Microsoft Scout brings OpenClaw's always-on AI power to enterprise with security controls

Microsoft launches Scout, an OpenClaw-inspired personal assistant

In the first weeks of 2026, OpenClaw spread through the AI world like a sonic boom, introducing many of the industry's most ambitious technologists to the joy and chaos of an unrestrained AI agent. The project's momentum tailed off after OpenAI scooped up its founder, but the influence is still being felt -- particularly at Microsoft Today, Microsoft is launching Scout, a new AI assistant meant to bring the power and flexibility of OpenClaw into the Microsoft 365 system. Built on the OpenClaw framework, Scout is an always-on agentic assistant, designed to work alongside the user with a persistent identity and style. Users name their own Scout instance -- in my demo, it was named Sebastian -- and are meant to give it ongoing feedback on tasks that could be automated. As Scout VP Omar Shahine put it, the idea is to create an assistant that actively adapts to the user's needs. "We all have our interesting quirks in how we work, and people are codifying those patterns into memories and skills that persist in their agent," Shahine told me. "Then the agent becomes more capable, better understanding you and gaining more agency and exercising judgments." Scout is based in the cloud, but operates across the desktop and web browser also, so it's easy to connect to inboxes, calendars and other systems. Scout will come with prepackaged skills for calendar management and drafting meeting agendas, among others, but Shahine expects the real value to be in the skills users come up with on their own. The system also comes with extensive security protections, meant to address concerns of unsupervised OpenClaw agents running amok. Scout will come with a built in "policy conformance system" that will continuously check whether the system is operating according to guidelines, and each conformance check will producing its own audit trail. It's part of a range of AI products launched at Build, including the hardware-oriented Project Solara, an update to Copilot, and a new reasoning AI model.

Meet Microsoft Scout, Your AI Coworker That Never Logs Off

Soon, your coworkers in Microsoft Teams might not all be human. Scout, an always-on AI agent announced at Microsoft's Build developer conference on Tuesday, can go through your work messages, calendar, and email inbox to automate tasks, reschedule meeting conflicts, and draft professional-sounding responses. Microsoft more or less built an enterprise agent on top of OpenClaw, the AI tool that riveted San Francisco's early adopters at the start of 2026. Scout is designed specifically to be an assistant for office folks, who can send commands directly in Teams as if the agent was a carbon-based coworker. Scout is part of Microsoft's larger, agent-first transformation, automating how knowledge workers use software and inserting AI assistants into daily office interactions. "Your company essentially hires your assistant," says Omar Shahine, the newly appointed corporate vice president of Microsoft Scout. "The whole point of having a personal assistant is that they're working when you're not working." So, while you're munching on some Doritos and gossiping next to the office vending machine, Scout is busy blocking off calendar time for next Tuesday's all-hands meeting and generating talking points based on recent messages. Microsoft is launching this feature with a small group of customers, with the hope of expanding access soon. In addition to the Teams integration, Microsoft is also testing a desktop app for Scout. This app is rolling out today to subscribers who've opted for "frontier" feature access, and it currently requires users also to have an active GitHub Copilot subscription. If users tell Scout their goals and preferences, the bot can proactively assign tasks. For example, Shahine told Scout always to protect dinnertime with the family, so whenever a meeting was proposed on his calendar during that time, the agent would flag it and automatically suggest rescheduling options to your colleagues. With access to your email and messages, the AI agent can attempt tasks tailored to your workload. Shahine asked Scout to comb through all his data and make a constantly updated list of every time someone makes a promise to him as well as every time he makes a commitment to someone else. Then, Scout can send reminders to you about open tickets and draft follow-up plans. Anyone who experiments with Scout should expect some rough edges as Microsoft iterates on this agent. Shahine says his Scout -- nicknamed Sebastian -- sent an email the other day. "It was just one big run-on sentence, no formatting." It's critical to find a balance of what tasks you feel comfortable automating away and what needs to happen under your direct supervision. Shahine still sees Scout as eventually being a boon to all knowledge workers, especially those who aren't as technical and wouldn't feel comfortable operating an agent through the terminal. "Internally our sales organization is probably the largest and fastest growing group that's using this," he says. With more automation comes more risks. Agentic tools, like Scout, can open users to prompt injection attacks, where bad actors confuse bots to do tasks or reveal information they shouldn't. Microsoft is responding to Scout's potential risks by starting with a limited rollout as well as building tools so administrators can track everything agents do. As more companies build OpenClaw-style tools for productivity, many of these releases are directly targeting office workers. Google's version, called Gemini Spark, was announced at that company's recent developer conference. While Google demonstrated ways that it can help automate aspects of a user's personal life, like planning a birthday party, the company also has its eye on the office, with Spark rolling out to enterprise customers sometime this year. This is all part of a growing, agentic transformation that's permanently altering white-collar, 9-to-5 jobs and how teams communicate with each other. Coders and software developers were the first group really to experience radical change when agents hit their workflows. Now, less technical members are increasingly expected to automate their daily logistics planning and internal messaging. Even when you're out of the office, this agent can keep circling back on work projects and touching base with key stakeholders, because unlike you, a mere human, Scout never logs off.

