Microsoft is mulling an E7 tier for AI agents

"AI agents can be priced as if they were digital employees. They need identities, email accounts, Teams access, and policy controls. In addition, they use resources that cannot be fully predicted due to the non-deterministic nature of AI. These are all things that are currently linked to user licenses, but that seems far from optimal."

"The reason the current setup is immature is because AI agents do not work like humans or applications. An intermediate form is required, and not one that hooks into service accounts or an existing identity. It seems to be reason enough for Microsoft to introduce a new subscription level for the first time in ten years."

"Although AI functionality already had a separate price tag via Copilot subscriptions, this is not the right way to drive adoption in the long term. Months ago, it became clear that Copilot was difficult to sell."

Microsoft is reportedly creating E7, a new subscription tier priced at $99 monthly that combines Microsoft 365 Copilot with Agent 365 features for AI agent management and governance. This represents Microsoft's first subscription level addition in ten years since E5 launched in 2015. The E7 tier addresses the unique requirements of AI agents, which need identities, email accounts, Teams access, and policy controls similar to employees but operate differently than humans or traditional applications. By bundling these elements into a single SKU, Microsoft aims to provide a more practical licensing model that accounts for AI agents' unpredictable resource consumption and non-deterministic nature, moving beyond the current approach of pricing Copilot separately.

Read at Techzine Global