As artificial intelligence agents become integral to enterprise workflows, organizations need a new identity framework designed to bring the same level of visibility, governance, and security to AI agents as is standard for human users. This is why, effective May 19, 2025, Microsoft Entra Agent ID is in public preview.
What Is Microsoft Entra Agent ID?
Microsoft Entra Agent ID assigns a unique identity to every AI agent created in Azure AI Foundry or Microsoft Copilot Studio.
These identities are fully integrated into the Microsoft Entra directory, allowing organizations to manage agents just like employees—with access controls, role-based permissions, and audit trails.
This means that agents now appear in the Enterprise Applications section of the Entra admin center, where IT admins can filter by the new “Agent ID” application type to view and manage them directly.
Release schedule
Support for Security Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot and third-party solutions, and more capabilities will follow in the coming months.
Why Now?
The rise of AI agents—autonomous digital workers capable of handling complex tasks—has introduced a new class of identity: non-human actors. Microsoft now also differentiates between “AI agents“/”agents”, meaning autonomous agents, and “Customer service representative“/”service representative”/”representative”, meaning humans.
As more AI agents are created, there is a growing risk that some might go unnoticed or unmanaged, called “agent sprawl”. These agents could accidentally access sensitive information or do things they weren’t meant to.
Microsoft Entra Agent ID addresses this by:
- Preventing blind spots in agent usage.
- Enabling Conditional Access, multi-factor authentication, and least-privilege roles.
- Providing lifecycle management for agent identities, including sign-in monitoring and access revocation.
Integration with Microsoft’s Security Ecosystem
Entra Agent ID is deeply integrated with Microsoft’s broader security and compliance solutions:
- Microsoft Purview: Enables data classification, protection policies, and compliance reporting for agents.
- Microsoft Defender: Supports agents like the Conditional Access Optimization Agent, which proactively identifies policy gaps.
- Copilot Control System: Offers centralized governance and analytics for agents, including usage metrics and ROI tracking.
Implications for the Future of Agent Governance
The introduction of Entra Agent ID signals a paradigm shift in how enterprises will manage digital labor:
- Agents as first-class citizens: With identities on par with human users, agents can be governed under the same Zero Trust principles.
- Cross-platform visibility: Whether built in Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, or third-party tools, agents will be visible and manageable from the Microsoft Entra admin center.
- Compliance-ready AI: Organizations can now meet regulatory requirements by applying consistent identity and access policies to both human and AI actors.
More information
Definitions of AI agents vs. Customer service representative: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/blog/it-professional/2025/03/26/new-terminology-for-ai-agents-and-copilot-service/.
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