Microsoft Build 2025: The Age of AI Agents and Building the Open Agentic Web

Published: May 21, 2025

Microsoft's flagship developer conference, Build 2025, is now underway, and the theme is crystal clear: we've entered the era of AI agents. In their official announcement, Microsoft outlined how groundbreaking advancements in reasoning and memory are making AI models more capable and efficient, transforming how we solve problems across industries.

In this blog post, we'll dive into the key announcements from Microsoft Build 2025, exploring how the company is advancing its vision of an "open agentic web" where AI agents make decisions and perform tasks on behalf of users and organizations.

When and Where

Microsoft Build 2025 began on May 19, 2025, with both in-person and virtual attendance options, allowing developers worldwide to participate regardless of their location. Many sessions will be available on demand after the event.

Major Announcements and Key Themes

1. The Open Agentic Web

Microsoft has unveiled its vision for an "open agentic web," where AI agents operate across individual, organizational, team, and end-to-end business contexts. This represents a fundamental shift in how we interact with technology and the internet itself, with key components including:

• Model Context Protocol (MCP): Microsoft is delivering broad first-party support for this open protocol across GitHub, Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365, Azure AI Foundry, Semantic Kernel, and Windows 11.
• NLWeb: A new open project that Microsoft believes can play a similar role to HTML for the agentic web, making it easy for websites to provide conversational interfaces that interact directly with web content in a rich, semantic manner.

2. AI Agents and Development Tools

Microsoft is transforming the software development lifecycle with powerful new AI capabilities:

• GitHub Copilot Coding Agent: GitHub Copilot is evolving from an in-editor assistant to an agentic AI partner with a first-of-its-kind asynchronous coding agent integrated into the GitHub platform.
• GitHub Models Updates: New features include prompt management, lightweight evaluations, and enterprise controls to help teams experiment with best-in-class models without leaving GitHub.
• Open-sourcing GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code: The AI-powered capabilities from GitHub Copilot extensions will now be part of the same open-source repository that drives VS Code.
• Windows AI Foundry: A unified and reliable platform supporting the AI developer lifecycle across training and inference, with simple model APIs for vision and language tasks.
• Azure AI Foundry Models: Microsoft is bringing Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models from xAI to its ecosystem, hosted and billed directly by Microsoft. Developers can now choose from more than 1,900 partner-hosted and Microsoft-hosted AI models.

3. Enterprise AI and Agent Security

Microsoft is making AI agents more capable and secure for organizations:

• Azure AI Foundry Agent Service: Now generally available, this service brings new capabilities to orchestrate multiple specialized agents for complex tasks, including Semantic Kernel and AutoGen in a single developer-focused SDK.
• Microsoft Entra Agent ID: Now in preview, agents created in Microsoft Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry are automatically assigned unique identities in an Entra directory, helping enterprises securely manage agents.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning: Customers can use their own company data, workflows, and processes to train models and create agents in a simple, low-code way.
• Multi-agent orchestration: New capabilities in Copilot Studio connect multiple agents, allowing them to combine skills and tackle broader, more complex tasks.

4. Scientific Discovery with AI

Microsoft is introducing Microsoft Discovery, an extensible platform built to empower researchers to transform the entire discovery process with agentic AI:

• Helps research and development departments across various industries accelerate time to market for new products
• Accelerates and expands the end-to-end discovery process for all scientists
• Addresses challenges in areas from drug discovery to sustainability

Tips for Attendees

For In-Person Attendees

1. Focus on AI Agent Sessions: Given the clear focus on AI agents at this year's Build, prioritize sessions about the Open Agentic Web, MCP, and agent orchestration.
2. Explore the Book of News: Microsoft has published their official Book of News with comprehensive details on all announcements. Download this for a complete reference.
3. Attend Hands-On Labs: Take advantage of any hack sessions and live code deep dives to get practical experience with the new technologies.
4. Connect with AI Partners: With Microsoft bringing Grok 3 models to their ecosystem and supporting 1,900+ partner-hosted models, the expo floor will be filled with AI partners worth connecting with.