Microsoft Scout is "the first real personal assistant we've offered customers

Much like Google, Microsoft is launching its own version of OpenClaw. Microsoft Scout is an always-on assistant that integrates into Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, allowing businesses to assign a virtual assistant to employees to help with organizing calendars, expense reporting, email drafts, and much more. Unlike Copilot that lives inside Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft Scout can see and do a lot more. "This is a personal assistant, it's the first real personal assistant we've offered customers," explains Omar Shahine, corporate vice president of Microsoft Scout, in an interview with The Verge. "I think it's important for customers to understand that you're going to get a phone call from this assistant, it's a very different type of AI than chat." Microsoft Scout can monitor local road traffic and your calendar to recommend the best time to leave for appointments, school pickups, and dinner dates. It also works much like a real assistant, surfacing things that it learns are important to you by reading Teams threads, transcripts, and email in the background. Microsoft is starting off slowly with Scout, and only releasing a desktop preview version to its Frontier customers in the US this week, but the goal is to have this running in the cloud and always on. A more limited preview will be available to a small number of customers in the coming months, before Microsoft rolls out the full cloud version more broadly. The desktop app has already proved popular internally, with more than 3,000 Microsoft employees already using the app. Engineers have been using Scout to schedule meetings, help with paperwork, book travel, and fill out forms. A lot of Microsoft Scout usage is simply staying on top of tasks, whether work related or personal. "A lot of people are using it to just be better versions of themselves... we all have aspirations we want for ourselves but we just often lose time and can't do," says Shahine. Instead of creating a separate version of OpenClaw, Microsoft is contributing directly to the core technology of the open-source project. It's surprising to see Microsoft embrace OpenClaw just months after CEO Satya Nadella compared the technology to a virus. OpenClaw's AI "skill" extensions have also been branded a security nightmare. I asked Shahine why Microsoft was now confident it could manage the security and privacy aspects of an AI agent that can access a lot of critical corporate data. "We have a process for intake [of OpenClaw] that makes sure we're protecting ourselves from things like supply chain risk, and also just breaking changes," says Shahine. "It's a very fast-moving open-source project, one of the fastest I've ever seen. We operate OpenClaw in a cloud environment that's in a sandbox, and we treat OpenClaw as untrusted so it doesn't have secrets or access to any of your Microsoft 365 data." Microsoft also uses its suite of security capabilities to control OpenClaw, including Agent 365, Purview, and Defender. Then there's the usual red teaming, privacy reviews, and security reviews to ensure it's safe for enterprise environments. "I feel good that we're doing things that Microsoft has a history of doing to run the service and protect it," says Shahine. "OpenClaw is very powerful... so we're also curating a set of features that we're going to offer customers out of the box." With Google pushing to make Gemini Spark, its own take on OpenClaw, available to connect to Workspace apps like Gmail and Docs, it feels like there's a new AI race emerging to own the personal assistant of the enterprise. The real test will be just how well Gemini Spark or Microsoft Scout manage to organize daily work life without any major security hiccups, and just how quickly these AI agents can learn habits and preferences, just like a human assistant.

