Tech Predictions for 2026: Microsoft AI & Security

As we close 2025, these are some of the excitements our inhouse Specialist, Mini Biswas, is predicting for 2026 across Microsoft AI and Microsoft Security.

1.) Microsoft 365 Copilot: from assistant to agentic teammate

• Work IQ & Agent Mode become mainstream. Copilot will evolve to know you, your job, and your company through a new Work IQ layer and agent experiences embedded across Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams. Expect iterative co‑creation with guardrails managed centrally via Agent 365, the control plane for agents.
• Continuous capability upgrades in Copilot Chat. Features like richer web answers, referencing prior chats, Excel formula completion, Outlook drafting, and Teams thread summaries will roll out monthly rather than in big-bang releases.
• Role-based agents land in business functions. Sales, Service, and Finance agents (built with Copilot Studio) will automate repetitive tasks, integrating Microsoft 365 Graph with CRM/ERP data.

2.) Copilot Studio & Agent governance: from pilots to production safely

• Agent 365 + Purview protections for agents. Microsoft is extending Purview to discover, inventory, and enforce compliance on agents, with AI observability baked into Data Security Posture Management.
• Build your own Security Copilot agents. Public preview enables design and deployment of agents that automate SOC workflows, with partner-built agents arriving via the Microsoft Security Store.
• Runtime protections for Copilot Studio agents. Defender provides real‑time monitoring and blocks harmful actions (prompt injection, unsafe calls), with telemetry in XDR incidents and Advanced Hunting.

3) Microsoft Security stack: an autonomous, agent‑aware SOC

• Security Copilot + Defender/XDR: agents at every SOC stage. Expect agents for phishing triage, identity/cloud alert correlation, and proactive shielding, driving faster detection and response.
• Sentinel integration deepens. Security Copilot will reason over Sentinel’s data lake for richer workflows and faster incident resolution.
• Defender for Cloud innovations. GitHub Advanced Security integration ties runtime signals to source code with Copilot-assisted fixes; CNAPP posture expands across multi-cloud environments.

4) Microsoft Purview: data security for GenAI and modern collaboration

• Unified Catalog and Insider Risk analytics. Governance and case management improve with data-risk graphs and unified eDiscovery experiences.
• Just‑in‑time DLP for SharePoint (2026). Controls apply restrictions at the moment of egress for unclassified files.
• Teams DLP scoping expands to 1:1/n chats. Policy scoping through M365 Groups will cover more chat modalities without manual additions.

5) Microsoft Entra (Identity): Zero Trust for humans and agents

• Agent identities become first‑class. Entra will extend identity lifecycle and Conditional Access to AI agents, enabling full auditability and policy control.
• Account recovery and passwordless risk remediation. Stronger recovery flows and real‑time risk remediation will reduce help‑desk load and tighten credential hygiene.

And as we now have OpenAI GPT‑5.2 powering the next wave of generative intelligence, expect Copilot to continuously inherit these advancements. Future releases will bring richer reasoning, multi‑modal context and more adaptive agent behaviours – making Copilot not just a productivity tool but a strategic partner embedded across workflows.