Microsoft Work IQ

Microsoft Work IQ is an intelligence layer for Microsoft 365 that builds a real-time semantic model of how an organization operates and exposes it to AI agents through the new Work IQ APIs. It is aimed at enterprises building custom Copilot agents that need grounded context, tools, scale, and governance across M365.

Announced at Microsoft Build 2026 (June 2, 2026) with general availability on June 16, 2026, Work IQ is 'the intelligence layer behind how work gets done,' continuously processing content from email, calendar, meetings, chats, files, people, collaboration patterns, and line-of-business systems to build a semantic, real-time model of an organization. The Work IQ APIs give agents a standardized way to interact with Microsoft 365 across four domains — Chat (programmatic access to full Microsoft 365 Copilot capabilities), Context (agent-ready aggregation of the source data Copilot would use), Tools (agentic access to M365 entities via simple verbs, exposed over the Model Context Protocol), and Workspaces (storage for intermediate agent state) — while enforcing existing user permissions to reduce hallucinations and enable proactive, multi-agent workflows. Pricing is consumption-based and denominated in Copilot Credits, with a fixed component for Tools and variable components for Chat and Context, and Microsoft is adding a cost-management dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin center to set spending limits and monitor AI credit usage. Work IQ is part of Microsoft's broader 'IQ' context strategy (alongside Fabric IQ and Foundry IQ) and integrates with Agent 365 for enterprise agent management.

Category

AI Agents & Orchestration

Pricing

Usage-based

Target Market

CIOs, CTOs, Enterprise Developers, IT Administrators

Founded

2026

Headquarters

Redmond, WA, United States

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  Semantic organizational model

  Builds a real-time model of how an organization operates from M365 signals — email, calendar, meetings, chats, files, people, and line-of-business systems.

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  Work IQ APIs (four domains)

  Chat, Context, Tools, and Workspaces give agents a standardized way to read context and act across Microsoft 365.

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  Model Context Protocol tools

  Agentic access to M365 entities through simple verbs exposed over MCP for interoperable agent tooling.

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  Permission-aware governance

  Enforces each user's existing Microsoft 365 permissions when surfacing context to agents.

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  Copilot Credit cost controls

  Consumption billing in Copilot Credits with an admin-center dashboard to set spending limits and monitor usage.

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  Context-grounded custom agents

  Developers ground agents in real organizational context instead of raw data to reduce hallucinations.

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  Proactive multi-agent workflows

  Agents act across M365 apps and entities using standardized tools and shared workspace state.

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  Governed enterprise AI rollout

  IT admins meter Copilot Credit usage and enforce permissions across agents and services.

Consumption-based pricing denominated in Copilot Credits — fixed for Tools, variable for Chat and Context; managed via the Microsoft 365 admin center. Typically layered onto Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing.

This page was written from 2 sources, 1 on domains other than microsoft.com.

1. 1.microsoft.com — announcing the new work iq apisvendor
2. 2.aicritique.org — ai developments in june 2026 major releases products researc