Smarter Cyber Defense with Microsoft Security Copilot Agents

Cyber threats are getting smarter and faster, with attackers now using AI to launch complex attacks. This leaves IT and security teams overwhelmed by alerts and data. Traditional tools can’t keep up.

Microsoft introduced Security Copilot to help. It’s a generative AI tool designed for security teams, helping them spot threats faster, respond quicker, and learn as they go. Companies like Eastman have already seen results, cutting response times and making smarter decisions.

Now, Microsoft is taking it further with the launch of AI agents in Security Copilot, built to handle even more tasks and support defenders in real-time.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft Security Copilot is a generative AI assistant transforming cybersecurity by providing AI-driven insights and guidance across the security stack.

• It significantly improves efficiency and speed, with studies showing a 30% reduction in MTTR for security incidents and productivity gains for SecOps and IT tasks.

• Security Copilot Agents are the next evolution, moving beyond assistance to autonomously manage high-volume security and IT tasks.

• Agents are purpose-built for security, integrate seamlessly with Microsoft and partner solutions, learn from feedback, and operate securely.

• Microsoft is introducing six agents covering phishing triage, alert triage for DLP/IRM, Conditional Access optimization, vulnerability remediation, and threat intelligence briefing.

• Five partner-built agents are also being introduced to extend capabilities across areas like privacy, networking, SOC tooling, and alert triage.

• Agents empower teams to accelerate responses, prioritize risks, and drive efficiency by automating tasks and reducing manual workloads.

• Microsoft Security Copilot agents are now available in public preview.
  

What are Security Copilot Agents?

AI-powered agents are the next step in the evolution of Security Copilot. While Copilot assists with threat analysis and response, these new agents go further by automating high-volume security and IT tasks.

Built into Microsoft Security tools and partner solutions, the agents work within a Zero Trust framework and are tailored for security use cases. They're not just automated scripts—they learn from your team’s feedback and adapt to your workflows.

With agents, you can automate tasks across threat protection, identity, data security, and IT operations, reducing manual effort and helping your team stay focused on what matters most.

Why are Agents Necessary Today?

The simple truth is that the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks have grown to a point where human capacity is often exceeded. Security teams are drowning in alerts and data. For example, Microsoft detected over 30 billion phishing emails targeting customers between January and December 2024 alone. This volume overwhelms teams using manual processes, making it hard to triage and respond promptly. Microsoft Threat Intelligence now processes a staggering 84 trillion signals daily, revealing the exponential growth in cyberattacks, including 7,000 password attacks per second. Scaling cyber defenses through AI agents is now an imperative to keep pace with this threat landscape.

This is where agents shine. They can handle the routine, high-volume tasks that consume valuable analyst and admin time, freeing them up to focus on more complex threats, strategic initiatives, and proactive security measures. By prioritizing risks and driving efficiency at scale, agents enable teams to accelerate responses and strengthen protection.

Microsoft Security Agents: Automating Key Tasks

Microsoft is rolling out six new Security Copilot agents, built to work across its full security platform. These agents bring AI-powered capabilities directly into the tools security and IT teams already use, making it easier to act quickly, reduce workload, and stay secure.

Here are the six Microsoft Security Copilot agents available for preview starting from April 2025:

Phishing Triage Agent in Microsoft Defender

Phishing alerts overwhelm SOC analysts, often hundreds per week, each taking up to 30 minutes to review. Sorting real threats from false alarms is time-consuming and inefficient.

Microsoft’s new Phishing Agent, embedded in Defender, tackles this by automatically triaging alerts in the background. It uses advanced AI to accurately identify real phishing attempts, explains its reasoning in plain language, and improves over time through analyst feedback.

By handling the noise, this agent frees analysts to focus on proactive defense, helping improve overall security posture.

Alert Triage Agents in Microsoft Purview

Data security teams are flooded with alerts every day yet can only address about 60% due to limited time and resources.

To help, Microsoft has introduced two Alert Triage Agents in Microsoft Purview one for Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and one for Insider Risk Management (IRM). These agents:

• Identify and prioritize high-risk alerts based on policies and context.

• Analyze content and intent to assess the impact on sensitive data

• Provide clear, natural-language reasoning behind each alert’s priority

• Learn from admin feedback to improve future accuracy and align with organizational priorities

By streamlining alert management, these agents allow data security admins to focus on what matters most: protecting sensitive information.

Conditional Access Optimization Agent in Microsoft Entra

As organizations grow, managing Conditional Access (CA) policies gets complex—new users, apps, and contractors can slip through the cracks, creating security risks.

The CA Optimization Agent in Microsoft Entra solves this by automatically monitoring policy drift. It:

• Detects gaps caused by new users or apps

• Analyzes alignment with existing policies

• Flags issues in real time and suggests optimizations

• Offers one-click fixes to quickly close gaps

• This agent helps admins keep CA policies current and effective without manual effort.

Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune

Keeping up with security vulnerabilities is tough; there are too many CVEs and not enough time. IT teams need more than just alerts; they need smart, scalable solutions.

The Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune does just that. Powered by Defender Vulnerability Management, it:

• Automatically detects and prioritizes vulnerabilities

• Monitors new threats in real time

• Provides risk-based recommendations for remediation

• Helps reduce exposure time and workload for IT teams

It’s the first step toward scalable, proactive vulnerability management, with future support planned for more platforms, apps, and config-based fixes.

