The worlds of HR and IT are melding together in more ways than one, and organizations need to take note. The recent reveal of Microsoft’s Agent 365 tool marks another step forward in the proliferation of digital colleagues in the workplace, clearing the way for new AI agents to join the workforce. The new tool is designed to help businesses build and deploy their own AI agents, providing insights into the performance of these tools. Agent 365 is shaping up to be a hub for all AI agent activity, replacing scattered tools to power this synthetic workforce and simplifying their management for the user.
In time, Microsoft’s AI agent management could be a useful tool for businesses that are now hoping to introduce halfway-independent AI beings into their workforce, however, it does further blur the lines between where HR responsibility ends and IT regulation begins. Are we headed towards a future where the two departments start to operate as one?
With the introduction of Microsoft’s Agent 365 hub and Agentic AI tools, the boundaries between HR and IT continue to blur. (Image: Pexels)
Understanding the Microsoft Agent 365 Tool and What It Means for HR
Microsoft’s dream of an AI “agent-factory” isn’t a dream of the tech giant alone, but a common goal that many businesses have expressed interest in. Building, managing, and organizing AI agents is no easy task, and companies like Microsoft are helping to provide the tools needed for smaller businesses to make it possible. Enter Microsoft’s Agent 365 tool, which was unveiled on November 18, 2025.
The tool offers a comprehensive governance platform for managing AI agents like onboarded team members, complete with identities and responsibilities of their own. The platform is designed to deploy, monitor, and secure AI agents, even set to manage AI agents from third-party platforms like Adobe, Workday, and Nvidia.
Self-Sufficient Agentic Users Are Also Part of Microsoft’s AI Strategy
Microsoft is also working on a “new class of AI” agents that can take over some of the administrative work that employees currently perform. The “agentic users” are expected to “attend meetings, edit documents, communicate via email and chat, and perform tasks autonomously,” according to the company.
Like maintaining an employee directory, the combined service offers a way to ensure each agent functions as intended, complete with its own Teams account and ID to perform its function. The company envisions a future where we have over 1.3 billion active AI agents deployed by 2028, and for this future to be organizable, Microsoft’s AI agent management system comes into play.
What the Arrival of a Synthetic Workforce and Agent 365 Means for HR
We have already seen reports of organizations looking to combine CHRO and CTO roles within their workplace, to enforce a united supervisory force for HR and IT responsibilities. For HR leaders, Microsoft’s Agent 365 heralds a future where a diversified workforce leads operations, with AI handling the routine, rote tasks, and employees getting creative with their functions. This, of course, is an idealistic image of the future where regular employees and digital employees operate side by side.
The ability to apply human-centric processes to AI tools could allow HR to have a familiar sense of control over their Agentic Users proffered by Microsoft AI, but a large part of the enforcement of this management will likely be IT-based. Despite appearances that suggest this could ultimately be left to IT departments, HR teams will have to play a role in ensuring a clear division of responsibility to check that there is no overlap between employee and AI functions.
There are many ways that this could still be a complicated process, despite Microsoft’s Agent 365 or any other AI provider simplifying some of the back-end work. It is true that where there is AI, privacy and security concerns are never too far away. From regulating HR budgets to discerning whether an error is human or AI, and from addressing employee resistance to these tools to providing training on how to work in parallel with AI, many complications await HR teams that aren’t sufficiently prepared to adapt to the future of work.
Looking Ahead to the Future of AI-Powered Operations
The impact of Microsoft’s Agent 365 on the workforce may be limited in the early days, but it does signal an incoming shift in the structure of the workplace. As technology drives efficiency and employees see their jobs changing or being eliminated, tensions are expected to remain high. The release of such agentic AI tools and the arrival of the synthetic workforce may appear to be a technological challenge for IT teams to bear, but HR teams have an equal role to play here, despite organizations eliminating HR roles.
Training and preparations for these incoming changes are imperative for businesses that are opening their doors to Microsoft’s AI agent management system or other similar tools. It’s time to start piloting integration in high-impact areas like recruitment automation and employee analytics to understand where this technology can make a notable difference, not just for the business, but also for employees and HR.
What do you think about Microsoft’s Agent 365 tool and its impact on HR? Share your thoughts with us. Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights on workplace trends, layoffs, and what to expect with the advent of AI.