Microsoft announces security AI agents to help overwhelmed humans

Microsoft launched its AI-powered Security Copilot a year ago to bring a chatbot to the cybersecurity space, and now it’s expanding it with AI agents that are designed to autonomously assist overwhelmed security teams. Microsoft is unveiling six of its own AI agents for its Security Copilot, as well as five that have been created by its partners

Microsoft’s six security agents will be available in preview next month, and are designed to do things like triage and process phishing and data loss alerts, prioritize critical incidents, and monitor for vulnerabilities. “The six Microsoft Security Copilot agents enable teams to autonomously handle high-volume security and IT tasks while seamlessly integrating with Microsoft Security solutions,“ says Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president of Microsoft Security.

Microsoft is also working with OneTrust, Aviatrix, BlueVoyant, Tanium, and Fletch to enable some third-party security agents. These extensions will make it easier to analyze data breaches with OneTrust or perform root cause analysis of network outages and failures with Aviatrix.

AI agents are becoming an increasingly popular way for companies like Microsoft to sell businesses on AI tools. Microsoft relaunched its Copilot for businesses earlier this year with free AI chat and access to pay-as-you-go AI agents.

While these latest AI agents in the Security Copilot are designed for security teams to take advantage of, Microsoft is also improving its phishing protection in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will start protecting Teams users against phishing and other cyberthreats within Teams next month, including better protection against malicious URLs and attachments.

Microsoft also has a lot of other industry-specific security announcements today and at its upcoming Microsoft Secure event on April 9th. You can read more about them over at Microsoft’s security blog.