Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Updates from Ignite 2025

Introduction

Microsoft 365 Copilot updates were a key highlight in the AI Business Solutions content at Ignite 2025. Copilot is no longer just a writing helper. It is becoming an agent layer that can plan work, take actions and stay with you across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and SharePoint.

In this article, we focus on three practical changes: new chat-first Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, Agent Mode built directly into the Office apps, and new Work IQ and SharePoint enhancements that give these agents better context.

Along the way, we also explain clearly how Agent Mode and the new Office Agents are different, so your team does not mix them up when you start planning adoption.

Copilot Chat Becomes An Agent Hub

Where do you use Copilot Chat?

In this article, Copilot Chat means the main chat window you open with Copilot in Microsoft 365. Most people will use Copilot Chat in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app in a browser, or inside apps such as Teams and Outlook when they open the Copilot pane. This is the place where you type your questions, talk to Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents, and ask Copilot to create or update files and SharePoint content for you.

Chat-first Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents

Microsoft is introducing dedicated Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents that live inside Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. They are available first through the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers, with early access for enterprises and Frontier support for Personal, Family and Premium subscribers coming next.

The flow is simple. You stay in Copilot Chat, for example in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. You describe what you need, such as a strategic plan, a financial model, or an executive deck. The relevant agent asks follow-up questions to clarify your goal, then creates an Office file.

All three agents use web data as a broad knowledge source. Word Agent and PowerPoint Agent also use Work IQ, which lets them reason across your files, emails, meetings and wider organizational knowledge. That makes first drafts more relevant to your actual projects, not just to generic internet content.

Once you accept the draft, you open it in Word, Excel or PowerPoint and continue editing. At that point the in-app Copilot experiences, including Agent Mode, take over.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat can now create Pages

Another important Copilot Chat capability is Copilot Pages. Copilot Chat can now turn your intent into an interactive page that combines text, code and visuals.

From inside chat you can ask Copilot to create a page for an internal playbook, a campaign plan, a live report or a prototype. Copilot writes content and can also insert code directly on the page so you can build interactive reports or visualizations.

You can keep iterating either through chat or by editing the page directly, then share it with colleagues. When you are ready to present, Copilot can transform that page into a PowerPoint deck.

For teams experimenting with agents and workflows, Copilot Pages give you a flexible canvas that sits somewhere between a document, a lightweight app and a slide deck. This capability is generally available.

SharePoint pages and lists created directly from chat

For organizations in Frontier enterprise program, Copilot Chat can now create SharePoint pages and lists directly from natural language prompts.

The idea is to stay in your current chat and still be able to publish structure back into SharePoint. You might ask Copilot to create a list of your top-selling products by geography, or to generate a SharePoint page that explains a new marketing campaign. Copilot builds the list or page without anyone switching tabs to the SharePoint interface.

That matters when you are already working with other agents in Copilot Chat, because it means outputs can flow straight into your intranet or knowledge base in a structured way.

Agent Mode Inside Word, Excel and Powerpoint

Separately, Microsoft has also announced that by March 2026 Agent Mode in Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be available with standard access in Copilot Chat for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. That preview sits alongside the app-based Agent Mode experiences described here.

What Is Agent Mode?

Agent Mode is a Copilot experience that runs inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It was first introduced in Excel and Word, and Ignite 2025 expands it to PowerPoint with enhancements in the other apps.

Instead of generating a file and then stepping back, Agent Mode stays in the document, workbook or deck with you. It can create, edit and format content over multiple turns, rewrite and restructure sections, insert and style tables and images, and bring in context from your work and the web. You stay in the familiar Office UI while Copilot behaves like a persistent co-author.

How does Agent Mode behave in each app?

In PowerPoint, Agent Mode is in early access through Frontier program on the Insiders Beta Channel for Windows. It can update or create decks using your branded template, rewrite and format slides, add tables and images, and pull in information from your work and the web to refresh a presentation.

In Excel, Agent Mode is also in Frontier and works on web and desktop (Windows and Mac). It lets you bring in data via built-in web search and choose between Anthropic or OpenAI reasoning models, and is available for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers as well as Microsoft Personal and Premium subscribers.

In Word, Agent Mode is now generally available for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers on web and desktop, including Mac. It uses Work IQ to automatically pick relevant files, emails and meetings, so longer documents stay accurate and up to date.

The common pattern is that you remain in the Office app while Copilot handles multi-step editing and structuring tasks that would normally take several passes.

Word, Excel & PowerPoint Agents vs. Agent Mode

These two names sound very similar, so a lot of people mix them up. Think of this section as the “clear it up once” explanation.

As described earlier, Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents live inside the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. You talk to them in Copilot Chat, much like you would brief a researcher or analyst, and they create new Word, Excel or PowerPoint files based on your intent and work context.

Based on the data Copilot can see about your work (files, emails, meetings, web data, etc.), the agent asks a few follow-up questions and then creates a brand-new Word document, Excel workbook or PowerPoint deck for you. Because it uses your work context, the output is more personalized and closer to what you actually do day to day, not just a generic template.

Agent Mode is different. It is a feature inside the Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps themselves (web and desktop), not in the Copilot Chat window. Instead of creating a new file from scratch, Agent Mode works on the file you already have open.

The simple way to remember it is this:

• Word/Excel/PowerPoint Agents in the Copilot app help you start work by creating new files based on your intent and your work context.
• Agent Mode in Word, Excel and PowerPoint helps you continue and improve that work by co-editing the content that is already in front of you.

Work IQ & SharePoint Announcement

All of these new agent experiences sit on top of Work IQ, Microsoft’s intelligence layer for Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents. Work IQ looks across your files, emails, meetings and chats to understand how work really happens, then uses that context to make Copilot’s answers less generic and more relevant to your organization.

At Ignite 2025, Microsoft added two pieces that matter most here: conversational memory in Microsoft 365 Copilot and better reasoning over SharePoint metadata, so prompts grounded on well-tagged libraries produce much sharper, more accurate results. These upgrades are what make Word and PowerPoint Agents, Agent Mode in Word, and SharePoint-focused prompts feel closer to working with a colleague than with a standalone chatbot.

If you want to learn how Work IQ is built, what it means for privacy and governance, and how it connects to Foundry and Agent 365, feel free to check our dedicated Work IQ deep-dive blog, which you can read next.

Where To Go Next?

If you are planning your Copilot and agent roadmap for the next year, a practical sequence is emerging.

First, use Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat as your experimental hub. Try the new Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents through Frontier program and watch where they meaningfully reduce drafting time for your teams.

Second, bring Agent Mode into your highest-value documents, workbooks and decks. Start with Word for strategic documents and policies, then extend to Excel and PowerPoint where models and presentations need constant iteration.

Third, invest in your Work IQ foundations. Clean up metadata and information architecture in SharePoint libraries, review how you label and secure content, and decide how you want to handle conversational memory. Those steps are what turn Copilot from a smart autocomplete into a real agent that understands your organization.

If you want help translating this sequence into a practical adoption plan, including governance guardrails, pilot scope, and success metrics, contact us to set up a short working session.

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