Microsoft cut AI agent security out of standard Defender licenses on 1 July.
The Story
Copilot Studio and Foundry agents now need a separate Agent 365 license or they run with zero threat protection.
Why It Matters
Many businesses assumed Defender for Cloud Apps or Defender for Cloud already covered any Copilot Studio or Foundry agent they had built or enabled. As of 1 July that stopped being true: threat detection and real-time blocking for those agents now require an Agent 365-eligible license (Microsoft 365 E5, Business Premium, or the standalone add-on). Tenants without one lost the protection with no separate warning beyond an admin banner.
What To Do About It
Ask your IT provider to confirm whether your tenant carries an Agent 365-eligible license and whether any Copilot Studio or Foundry agent you already use lost real-time blocking on 1 July. A 25-seat, 30-day admin-led trial is available if you need to check before committing to the 15 USD per user per month standalone license.
Sources
Related Signals
A WatchGuard survey of 684 SMB employees across the US, UK, Germany, France and Spain found 64% use unauthorized AI tools at work, and fewer than 3 in 10 employers can accurately track what software staff actually run.
30 Jul 2026CoreView's July 2026 governance report finds two-thirds of organizations have delayed or cancelled Microsoft Copilot rollouts over fear it will surface overshared SharePoint files.
29 Jul 2026A Cloud Security Alliance survey found 58% of executives suffered an AI-agent security incident in the past year, while only 34% apply the same controls to agents as to human staff.
27 Jul 2026