Today, the Work IQ API is available in public preview, expanding access to the same underlying intelligence capabilities used by Microsoft 365 Copilot for developers and partners.
Work IQ gives developers programmatic access to Copilot so you can build agents and apps that use Copilot’s grounding, context, and reasoning without wiring raw data or permissions. In this public preview, that access is exposed in three formats—Agent‑to‑Agent (A2A) for agent collaboration, Model Context Protocol (MCP) for IDEs and tools, and REST for app integrations—letting you choose the right surface for your scenario while relying on the same intelligence runtime.
Work IQ continuously builds context through memory and a semantic index across organizational data, Microsoft 365, line‑of‑business systems, and external sources. The result is a unified foundation for building agents, applications, and workflows grounded in how work actually happens, with enterprise‑grade security and governance built in by default.
With the Work IQ API, developers build on permission‑aware intelligence—context, intent, signals, and skills—so applications and agents understand what’s in motion, what’s been decided, and what needs attention next.
For developers, this means:
- No raw data wiring: Work with intelligence instead of directly accessing emails, files, or chats.
- No orchestration overhead: A single runtime handles context assembly, grounding, skill selection, and tool invocation.
- No security rework: Enterprise compliance, governance, and access controls are inherited automatically.
Where Work IQ API is available
Work IQ API meets developers where they are, supporting four protocols that share the same underlying intelligence runtime. This means that the behavior, grounding, and response quality stay consistent across every surface.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) — local server (available now): Works with GitHub Copilot through the Work IQ CLI, giving MCP-compliant agents governed access to organizational context as tools and resources directly from their IDE or CLI workflow.
- Agent-to-Agent (A2A), new in this public preview: A cloud-hosted protocol that enables custom agents to interact directly with Copilot intelligence as a peer—delegating work, receiving grounded responses, and maintaining context across interactions.
- REST (coming May 2026): Standard request/response access to Work IQ intelligence for applications and integrations that don't require streaming or agent-to-agent coordination.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) — remote server (coming May 2026): A hosted MCP server exposing a standard set of tools and skills for interacting with M365 data, so any MCP-aware surface can connect to Work IQ without running a local server.
What’s new: Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol
This public preview introduces the Agent‑to‑Agent (A2A) protocol, which allows custom‑built agents to interact directly with the intelligence layer behind Copilot. Over time, A2A will expand to support collaboration across a broader set of agents and tools that support A2A or MCP, meaning agents can work together with specialized, organization‑aware capabilities.
With A2A, agents communicate as peers. Rather than calling a traditional API and parsing a response, an agent can delegate work to another agent running on Work IQ—an agent with access (subject to the user’s and tenant’s permissions) to organizational context across emails, meetings, files, and conversations—and receive responses that are grounded in enterprise data and governed by the same security and compliance policies.
Here’s what that looks like in practice: a single A2A message sent to a Copilot agent using standard .NET A2A SDK:
var credential = new InteractiveBrowserCredential(clientId);
var token = await credential.GetTokenAsync(new (["api://workiq.svc.cloud.microsoft/WorkIQAgent.Ask"]));
var httpClient = new HttpClient();
httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", token.Token);
// Create an A2A client that talks to the default WorkIQ agent endpoint, using the authenticated HttpClient
var client = new A2AClient(new Uri("https://workiq.svc.cloud.microsoft/a2a/"), httpClient);
// Compose a query
var question = "What meetings do I have tomorrow that I need to prepare for?";
// Send the query and WorkIQ returns an A2A task that when complete will contain
// a grounded, permission-trimmed answer
var response = await client.SendMessageAsync(new SendMessageRequest
{
Message = new Message
{
MessageId = Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N"),
Role = Role.User,
Parts = [Part.FromText(question)]
}
});
Developers can rely on Work IQ to handle common retrieval and permission-enforcement tasks, reducing the need to build and maintain custom pipelines. The full working samples (C#, Rust, and Swift) are available here.
What A2A unlocks for developers
- Multi-agent collaboration: Your agents delegate to Copilot agents that understand organizational context.
- Embedded intelligence via agents inside SaaS products that tap into a customer’s real work context.
- Enterprise assistants tailored to specific roles, powered by Copilot’s grounding and reasoning.
- Autonomous workflows where agents hand off tasks, track progress, and exchange structured artifacts.
See A2A in action
The demo above shows an agent sending a natural-language request to Copilot via A2A and receiving a streamed, grounded response—backed by the user’s real organizational data, with no custom retrieval or permissions code. Try it yourself with the Work IQ samples on GitHub.
How developers can use Work IQ API
Whether you’re connecting agents via A2A, surfacing organizational context through MCP in developer surfaces like IDEs and CLIs, or embedding conversational experiences via REST, the patterns share a common foundation.
A2A is the natural fit when your agent needs to collaborate with Copilot intelligence as a peer—delegating work, receiving structured results, and maintaining context across interactions. For example, a sales enablement agent could ask to pull together a customer's recent email threads, meeting notes, and shared documents, then use that grounded summary to auto-generate a pre-call brief—without ever touching the raw data itself.
MCP is ideal when you need to expose Work IQ data as tools and resources to an existing MCP-compliant agent using standard protocols and tooling, without needing custom, one-off connections. For example, with the Work IQ CLI running as a local MCP server, a developer using GitHub Copilot can ask, "What did the team decide about the migration timeline?" and get an answer grounded in actual emails, meeting transcripts, and chat threads—right inside their IDE, without leaving their coding workflow.
The common thread across these approaches is a shift from isolated AI features to agent‑driven systems that stay aligned with how work actually unfolds.
Security and governance
Developers can rely on Work IQ for common security and compliance controls. The Work IQ API draws a clear platform boundary between data access and intelligence:
- Permissions: User and tenant permissions, conditional access policies, and sensitivity labels are automatically enforced.
- Responses: Permission-trimmed by design.
- Compliance: All activity operates within the same audit, compliance, and data-loss-prevention boundaries as Microsoft 365.
Because the API exposes intelligence rather than raw data, applications cannot accidentally bypass tenant security or create shadow-AI risks. Agents operate within the tenant’s existing security and compliance controls from day one.
What comes next for Work IQ
Users with the appropriate license will be able to access Work IQ in customer and partner apps and agents starting today.
General availability is planned for summer 2026. The Work IQ API will also be available to unlicensed users on a consumption basis in summer 2026.
We will continue to add more to the Work IQ API in the coming weeks and months. Our investments will target three areas:
- M365 Agent access, enabling more M365 agents to work with and alongside agents across the Copilot ecosystem, unlocking richer multi-agent collaboration patterns.
- Remote MCP server public preview, exposing Work IQ as tools and related skills for MCP-compliant agents, so any MCP-aware surface can access governed organizational context.
- Deeper connection and richer intelligence, expanding across platforms and developer tools in addition to building on top of organizational data with contextual grounding, skills, and tools.
Resources
Building with the Work IQ API and have questions? Join our developer communities for support:
- Microsoft Q&A: Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft 365 Copilot | Development
- GitHub: Work IQ GitHub repository: microsoft/work-iq: MCP Server and CLI for accessing Work IQ
- Reddit: copilotstudio or microsoft_365_copilot subreddits
- Documentation: Microsoft Work IQ API (preview) | Microsoft Learn
- Samples: https://github.com/microsoft/work-iq-samples
We can’t wait to see what you build.
Microsoft