For Virtual Attendees

1. Bookmark On-Demand Content: Microsoft confirmed that many sessions will be available on-demand after the event, so create a watchlist of priority content.
2. Join Live Q&As: Look for opportunities to participate in live Q&A sessions with Microsoft engineers and product teams.
3. Explore GitHub Repositories: With GitHub being central to many announcements, spend time exploring the referenced repositories, especially the MCP and NLWeb projects.
4. Set Up a Dev Environment: Prepare your development environment to test new features like Windows AI Foundry, which is already available.

The Impact of AI Agents on Development

The Microsoft Build 2025 announcements reveal how profoundly AI agents are transforming the software development landscape:

Current State of AI Adoption

Microsoft shared impressive statistics about AI adoption across their ecosystem:

• 15 million developers are already using GitHub Copilot
• Hundreds of thousands of customers are using Microsoft 365 Copilot
• More than 230,000 organizations — including 90% of the Fortune 500 — have used Copilot Studio to build AI agents and automations

Real-World Applications

Companies are already leveraging these technologies in transformative ways:

• Fujitsu and NTT Data: Using Azure AI Foundry to build AI apps and agents that help prioritize sales leads, speed proposal creation, and surface client insights
• Stanford Health Care: Using Microsoft's healthcare agent orchestrator to build and test AI agents that alleviate administrative burden and speed up workflow for tumor board preparation

Shifting Developer Focus

As AI takes over routine coding tasks, developers can now:

• Stay in the flow of their environment longer
• Shift focus to more strategic tasks
• Work faster and build at scale
• Think bigger about what's possible

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Microsoft Build 2025?

Microsoft Build 2025 is being held in-person with a complementary virtual experience. While the official blog doesn't specify the physical location, Microsoft events like Build are typically held at the Seattle Convention Center in Washington, near Microsoft's headquarters.

What is Microsoft doing in 2025?

According to their Build 2025 announcements, Microsoft is focused on several transformative initiatives:

• Building the "open agentic web" where AI agents make decisions and perform tasks on behalf of users
• Fundamentally reimagining the software development lifecycle with AI through GitHub Copilot and new model capabilities
• Enhancing enterprise security and governance for AI with Entra Agent ID and Purview integration
• Accelerating scientific discovery with the new Microsoft Discovery platform
• Advancing open standards through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and new projects like NLWeb

Where will Microsoft Ignite be in 2025?

Microsoft has not yet announced the location for Microsoft Ignite 2025. This IT professional and enterprise-focused event typically occurs in the fall, and location details will likely be announced in the coming months.

What is Microsoft retiring in May 2025?

The Microsoft Build 2025 announcements focus on new capabilities rather than retirements. For specific information about product and service retirements, it's recommended to check Microsoft's official documentation and lifecycle policy pages. With the significant shift toward AI agents and the agentic web, some older approaches to application development may be gradually phased out as these new paradigms take hold.

Conclusion

Microsoft Build 2025 has made it clear: we've entered the age of AI agents, and Microsoft is positioning itself at the forefront of this revolution with an ambitious vision for an open agentic web.

The announcements span from developer tools like GitHub Copilot's evolution into an agentic partner to enterprise-grade AI capabilities with Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning. By embracing open protocols like MCP and introducing new concepts like NLWeb, Microsoft is laying the groundwork for a future where AI agents seamlessly work alongside humans, enhancing productivity and enabling new possibilities.

For developers, the message is clear: the tools, platforms, and infrastructure to build the agentic future are here now. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has emphasized for years, developers are at the center of this transformation, now empowered with AI tools that dramatically expand what's possible.

We'll continue to update this blog with deeper dives into specific technologies as more information becomes available. In the meantime, explore the Book of News for comprehensive details on all the Build 2025 announce