Microsoft's new OpenClaw assistant will make phone calls, read your email, and manage your schedule

Well, it's finally here. After OpenClaw set the world on fire in late 2025 and showed us all what an agentic system can do, companies have been scrambling to get their own automatic assistant out the door. We've been checking out Claude Code a lot lately, and we caught wind last month that Google was introducing its OpenClaw-like Gemini assistant. It was only a matter of time until Microsoft announced its own, and during Build 2026, it pulled back the curtain to reveal Scout. Microsoft Scout is the Redmond giant's foray into an agentic world It's one of many AI ventures the company revealed at Build 2026 Over on the Microsoft website, the company announced Scout. Scout is an AI assistant that's the first of a new strain of Microsoft agent, called an "Autopilot." While a Copilot product works alongside you, an Autopilot agent does work without the need for constant input. Of course, it works with Microsoft 365's suite, so you can ask it to get the more tedious jobs done while you focus on the important stuff. There's just one problem: adding an OpenClaw-esque agent to a company's workflow is bound to make a manager break out in a cold sweat. There are so many horror stories out there about unattended OpenClaw agents wreaking havoc among databases that people will understandably feel nervous about deploying Scout. Fortunately, something that Microsoft reiterated a lot during the Build 2026 keynote and in the blog post is the importance of giving businesses the tools they need to ensure that the agents don't go off the rails: Every agent operates under its own governed Entra identity, not a shared, anonymous service account, so the work it does is attributable to a known actor your directory already understands. The credentials behind that identity are protected end to end: scoped to the task at hand, redacted from logs or diagnostics, and managed with the same rigor you expect from any first-party Microsoft service. When Microsoft Scout acts on your behalf, you know precisely whose authority it carried and that nothing sensitive leaked along the way. Microsoft Scout is currently rolling out to a "select group of customers in private preview and to Frontier organizations," and as an experimental feature in the Frontier tier. Microsoft wants Copilot to run like OpenClaw, autonomously managing your inbox around the clock It's claws out time for big AI companies. Posts By Simon Batt

Microsoft took OpenClaw, wrapped it in enterprise security, and called it Scout

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. In a nutshell: OpenClaw introduced a few innovative options for agentic AI solutions but was also plagued by some baffling security and reliability issues. Now, Microsoft Scout is allegedly ready to address those problems for Microsoft 365 users - if you're comfortable managing your digital life through an always-on AI agent, at least. A few days after Google introduced its OpenClaw-based AI agent with Spark, Microsoft is now doing the same with Scout. The new AI tool is the first personal agent designed for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, the Redmond-based company said. Scout is part of a new category of agents called Autopilots and can allegedly perform the tasks of a human assistant without needing to sleep, rest, or log off. The Scout agent is deeply integrated into the Microsoft 365 environment, meaning it can access productivity apps, cloud storage, Teams, and more. It can analyze data contained in chats, calendar appointments, emails, and contacts, organizing a user's day or highlighting the most important events ahead of a new workday. Microsoft confirms that Scout is based on OpenClaw, the same AI assistant that took the AI market by storm earlier this year. Unlike OpenClaw, however, the Microsoft agent has reportedly been built on enterprise-grade security principles and controls. Each Autopilot agent has its own Entra identity and can be configured to access only specific data or services within the Microsoft 365 cloud environment. Redmond said that Scout can help employees and professionals organize and coordinate their workday, offering a more proactive approach to meeting scheduling. It can also generate relevant content or detect potential issues in decision-making before they affect workflow. In addition, the AI agent is expected to become more useful over time thanks to the contextual awareness provided by the Work IQ service. Scout is available to enterprise organizations and to individual users enrolled in the Frontier program, although it is currently limited to a desktop app. Microsoft has also decided to contribute back to the open-source community by adding its own "policy conformance" layer to the OpenClaw project. This way, organizations that have already deployed the FOSS AI technology should benefit from a more secure agentic experience. According to Scout Corporate Vice President Omar Shahine, the new desktop app is already popular among Microsoft developers. Around 3,000 Microsoft employees are currently using the Autopilot tool to manage work-related tasks, including attending meetings, handling paperwork, booking travel, and more. OpenClaw is an extremely fast-moving open-source project, Shahine said, which is why Microsoft decided to take the existing technology and build sandbox-style protections around it to prevent unpredictable behavior.

