Maintain an agent register
IT and governance teams keep a live register of every shared agent, its owner, source material, permissions, connectors, review date and retirement status.
Where the action happens
Agent 365 / Microsoft 365 admin centre / governance register
Product or feature needed
Agent 365, Microsoft 365 admin controls, governance process
AI required
Optional
Extra credits
No - unless AI is used to summarise or monitor the register
Technical skill
High
Risk level
Medium - essential once agent numbers grow
Licence dependency
Advanced & governed stage — Agent 365 is licensed per user, standalone or through Microsoft 365 E7. Agents themselves do not require an Agent 365 licence.
Credit dependency
No Copilot Credits are consumed simply for maintaining the Agent 365 governance/control-plane capability; Agents being governed may have their own licence or consumption costs.
UK availability
available
Notes
Agent 365 is a governance/control-plane capability rather than an Agent builder. Current UK public list price is £11.50 user/month paid yearly, and Agent 365 is also included in Microsoft 365 E7. Licensing is per user, not per Agent.
Watch-outs for Advanced & governed
- Cowork has been generally available worldwide since 16 June 2026 for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers, but admins still control discoverability and must enable usage-based billing before users can run tasks.
- Cowork consumption is measured in Copilot Credits; organisations can set user or group limits and users can check approximate task cost with /cost.
- UK Cowork does not require Anthropic/Claude. Microsoft separates Cowork access from model availability; if Anthropic is disabled, Cowork users can continue with allowed non-Anthropic models such as GPT models.
- For UK organisations, model-provider choice should be recorded as a governance/configuration decision because Anthropic availability has separate admin and data-processing considerations.
- For Work IQ or other connected agent tools, start read-only where possible and enable write operations only for a justified use case with appropriate identity and approval controls.
- Treat Cowork access like any other temporary or role-based capability: record owner, purpose, limit and review date, and remove access when the user or project no longer needs it.
- Agent governance becomes more important as shared, action-taking and connected Agents accumulate; maintain an inventory before the estate becomes hard to understand.
- Use human approval or an equivalent controlled handoff before high-impact actions where the technology supports it, and keep human accountability for regulated AO decisions.
Sources
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-agent-365
- Microsoft Agent 365 UK checked 2026-09-05
- Microsoft Agent 365 licensing FAQ checked 2026-09-05
Last checked: 2026-09-05
Community feedback
Has your organisation tried this? Confirm whether it's possible, whether it's useful, and share any tips.
0
Confirmed possible
0
Reported not possible
0
Found it useful
0
Not useful
Loading feedback…
