At Build 2026 on 2 June, Microsoft announced Microsoft Scout. Scout is the company’s first always-on AI agent "Autopilot" that will sit inside familiar Microsoft apps and execute actions for the end user. Where Copilot waits to be asked, Scout will work autonomously, carrying its own identity, and acting on the end user’s behalf without being prompted each time1.
Scout is live today in the Frontier preview on Windows 11 and macOS, which means it is only available to a select few. Integrated across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint, and operating across cloud, desktop, it will be grounded in day-to-day workflows and powered by Work IQ. It will coordinate meeting times across time zones, block focus time for deliverables, prepare materials and flag risks such as stalled decisions before anyone even opens a chat window.
The takeaway here is that Scout will be an always-on Autopilot that never clocks out. This shift from assistant to autonomous coworker is the clearest signal yet of where Microsoft is taking its packaging, and it is only weeks old.
But while the technology itself is undoubtedly impressive, our job at SoftwareOne is to help partners like you capture the business opportunity around it.
And as I’ll explain in this article, that opportunity is potentially huge.
Whether they’re getting on board in preview or when we hit GA, your customers will need to put many things in place before they can take full advantage of Scout’s agentic potential. I’ve tried it myself on my own tenant and, trust me, getting started is a full-on project rather than a Friday-afternoon admin task.
To use Scout, an organisation will need all of the following in place:
All of this will constitute a barrier for customers. Most will not have everything ready and their environments will need assessment, governance work and a licencing review before they can proceed.
The good news from your point is that you can use these blockers as a four-stage services runway mapped to a distinct, repeatable partner engagement that will help you move smoothy from readiness assessment to revenue generation.
Here’s what that runway looks like in detail, and how you can use it to build business.
Audit the customer's Microsoft 365 tenant posture, including Intune device management, Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels, permission sprawl across SharePoint and OneDrive, and Entra identity governance. Every Scout candidate will require this assessment, making it a high-value, repeatable advisory engagement that can begin even before Scout becomes instalable. It represents an ideal opportunity to start meaningful customer conversations today.
Scout requires a GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise licence, along with the appropriate Microsoft 365 and Intune licencing foundation. Many customers lack the required licencing and may not fully understand the metreed, credit-based consumption model. Partners who initiate these discussions are well-positioned to lead licencing optimisation and drive upsell opportunities across both Microsoft and GitHub environments.
Frontier enrolment, Intune policy configuration, administrative attestation, and agent identity governance are all essential components of a successful Scout deployment. These specialised activities can be complex for customers to manage independently. By providing hands-on implementation support, partners can deliver valuable project services while helping customers avoid deployment challenges and accelerate time to value.
An always-on AI agent requires continuous governance and oversight rather than a one-time instalation. Each Scout deployment operates under its own governed Entra identity, supported by Purview enforcement and comprehensive audit capabilities. Maintaining this governance framework creates a natural opportunity for partners to provide ongoing monitoring, optimisation, compliance management, and managed services, establishing a long-term recurring revenue stream.
As I mentioned above, Scout is available today only in Frontier preview, and GA is not yet confirmed. But that is precisely why now is the moment to start this conversation with your customers. If they’re interested in the solution they will be forming their views and looking for guidance. By reaching out with this “readiness before revenue” proposition, you can minimise sales resistance and immediately start building trust with the customer as you help them towards their "Autopilot " agentic future with Scout.
That first-mover window is available today and SoftwareOne is holding it wide open for you.
There is enormous ground to cover here and a huge opportunity to grasp. Only a low single-digit share of the Microsoft 365 base carries a Copilot licence today3 and Scout sits one or more licencing tiers beyond that. Helping your customers bridge that gap will build even bigger opportunities for your business, in partnership with SoftwareOne.
Scout is a signal. Microsoft's packaging is moving from "assistant you invoke" to "autonomous agent you govern," and the readiness work that will make it all possible sits squarely within partner territory.
Let's get ahead of this together now.
NOTE: Since the release of Scout and the production of this article, Microsoft have announced that Copilot Cowork is now generally available and will be subject to usage based billing. Current Frontier users of Copilot Cowork can use it as is during a grace period that ends on the 30th of June but after that they will need to be setup with usage based billing. Now more than ever, end users will be looking for a conversation about billing, governance and cost control.
1Microsoft 365 Blog, "Introducing Microsoft Scout: Your always-on personal agent," 2 June 2026; and Microsoft Learn, "Get started with Microsoft Scout (Frontier)."
We’re Microsoft experts. Tell us what you need to know about Scout and we’ll get right back to you.
We’re Microsoft experts. Tell us what you need to know about Scout and we’ll get right back to you.