Microsoft's Scout AI agent is aimed directly at your workplace

Unlike Gemini Scout, which aims to be a 24/7 AI agent for everyone, Microsoft is aiming its always-on Scout agent directly at the workplace. The biggest challenge with personal AI agents is often figuring out what to do with them. In a home setting, that can be surprisingly tricky. Take a 24/7 AI agent like Google's Gemini Spark, which can-on paper-plan meals, manage your calendar, and perform other household tasks. But while Spark is capable of impressive agentic feats, some early users are finding the agent is hit-or-miss with home-oriented duties like planning summer activities or searching for online coupons. (I'm still waiting my turn to give Spark a try.) Always-on personal AI agents do their best work in an office setting, where they can work across dozens of projects, organize large meetings, divvy up tasks, and churn out daily status reports. Enter Scout, Microsoft's take on the 24/7 personal AI agent, which (for now, at least) is skipping the household and heading straight to the workplace. Unveiled-fittingly-during Microsoft Build, an annual developer conference, Scout is a "new personal agent for work" that's "specifically always-on" and "autonomous," according to the company. Based in part on OpenClaw, the viral open-source tool that kicked off the whole "personal AI agent" craze, Scout will tap directly into core services like Teams and Outlook, and "proactively handle things like meeting prep, scheduling conflicts, and routine tasks without asking," Microsoft says. Scout lives within the new Copilot "superapp" and will be the first of a series of "Autopilots" or enterprise-level AI agents that can be customized for a variety of business-minded purposes. Scout will be the default Autopilot in the revamped Copilot app. Access to Scout will initially be limited to Microsoft's enterprise Frontier users, yet another signal that Scout is primarily designed as a corporate AI assistant rather than a household helper. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had little else to share about Scout during the Build keynote, with Microsoft later promising to "share more soon as we expand what Scout can do and roll it out more broadly." The broad strokes of Scout bring to mind another business-minded AI agent that hasn't been officially announced yet. Anthropic is said to be working on a "proactive agent" called "Orbit," which connects to tools like Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Google Calendar, Drive, and Figma. Like Scout, the rumored Orbit agent is aimed at the workplace-and specifically developers, given the chatter about GitHub and Figma connectors.

'A new category of agents': Microsoft reveals Scout, its first "Autopilot", which wants to change how you work for good

* Microsoft reveals Autopilots, its next generation of AI agents * Autopilots will operate in the background, carrying out tasks on your behalf * Microsoft Scout is the first Autopilot, linking into your Microsoft 365 apps Microsoft has announced the launch of Autopilots, a new form of AI agents which can run autonomously in the background, letting you focus on the tasks which really matter. Speaking at Microsoft Build 2026, CEO Satya Nadella unveiled Scout, the company's first Autopilot, similar to OpenClaw offering, built into Copilot and Microsoft 365. Autopilots will run in the background, learning how you work and operate, with the ability to take action with needing to be prompted, carrying out tasks independently. Microsoft Scout "You can think of Autopilots as enterprise-grade Claws - these are autonomous, long-running agents with full enterprise compliance that run in your tenant," Nadella noted. "They're a totally new way to reduce toil and get you back to what you love." Users can customize Autopilots however they like, including names and styles of speaking, as well as full control over their context and memory. They will also be able to set specific permissions and policies for the Autopilots to adhere too, making sure they don't do anything they shouldn't. "Today we are introducing a new category of agents called Autopilots," Microsoft said in a blog post announcing the news. "Autopilots are always-on agents that work autonomously, with their own identity, and act on your behalf." Scout will be able to take on a wide number of tasks, including keeping an eye on your Outlook inbox and Teams messages, alerting you to calendar information or specific emails, to monitor for anything which may need your attention, such as helping you prepare for meetings and tasks. "Scout works where you work...that's the future of what we think of, of the Copilot ecosystem itself," Nadella added. Frontier users can try Scout now - Nadella said he was already using it himself - with Microsoft set to build out the platform over the coming months, adding more agents and also the ability for users to build their own Autopilots. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Autopilots: Microsoft launches Microsoft Scout, a new personal AI agent

