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By KELLY YIP, LISA MICROSOFT EXPERT
Many of you may have heard about Microsoft’s upcoming E7 release arriving in May, and you might be wondering whether this plan is worth the hype. In this article we will explore exactly what the new Microsoft 365 E7 includes, and whether it is something worth exploring for your organisation.
Currently, for larger organisations, the two most prevalent M365 plans are E3 and E5. The key difference between the two, is that E5 includes several additional security features, as well as including Power BI.
The E3 and E5 bundles include the following:
Watch Kelly summarise her article in under 2 and a half minutes.
Microsoft 365 E7, described by Microsoft as the “Frontier Suite”, is a brand-new bundle that is built on the foundation of M365 E5. It includes everything that is in E5, plus many additional features. It’s aimed squarely at large mature organisations that are moving from the experimentation of AI to AI operationalisation.
The price for this new plan has been announced at $99, which is approximately $12 more than the current price for E5. The million-dollar question is whether that extra $12 is worth it.
To answer this, we need to first explore what is included in the new E7 bundle. It’s described by Microsoft as delivering AI, security, and identity in a single platform with:
Note: Building and running agents still require separate consumption-based costs.
If you are a smaller organisation, or an organisation still dabbling in pilots, then this plan is not going to be worth it for you (yet). If, however, your organisation is already utilising agentic AI, or is building this into their roadmap, then this bundle could come in useful.
Mostly significantly, the benefit lies in the brand-new AI agent platform, Agent 365. It gives you the tools to govern agents, and configure what they do. It’s where you can design the agent’s behaviour and define what systems it can touch, whilst ensuring guardrails and policies. Combined with Copilot 365, this gives plenty of room for automation within your organisation.
Whilst it has already been widely established that the additional features included in E7 cost far less than purchasing them individually, the question of value goes beyond the costs themselves. To understand the true value of this bundle, we need to consider the value of Agentic AI.
Agentic AI has become a bit of a buzzword in the ITAM space, but how much value do they really add? The answer to this question is not as easy as it sounds. AI agents act much like an intelligent bot. They can act like users, completing automated tasks, such as processing invoices, or responding to IT tickets (Microsoft refer to their AI agents as “AI coworkers”) however, measuring the value delivered by agentic AI is a challenge. AI agents tend to offer productivity gains rather than directly adding value, and even recent studies show that organisations are struggling to demonstrate the ROI in this space.
Whilst it’s clear that there is value to be had, that value also comes with a lot of potential risk. There are risks around security, such as the potential for agents to be granted access permissions, that exceed what’s safe. Furthermore, the ongoing challenge around agent sprawl could mean you quickly end up with many agents, and unclear ownership, much like we see with service account sprawl.
Lastly, it’s worth remembering that agents are still going to require separate consumption charges, so while E7 reduces the license cost it is important to consider that agents themselves cost money to run.
Agentic AI has become a bit of a buzzword in the ITAM space, but how much value do they really add? The answer to this question is not as easy as it sounds. AI agents act much like an intelligent bot. They can act like users, completing automated tasks, such as processing invoices, or responding to IT tickets (Microsoft refer to their AI agents as “AI coworkers”) however, measuring the value delivered by agentic AI is a challenge. AI agents tend to offer productivity gains rather than directly adding value, and even recent studies show that organisations are struggling to demonstrate the ROI in this space.
Whilst it’s clear that there is value to be had, that value also comes with a lot of potential risk. There are risks around security, such as the potential for agents to be granted access permissions, that exceed what’s safe. Furthermore, the ongoing challenge around agent sprawl could mean you quickly end up with many agents, and unclear ownership, much like we see with service account sprawl.
Lastly, it’s worth remembering that agents are still going to require separate consumption charges, so while E7 reduces the license cost it is important to consider that agents themselves cost money to run.