Threat Intelligence Briefing Agent in Security Copilot

Threat Intelligence (TI) analysts often struggle with too much data and too little time—creating threat briefings can take hours or even days.

The Threat Intelligence Briefing Agent solves this by automating and accelerating the process. It:

• Pulls real-time insights from Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence and External Surface Management

• Tailor's briefings to your org’s unique threat profile

• Delivers prioritized, actionable reports in just 4–5 minutes

• Highlights top threats and recommends next steps

This agent helps teams stay informed, prepared, and focused—without the manual effort.

Extending Capabilities with Partner Agents

Security is a team effort, and Microsoft is building an open platform to support that. By working with trusted partners, Security Copilot can integrate with a wide range of tools and systems.

Now, five new partner-built agents are coming to Security Copilot (in preview), expanding its reach into specialized areas and helping security teams work even more efficiently.

Privacy Breach Response Agent by OneTrust

This agent analyzes data breaches based on factors like data type, geographic location, and regulatory requirements to generate guidance for the privacy team on how to meet those requirements. This can significantly help privacy teams analyze and address complex regulatory requirements much faster than manual processes.

Network Supervisor Agent by Aviatrix

This agent determines the root cause of why a VPN, Gateway, or Site2Cloud connection is down and provides information about the failure. It performs root cause analysis and summarizes issues related to these network outages.

SecOps Tooling Agent by BlueVoyant

This agent assesses your security operations center (SOC) and the state of your controls to make recommendations aimed at optimizing security operations, and improving controls, efficacy, and compliance.

Alert Triage Agent by Tanium

This agent provides analysts with the necessary context to quickly and confidently make decisions on each alert.

Task Optimizer Agent by Fletch: This agent helps organizations forecast and prioritize the most critical threat alerts, designed to reduce alert fatigue and improve overall security.

These partner agents highlight the power of the Security Copilot platform to integrate with and enhance solutions from across the security ecosystem.

The Impact and Benefits of Security Copilot Agents

Implementing Security Copilot agents offers significant advantages for security and IT teams facing the challenges of the modern threat landscape:

Increased Speed and Efficiency

By automating high-volume and repetitive tasks like phishing triage or alert prioritization, agents dramatically reduce the time spent on manual processes. This allows teams to respond faster to incidents. Studies show a 30% reduction in the mean time to resolution with Security Copilot, and IT admins saw a 30% reduction in task completion time and a 35% increase in accuracy.

Improved Accuracy and Prioritization

Agents use advanced AI to make precise determinations, like identifying genuine phishing attempts. They can analyze data and intent to prioritize the highest-risk alerts, ensuring critical threats are addressed first. Analysts using Security Copilot were 7% more accurate across all tasks in one study.

Enhanced Team Focus

By handling routine work, agents free up skilled security professionals to concentrate on more complex investigations, strategic initiatives, threat hunting, and proactive security measures. This empowers staff and helps them leverage their expertise more effectively.

Adaptive and Learning Capabilities

Agents learn from the feedback provided by security and IT admins. This dynamic process allows them to fine-tune their decisions and prioritization over time, better matching the specific needs and workflows of each organization.

Streamlined Workflows

Agents integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Security solutions and partner tools, embedding AI-powered assistance directly into the products teams already use. This provides an intuitive experience and helps unify security operations.

Strengthened Security Posture

By accelerating responses, reducing manual errors, identifying vulnerabilities, and ensuring critical alerts are prioritized, agents contribute directly to a stronger overall security posture. Identifying policy gaps and recommending fixes, as the Conditional Access Optimization Agent does, also helps maintain security as the environment evolves.

Essentially, agents enable organizations to defend against threats faster, smarter, and with greater confidence. Survey respondents have estimated average productivity gains for SecOps tasks between 23% and 47%, and 97% of participants in a study said they would want Copilot for the same task again.

Integration and Getting Started

Microsoft Security Copilot is designed to work seamlessly across the full Microsoft Security ecosystem, integrating deeply with tools like:

• Microsoft Defender XDR

• Microsoft Sentinel

• Microsoft Intune

• Microsoft Entra

• Microsoft Purview

• Defender for Cloud

• Defender External Attack Surface Management

• Azure Web Application Firewall & Azure Firewall
  

These integrations allow Security Copilot to pull real-time data and signals, delivering tailored insights and automating actions where they matter most.

Security Copilot supports both a standalone experience, providing teams with a comprehensive view of threats and in-product assistance within the tools they already use, making threat detection and response faster and more intuitive.

To get started, organizations need an Azure subscription. From there, the more connected your Microsoft and partner security tools are, the more value Security Copilot can deliver, helping you stay ahead of threats, reduce manual effort, and strengthen your security posture.

The Future is AI-Powered Security

The introduction of agents in Microsoft Security Copilot marks a significant milestone in applying generative AI to cybersecurity. They represent a shift towards more autonomous and adaptive automation that can handle the increasing volume and complexity of tasks required to defend against modern threats.

Microsoft is continuously innovating, applying the principles of its Secure Future Initiative to deliver powerful, end-to-end protection. With agents, Security Copilot continues to lead the way in empowering defenders to protect their organizations at the speed and scale of AI, helping to build a more secure world for all.