Microsoft Scout is a new AI agent thats available today to early-access Microsoft 365 customers. Credit: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock Microsoft delivered major AI announcements this year at its annual developer conference, Microsoft Build. One of the biggest AI announcements from today's event is arguably Microsoft Scout, a brand new personal AI agent from the company. Microsoft Scout is the first in a new category of AI agents that Microsoft is calling Autopilots, "always-on agents that work autonomously, with their own identity, and act on your behalf." "As models become more capable and more available, the differentiator for any organization is no longer access to intelligence, but ownership," Microsoft said in a statement. "How does your expertise, data and way of working become a system that continuously learns and drives better outcomes? The goal is an ecosystem that gives companies their own agency, not one that funnels value back to a consultant or the model maker." "Your agents should reflect how you think and operate, from your business logic and institutional knowledge, down to your workflows," the company continued. That's where Microsoft Scout comes in. Microsoft Scout is a new "always-on" personal autonomous agent for work. Microsoft says the AI agent will "understand how you work, use the tools you already live in, like Teams and Outlook, and proactively handle things like meeting prep, scheduling conflicts, and routine tasks without asking." According to Microsoft, the new agent is built on OpenClaw and WorkIQ. OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent that took the industry by storm late last year. Earlier this year, in February, OpenAI acquired OpenClaw and hired its founder. According to Microsoft, WorkIQ is "the core AI intelligence layer behind Microsoft 365 Copilot." During the Microsoft Build 2026 keynote, Microsoft positioned its tools as a safer way to run AI agents. "Agents can execute multi-step workflows locally while running inside an operating system-enforced boundary rather than unmanaged user sessions," said Microsoft Developer CMO Kyle Daigle. "This reduces risk when agents execute code, access files, or interact with networks on the device." At a media briefing ahead of Microsoft Build, the company also outlined new Microsoft execution containers designed to run agents securely. "Microsoft is making Windows an agent-native runtime, and that starts with the new Microsoft execution containers," Daigle said. "These will be in preview, and it gives developers and IT administrators a single way to create those enterprise-grade sandbox environments for agents with containment that's enforced by the operating system itself. So you can describe your requirements once, and Windows enforces them everywhere your agents run." How to try Microsoft Scout Microsoft Scout is available now for Frontier customers. Frontier is Microsoft's platform that provides early access to its latest AI products in Microsoft 365. The company says that any Microsoft 365 subscriber has access to Frontier. Microsoft says it will have more to share about Scout as well as a broader rollout soon. You can learn more about Autopilots and Microsoft Scout at the Microsoft website.

