What Is the Agent Store?
The Agent Store is Microsoft’s new marketplace for AI agents within the Microsoft 365 Copilot environment. It allows users to browse, install, and use agents built by Microsoft, trusted partners, or organizations themselves.
Rather than being a standalone app store, the Agent Store is seamlessly integrated into Copilot. It surfaces AI-powered assistants (agents) relevant to your tasks, workflows, or roles. Microsoft describes Copilot as the “UI for AI,” while agents are specialized assistants that extend its capabilities.
Why It Matters: Agents vs. Copilot
Copilot is your general productivity assistant, grounded in your documents, emails, and calendar.
Agents are specialized assistants designed for specific tasks or processes, such as research, data analysis, or workflow automation.
The Agent Store bridges these two concepts by helping users find and adopt specialized agents, while giving developers a way to publish and distribute their solutions.
Microsoft already offers more than 70 agents, including:
Researcher: for multi-step research tasks
Analyst: for analyzing data sets
Both are now accessible via the Agent Store.
How It Works
Discover & Browse
Within Microsoft 365 Copilot, users can navigate to Chat → Agents → “All agents” to open the Agent Store. Agents are suggested through search, recommendations, or curated collections.
Add or Open Agents
Once selected, agents can be added or opened, with starter prompts provided for quick use.
Use Agents in Copilot
Agents operate within the Copilot interface, leveraging documents, context, or external data as needed.
Build & Publish Agents
Developers can use Copilot Studio or the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit / SDK to design, test, and publish agents directly to the Agent Store.
Governance & Security
Admins retain control over who can create, use, or publish agents, ensuring data security and compliance.
Opportunities & Challenges
Opportunities:
Scalable distribution for developers and ISVs
Ready-to-use specialized agents for users
AI assistants embedded directly in workflows
Ecosystem growth within Microsoft 365
Challenges:
Ensuring quality and trustworthiness of agents
Managing security and data governance
Driving adoption and user education
Differentiating agents in a crowded marketplace
Getting Started
Explore the Agent Store in your Microsoft 365 Copilot tenant.
Try built-in agents like Researcher or Analyst to see their impact on workflows.
Experiment with Copilot Studio to build simple agents tailored to your needs.
Set governance policies to manage usage within your organization.
Publish your agents to the Store and make them discoverable to others.
Sum up
The Agent Store represents Microsoft’s push toward a future where AI assistants are not just general-purpose but highly specialized, discoverable, and easy to deploy. For organizations, it’s an opportunity to scale intelligence across teams. For developers, it’s a platform to share innovation. And for users, it’s the next step in unlocking Copilot’s full potential.
