Enterprise intelligence is shifting to an agent-first model, and Work IQ is the layer that powers it. It provides a workplace intelligence layer that enables agents to access and reason over organizational data, context, and tools, continuously building a semantic understanding across Microsoft 365 and external systems with built-in, permission-aware governance.
Combining chat, context, tools, and workspaces, Work IQ supports high-volume, multi-step interactions. It works across frameworks and runtimes through standard protocols and provides the foundation for building agents, applications, and workflows that deliver faster, more intelligent, efficient outcomes.
As organizations rely more on agents to plan, reason, and act across enterprise systems, intelligence must be reliable, continuously updated, and operate at scale. What’s needed is secure, production‑ready intelligence, built for agents rather than individuals.
To support this shift and expand access, we’re announcing:
- Work IQ API endpoints will be generally available June 16, including A2A, a redesigned remote MCP server, and a REST API.
- Usage is independent of Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and available on a consumption basis.
- New enterprise governance and cost management controls in the Microsoft 365 admin center ensure IT teams can manage cost, policy, and scale with confidence.
Work IQ is already available in public preview prior to GA on June 16. Get started today: github.com/microsoft/work-iq
Work IQ, designed for agents
Work IQ is built for an agent-first world, where AI agents, not human developers, dynamically reason, retrieve context, and act across systems. It unifies chat, context, tools, and workspaces into a single intelligence layer so agents can operate with the same depth, grounding, and reliability as Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Chat: Optimized for conversational intelligence. Work IQ supports A2A for agent-to-agent collaboration and REST for web application interactions, enabling agents to delegate work, maintain continuity, and deliver fully processed, Copilot-quality responses.
- Context: Optimized by eliminating orchestration overhead. Work IQ assembles and grounds context internally across organizational data to provide agent-ready inputs, so agents don’t need to stitch together raw signals or manage retrieval pipelines.
- Tools: Optimized for fast, composable actions. A compact set of generic tools and skills lets agents reason, retrieve data, and act across Microsoft 365 through a simplified, agent-friendly surface with centralized governance.
- Workspaces: Optimized for long-running agent workflows. SharePoint Embedded working storage gives agents a persistent space within your Microsoft 365 tenant boundary to manage intermediate data and outputs—supporting reliable task progression, reuse of results, and seamless handoff across agents and experiences.
The new Work IQ tools
Agents need a compact, efficient interface that can adapt as requirements change. The Work IQ MCP collapses hundreds of operations into just 10 generic tools that provide direct access to Microsoft 365 data (mail, calendar, files, people, chat, and sites) and the ability to act on that data.
These tools function as simple verbs (such as fetch, create, and update), while resource paths define what the agent is working with. This separation keeps the surface area small while remaining flexible and extensible as new data sources and scenarios emerge.
A key capability that enables this flexibility is getSchema, which allows agents to dynamically discover how data is structured at runtime. Instead of relying on predefined models or integrations, agents can understand what data exists, how it’s organized, and how to interact with it as needed.
By exposing structure on demand, Work IQ turns every data source into a self-describing interface. This allows agents to adapt automatically to new data and evolving scenarios without changes to the API surface.
Security, authorization, and governance
Work IQ takes a fundamentally different approach to security and governance by centralizing control at a single point and combining simplified authorization with fine‑grained policy enforcement.
Instead of relying on hundreds of static OAuth scopes, the Work IQ MCP uses a small set of broad permissions to establish high-level access boundaries, while a Rego-based policy engine enforces detailed, context-aware rules on every request—evaluating factors like resource paths, request methods, user identity, and data content to control exactly what actions are allowed. Actions are user scoped, meaning every request runs in the context of a specific user and only accesses what that user is allowed to see or do.
This model enables far more precise and adaptable authorization, allowing organizations to enforce policies such as restricting sensitive data access, preventing data exfiltration, or limiting external communications without changing the API surface.
Work IQ also embeds observability and governance directly into the platform: every tool invocation is logged and evaluated, enabling auditability, usage analytics, rate limiting, and real-time compliance enforcement across agents and data sources. With a unified control plane and built-in integration for telemetry, security monitoring, and policy management, Work IQ provides enterprise-grade visibility and governance by default—ensuring that agent activity is transparent, policy-compliant, and continuously auditable at scale.
What customers and partners are building
Organizations are already using Work IQ in a wide range of applications.
Analysis and operational assessments
“SLB integrates Work IQ within the TELA agentic AI assistant to bring together subsurface data and Microsoft 365 contextual intelligence, enabling workflows such as uncertainty analysis to incorporate broader enterprise knowledge, including meeting insights, documents, and communications, with governed access to relevant organizational context,” said Shashi Menon, VP Digital Technology, SLB.
SLB integrates Work IQ within the TELA agentic AI assistant to bring together subsurface data and Microsoft 365 contextual intelligence, enabling workflows such as uncertainty analysis to incorporate broader enterprise knowledge, including meeting insights, documents, and communications. Outputs such as uncertainty assessments and derived insights can then be made available within Microsoft 365 applications, including Teams, email, and SharePoint, to support ongoing collaboration and decision workflows.
Device experiences
“At HP, we’re focused on the Future of Work and reimagining what’s possible for print and scan workflows with our latest AI-enabled, multi-function printers (MFPs) and HP Workpath solutions,” said Anneliese Olson, President of HP’s Imaging, Printing & Solutions Business. “We see integrating Work IQ as a powerful extension of that vision. With HP for Microsoft 365 Copilot, end users can simply scan a document and instantly summarize, translate, redact, and incorporate it into agent discussions and tasks, making it easier to move from physical documents to digital agentic AI workflows, driving productivity and meaningful business outcomes.”
HP for Microsoft 365 Copilot is an HP Workpath app that extends Copilot’s generative AI capabilities to HP multifunction printers, allowing users to interact with documents directly from the printer panel. It enables tasks such as summarizing scanned or stored files, suggesting file names when saving scanned documents and translating content on-device, providing a consistent experience across both PCs and shared office devices.
Collaboration tools
“Miro’s integration with the Work IQ API removes the siloes that block teamwork,” said Jeff Chow, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Miro. “Customers bring real-time Microsoft 365 Copilot context directly onto the visual collaborative Miro canvas — so the research synthesis, diagrams, roadmaps, and workshops reflect the same picture every part of the organization is working from.”
Miro is a collaborative workspace used by teams to plan, design, and deliver projects together. Its integration with the Work IQ API brings Microsoft 365 context such as emails, documents, chats, and meeting activity into the canvas, allowing AI features like Sidekicks and Flows to operate on information that reflects ongoing work. Miro continues to extend this approach as Work IQ capabilities evolve, using the API to incorporate organizational context into its workflows.
Work IQ access and cost management
Because Work IQ is built for agents, API access at GA is independent of Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and available in a consumption model.
- For Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, Work IQ is available in all Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences and agents. It is billed consumptively for custom and third-party agents.
- Users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license are billed consumptively.
Work IQ cost is variable based on what you are using and can be managed in the Microsoft 365 admin center starting mid-June. To learn more, see Licensing.
Resources
Building with the Work IQ API and have questions? Join our developer communities for support:
- Microsoft Q&A: Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft 365 Copilot | Development
- Reddit: copilotstudio or microsoft_365_copilot subreddits
- Documentation: Work IQ overview | Microsoft Learn
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