Microsoft Turns OpenClaw Into an Enterprise AI Agent With Scout

Microsoft is wrapping Scout with enterprise security and contributing policy controls. Copilot isn't enough. Microsoft wants to build an AI that doesn't wait for you to ask it something. Microsoft Scout, announced at Build 2026 today, connects to your Teams messages, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint, then runs in the background doing the coordination work you keep forgetting to do -- scheduling meetings across time zones, flagging stalled decisions, blocking calendar time before your deadline ambushes you on a Tuesday afternoon. Microsoft calls this a new category: "Autopilots." Not agents you prompt. Not chatbots you supervise. Things that just run. Now, the Hermes and OpenClaw dudes may be rolling their eyes because, yes, they have been doing this for what feels like ages. The difference now is who's getting it next. Scout lives inside Microsoft 365, which means it lands on the desks of people who have never heard of (or cared about) OpenClaw, haven't opened a terminal in their lives, and just want their 2 p.m. meeting prep handled without digging through three calendar apps. That's a much larger population than the developers raving about OpenClaw on GitHub. Microsoft's long agentic arc To be fair, Microsoft was early. In February 2023, Yusuf Mehdi introduced the Copilot sidebar for Edge -- a context-aware assistant sitting alongside your browser, aware of what you were reading. Most people closed it immediately. The idea was right; the timing was early and the use case wasn't obvious enough yet. Then at Build 2025, GitHub Copilot became a fully autonomous coding agent. By July, Copilot Mode for Edge brought agentic browsing into the new-tab experience. Now Scout brings the same logic to the layer where most people actually work -- email, calendar, meetings, files -- rather than code or browser tabs. Scout is based on OpenClaw, the agentic AI tool that sparked a new era of AI applications. The project launched in January 2026 as an open-source personal agent you could run locally, accumulated 180,000 GitHub stars in roughly three months, and turned its Austrian developer Peter Steinberger into someone both OpenAI and Meta were racing to hire. (For those not keeping track, OpenAI won that race in February). Microsoft, rather than compete with another closed agent framework, built Scout on top of the already solid and known OpenClaw repository and committed to contributing enterprise-grade policy controls back upstream. OpenClaw gets mainstream distribution through Microsoft. Microsoft gets a shortcut to a billion dollar idea, gets the credibility of an open-source foundation, and skips the part where it has to explain what an "agent runtime" is to enterprise customers who just want their meeting prep done. What else Microsoft announced this week Scout didn't land alone. The Work IQ APIs go generally available June 16 -- that's the organizational intelligence layer that builds a real-time model of how your company actually operates, pulling from email, calendar, meetings, files, and collaboration patterns. According to Microsoft, Fortune 500 organizations average over 600 terabytes of this data. The APIs process it 2x faster than traditional Microsoft 365 APIs and cut token usage by 80% in testing -- numbers that matter to the developers building the next generation of enterprise agents on top of this stack. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella opened Build 2026's keynote at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco telling 2,500 developers that agents are "the new operating system for work." Windows itself is being repositioned as a runtime for AI agents, with new execution containers and local model support announced alongside Scout. Scout is available now in private preview for a select group of customers and through Microsoft's Frontier program. Access requires Intune policy configuration, an opt-in attestation, and a GitHub Copilot license to install.

Scout finally gives Microsoft's AI agents the autonomy they've been missing

When not writing, Dave enjoys spending time with his family, running, playing the guitar, camping, and serving in his community. His favorite place is the Blue Ridge Mountains, and one day he hopes to retire there (hopefully his fear of heights will have retired by then, too!). * Microsoft has announced Scout, an always-on autonomous personal agent built on OpenClaw. * Scout acts in the background to schedule meetings, prep materials, block time, and flag delays proactively. * Scout availability is very limited for now -- only Frontier organizations and select customers can access the tool. At its annual Build conference on June 2, Microsoft announced Scout, an "always-on personal agent." Scout is designed to operate autonomously in the background and take actions proactively to help you get stuff done. I finally found a use for the Copilot key on my laptop That irritating key you accidentally press can be turned into something useful. Posts 2 By Gavin Phillips Introducing Microsoft Scout A new era for Microsoft AI agents Microsoft has been on a tear this year with AI agents. First, we had Copilot Tasks, announced in February. Then, just a few weeks later, we had Copilot Cowork. Now, we have Scout. However, Scout is unique in a few key ways. First, unlike the others, Scout is built on top of OpenClaw, the powerful, viral agentic AI tool. Not only that, but Microsoft will contribute "policy conformance" upstream to the OpenClaw project so that others can benefit from its work. Second, Scout is autonomous in a way that Copilot Tasks and Cowork aren't. It's designed to run in the background without input (unless it requires it to make a decision or perform an action). It's part of a new category of agents Microsoft is calling Autopilots. What can Scout do? Autonomous actions Scout runs in the background and "reduces the coordination work that builds throughout the day." Microsoft provides some examples of what Scout can do: * Proactively schedule and coordinate meetings across time zones * Flag important meetings * "Generate materials you need to prepare" -- based on the accompanying video, this likely means things like reports and slide decks. * Identify upcoming deadlines and block time on your calendar to work on them * Inform you of potential bottlenecks, such as delayed decisions Microsoft says Scout will continue to learn over time. It gets a feel for "how you work, what you care about, and what needs to happen next," so it should become even more useful over time. I was ready to dismiss Copilot -- until I found the features that actually make it useful Copilot can be your ultimate sidekick. Posts By Sagar Naresh Safeguards Obviously, an autonomous AI agent could cause serious trouble, so Microsoft has built guardrails into Scout to (hopefully) ensure it stays in its lane. Each Scout agent is tied to a governed Entra identity, so you can always see who's responsible for the work being done. It is also governed by credentials tied to that identity, so it should be incapable of accessing information it shouldn't or performing tasks outside its assigned scope. Now, whether these safeguards will actually hold up remains to be seen. Microsoft says it's been using Scout internally and that it's ready for a wider release, so presumably everything is working as expected. However, it requires a lot of trust to give an AI agent authority to make decisions and act on your behalf. Scout availability Very limited, for now Microsoft Scout is being rolled out to a "select group of customers in private preview" and Frontier organizations. In other words, this is a very limited initial release. Accessing Scout requires "Frontier enrollment, Intune policy configuration, and an opt-in attestation," which basically means you've got to jump through some hoops to get to it right now. If you're interested in trying Scout, Microsoft provides full setup instructions. What do you think of Scout? Drop us a comment below.

