT admins and business leaders, enabling them to track usage trends, identify high-value scenarios, and optimise licensing.
App Builder empowers low-code app development
Building on Microsoft’s low-code offerings, App Builder is a development platform within Microsoft 365 that simplifies the creation of AI-powered applications and workflows. Users can build apps that integrate seamlessly with Copilot, Microsoft Graph, and organisational data, leveraging pre-built connectors and templates for rapid deployment. To further streamline user experience, App Builder supports drag-and-drop UI design, embedded AI agents, and governance features like identity management and compliance controls.
Streamlined agent management with Agent 365 and Agent HQ
Agent 365 is a new enterprise-grade control plane for AI agents, designed to address the risk of “agent sprawl” by giving IT teams a single pane of glass for control and management. A unified registry lists all agents, leaning on Microsoft Entra, which also unlocks Access Control tools. Agent 365 also allows for easy visualisation of agents that are active in the environment, leverages Work IQ to ensure all agents have access to the same information, and boasts a range of security tools that tie into other Microsoft defences like Defender and Purview.
Similar to Agent 365, Agent HQ provides a single dashboard to orchestrate multiple agents across development environments in GitHub. It enables task assignment, progress tracking, and seamless integration across GitHub, VS Code, CLI, and mobile. With features like multi-agent collaboration within workflows, enterprise governance, identity controls, and custom configurations via AGENTS.md, Agent HQ simplifies workflows, enhances security, and helps organisations scale AI-driven development efficiently.
AI-powered defence with Security Copilot
An advanced, AI-powered cybersecurity assistant, Security Copilot integrates directly into Microsoft’s security ecosystem. It combines generative AI with Microsoft’s threat intelligence to help security teams detect, investigate, and respond to threats faster and more accurately. Key features include real-time incident analysis, automated threat hunting, and natural language queries for simplifying complex security tasks such as identifying phishing emails.
IQ integration for Copilot Studio
A host of new features relating to Copilot Studio were revealed on day one, including deep integrations with the IQ intelligence layers (Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Foundry IQ) for richer context, further personalisation and expanded connectors for seamless access to organisational data across Microsoft 365 and external systems. Copilot Studio also now supports agent orchestration, enabling multi-agent workflows, and introduces low-code tools for rapid agent development without complex coding. This even extends to creating agents through natural language processing and the ability to connect to Foundry.
Updates to GitHub Copilot
Beyond the new capabilities introduced through Agent HQ, Github Copilot now offers Plan Mode in VS Code for structured task planning, deeper integration with GitHub Issues and Pull Requests, and enhanced support for enterprise governance and security.
Further updates and a new control pane for Foundry
Microsoft announced significant updates to Foundry, positioning it as a core platform for building and deploying enterprise AI agents at scale. Foundry now integrates deeply with the IQ intelligence layers (especially Foundry IQ) to provide agents with rich organisational context and semantic understanding. Other updates include the introduction of policy-driven orchestration, advanced compliance controls, and seamless connectivity to Microsoft 365, Azure, and external data sources. Foundry also now supports multi-agent workflows, lifecycle management, and telemetry for performance monitoring, all underpinned by zero trust security principles. As part of these updates, Anthropic’s Claude AI models (Sonnet, Opus, and Haiku) has also now been introduced to Foundry.
In addition to the new platform updates, Microsoft announced the new Foundry Control Plane, centralised governance and orchestration layer for managing and optimising AI agents and workflows across enterprise environments. It provides unified observability, compliance enforcement, and lifecycle management for agents built on Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, and external platforms.
Exciting innovations in Azure Data Centres
Microsoft announced a host of Azure and data centre-focused advancements impacting areas including scalability, sustainability, and AI optimisation. There are too many to call them all out, but highlights include Azure AI Supercomputing Clusters for large-scale model training and inference, the Azure Model Router for intelligent multi-model orchestration, and next-generation data centres featuring liquid cooling and energy-efficient hardware, driving progress toward carbon-negative goals.
Model Router was a particularly valuable announcement. A dynamic orchestration layer that intelligently routes AI requests to the most suitable model based on context, cost, performance, and compliance requirements, Model Router enables enterprises to seamlessly leverage multiple foundation models such as GPT, Claude, Gemini, as well as custom models within Microsoft’s ecosystem, ensuring optimal efficiency and governance.
That’s all from day one of our time in San Francisco, but I’m sure Microsoft Ignite has plenty more exciting announcements and reveals up its sleeve for the next few days. Myself and the team will share updates across our social channels, and keep your eyes peeled for further updates on the Advania UK site.
Crucially for our customers, our time at Ignite is dedicated to understanding how these new releases and innovations can add genuine, real-world value for your business, and how we can help you get the absolute most from everything Microsoft has to offer.
In the meantime, if you’re eager to start leveraging these new innovations for your business, we’d love to talk. Book a meeting with our team to get the conversation started.
