On 24 July 2026 a setting in the Microsoft 365 admin centre switched itself on. Microsoft had onboarded OpenAI as a subprocessor so that OpenAI-operated models, beginning with GPT-5.6, could serve Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps and Copilot Studio. The control arrived on 9 July, disabled, and notice MC1422074 gave administrators until 24 July to choose. Companies that did nothing were enabled by default.
That is one of several defaults sitting in the same admin centre. Since Microsoft made Agent 365, its control plane for observing, governing and securing AI agents, generally available on 1 May 2026, a catalogue of agents built by Microsoft, by verified third-party providers and by colleagues has sat under Agents, then All agents, waiting on a decision about who may see it. The detail pane gives the publisher, the date it was last updated, its knowledge sources, the actions it can take and who it reaches. Once available, an agent appears in Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
What it costs depends on the licences held. With Microsoft 365 Copilot licences, agent use comes with the licence. With Copilot Chat alone the position splits. Agents answering from written instructions and public websites cost nothing extra and are on by default. Agents reaching shared company data, such as SharePoint content, are metered, off by default, and need Copilot Studio, which Microsoft sells in capacity packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at 200 US dollars a pack a month, or on a pay-as-you-go meter that requires an Azure subscription. Those are Microsoft’s published list prices as at 2 September 2026.
The useful internal agents, the ones answering from your own handbook, sit on the metered side. One caution: Microsoft’s Agent Store setup page lists a Copilot licence among its prerequisites, while its Copilot Chat guidance describes no-cost agents reaching users who hold none. Confirm which applies to your subscription.
Three settings decide what follows, and each carries a default that is doing work whether or not anyone chose it. Which agents are visible. Who is allowed to publish one. Whether metered consumption is switched on.
For Penta clients, all three are configured as part of your managed service and reviewed with you before anything is switched on, and the OpenAI subprocessor setting was reviewed with you before 24 July. If you cannot say who made those decisions in your business, that is the gap we fill.