Microsoft Scout Ushers in New Category of AI Autopilots | PYMNTS.com

The company is making Microsoft Scout available to a select group of customers in private preview and to Frontier organizations, it said in a Tuesday (June 2) blog post. Microsoft Scout operates across cloud, desktop and web; connects to Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint; and connects to the user's data, including chats, email, calendar and contacts, according to the post. "It can proactively schedule and coordinate meeting times across time zones, flag important meetings, and generate the materials you need to prepare while keeping you in the loop," Omar Shahine, corporate vice president of Microsoft Scout, said in the post. "It identifies upcoming deliverables, then automatically blocks time on your calendar to help you stay on track. It can also spot risks, like stalled decisions, so you can address them before they become blockers." Microsoft Scout is the first entry in a new category of agents Microsoft called "Autopilots," according to the post. Autopilots are agents that are always on, work autonomously, have their own identity and act on the user's behalf, according to Microsoft. "Autopilots stay active in the background, understand how work gets done across your apps and systems, and take action without needing to be prompted each time," Shahine said in the post. "Because they operate with their own identity, they can carry out tasks within the permissions and policies you and your organization set." PYMNTS reported in May that Google and Meta are building personal AI agents that operate in the background, handle tasks without being asked twice and get sharper at anticipating needs the longer they run. Google's agent is described internally as a round-the-clock assistant for work, school and everyday life. Microsoft introduced is Copilot Cowork feature in March, saying it allows the company's AI assistant to carry out tasks across Microsoft 365 applications. Copilot Cowork is designed to handle work that takes more than a single prompt and can complete a task across apps like Outlook, Teams and Excel.

Microsoft unveils Autopilots and Scout AI agent for Microsoft 365

Microsoft has announced a new category of AI agents called Autopilots, designed to operate continuously in the background and carry out tasks on behalf of users. Alongside the announcement, the company introduced Microsoft Scout, the first Autopilot agent built for Microsoft 365 environments. Microsoft launches Autopilots According to Microsoft, Autopilots are always-on agents that work autonomously, have their own identity, and can act on behalf of users. Unlike traditional AI assistants that respond only when prompted, Autopilots are designed to stay active in the background, understand how work gets done across applications and systems, and take action without requiring repeated instructions. Because they operate with their own identity, Autopilots can carry out tasks within the permissions and policies established by users and organizations. Microsoft says this allows work to continue even when users are focused on other tasks. Microsoft Scout integrates across Microsoft 365 Microsoft Scout is the first Autopilot agent introduced by the company. It operates across cloud, desktop, and web environments and is integrated throughout Microsoft 365 applications to stay connected to a user's daily workflow. The agent connects with Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint, along with work-related data including chats, emails, calendars, and contacts. Users interact with Scout through Teams, while the desktop application extends its capabilities to web browsers, local resources, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. Microsoft says Scout is powered by OpenClaw open-source technology and includes additional security, governance, and management capabilities for enterprise deployments. Designed to automate coordination work Microsoft Scout is designed to reduce the coordination work that builds up throughout the day. The agent can help manage meetings, schedules, and deliverables while keeping users informed about actions taken on their behalf. Key capabilities include: * Scheduling and coordinating meetings across time zones * Highlighting important meetings and generating preparation materials * Identifying upcoming deliverables * Automatically blocking calendar time * Detecting workflow risks such as stalled decisions Work IQ helps Scout build context Microsoft Scout builds context over time through a system called Work IQ. According to Microsoft, Work IQ learns how users work, what they care about, and what actions are likely needed next. The company says this information helps Scout carry work forward and align actions with user priorities over time. Microsoft contributes policy conformance to OpenClaw Microsoft also announced that it is contributing policy conformance capabilities directly to the OpenClaw open-source project. Organizations running OpenClaw will be able to validate whether their environments meet security and compliance requirements, verify that deployments are operating securely, and receive verifiable, audit-ready validation results. Enterprise security and governance controls Microsoft says Scout is designed to meet enterprise security and compliance requirements from day one. Every Scout agent operates under its own governed Microsoft Entra identity rather than a shared or anonymous service account, allowing actions to be attributed to a known identity already recognized within an organization's directory. Microsoft also says credentials are protected end to end, scoped only to the task being performed, excluded from logs and diagnostics, and managed using the same security standards applied to first-party Microsoft services. When Scout acts on behalf of a user, organizations can identify whose authority was used for each action. Enterprise protections include: * Dedicated Microsoft Entra identity for every agent * Task-scoped credentials protected end to end * Human approval requirements for sensitive actions * Microsoft Purview policy enforcement * Support for sensitivity labels and data loss prevention controls * Access limited to approved resources and destinations Microsoft says Scout operates within existing organizational controls rather than bypassing them. Data protection policies are enforced in real time before information is sent or written. Availability Microsoft employees have already been using an early Microsoft Scout desktop experience to evaluate how always-on agents function in day-to-day work. According to the company, internal testing has shown Scout helping coordinate tasks, identify risks earlier, and continue work without constant prompting. Microsoft is now expanding access to a select group of customers through a private preview program and to Frontier organizations. Scout is also being offered as an experimental release through Frontier, allowing organizations to explore how the agent can fit into their workflows before broader availability. To access the preview, organizations must have: * Frontier enrollment * Intune policy configuration * Opt-in attestation * A GitHub Copilot license for participating users Eligible users can then download and install the Microsoft Scout experience.

Microsoft launches AI assistant that acts as virtual employee By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Microsoft Corp. introduced new artificial intelligence software called Scout on Tuesday that functions as an autonomous executive assistant within workplace systems. The company announced the product at its Build developer conference in San Francisco. Scout differs from existing AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft's Copilot because it appears as a distinct entity on internal email and calendar systems rather than operating only for individual users. Charles Lamanna, who oversees product development for Microsoft's business applications teams, said Scout can handle tasks independently across the organization. The assistant can request meeting reschedules when conflicts arise and respond to queries from colleagues, such as salespeople asking questions through their manager's Scout assistant. "It has its own identity and therefore is shareable," Lamanna said in an interview. Lamanna did not reveal pricing details for Scout. The software will initially require a subscription to Microsoft's GitHub Copilot coding assistant. The company plans to charge customers based on usage volume rather than implementing a flat subscription fee. Lamanna said Microsoft aims to include more AI products in standard subscription plans as the costs of accessing AI models decline. Microsoft continues efforts to increase adoption of its AI tools through paid subscriptions. The company offers a new software bundle called E7. Currently, only a small portion of subscribers pay for Copilot, the company's main AI assistant product. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.