covey and Microsoft Agent 365
A register for agents in Microsoft's cloud, and a platform that runs them on your own hosts.
Last checked: 29 September 2026, against Microsoft's product page and the Microsoft Learn documentation. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Microsoft describes Agent 365 as a way to “manage, govern, and protect agent identities and their access … just as they do for employees”. That is close to the idea behind covey, and the two are often named in the same conversation.
They work at different levels. Agent 365 is a cloud service in Microsoft 365 and Entra: a register of an organisation's agents, an identity per agent through Entra Agent ID, a responsible person per agent, access that expires, and Conditional Access. The agents themselves are built and run elsewhere, for example in Copilot Studio, Foundry or a third-party platform.
covey is such a platform. It gives each agent a container on your hosts, a backlog, access to target systems for the length of a run, rules for each action and a recording of every run. The tables below compare the parts where both have an answer.
Identity and the people responsible
| Topic | Microsoft Agent 365 | covey |
|---|---|---|
| Agent identity | Entra Agent ID with its own object types: agent identity blueprint, agent identity and agent user.[3] | Each agent has its own identity inside covey. People can sign in through an OIDC provider. |
| Responsible person | A sponsor per agent. When the sponsor leaves the organisation, sponsorship passes to their manager automatically.[3] | An agent owner per agent, recorded in the org chart. There is no automatic handover. |
| Register | A view of all agents in the organisation, including agents from other vendors that you register yourself.Vendor claim[1] | The agents covey runs, in an org chart together with the people and departments they work for. |
Access and rules
| Topic | Microsoft Agent 365 | covey |
|---|---|---|
| Access to systems | Access packages with an expiry date. Extending one triggers a new approval.[3] | A broker issues access per run, short-lived and scoped. No long-lived secret enters the sandbox. |
| Policies | Conditional Access policies for agent identities, with risk detection.[2][3] | Rules per action: allow, require approval or deny. They are enforced outside the agent and fail closed. |
| Network | Web and threat filtering for agent traffic. Network-side controls apply to agents built in Copilot Studio.[2] | An egress proxy with an allowlist, on by default with the docker sandbox provider. Sandboxes on remote runners are not covered yet. |
Where it runs and what it needs
| Topic | Microsoft Agent 365 | covey |
|---|---|---|
| Operation | A cloud service within Microsoft 365 and Entra.Vendor claim[1] | Self-hosted: one Go binary and Postgres on your own hosts. |
| Licences | The governance features need Agent 365 plus at least Microsoft Entra ID P1 or Microsoft 365 E3, or Microsoft 365 E7.[3] | Open source under AGPL-3.0. What it costs is the effort of running it yourself. |
Also different
- A workplace per agent
- covey starts every agent in its own container with a persistent home directory, gives it a backlog and wakes it on schedules, webhooks or a person's request. Agent 365 does not provide a runtime for the agents it governs; that is the job of the platform they are built on.
- Target systems outside Microsoft
- covey applies its rules at the level of individual actions in systems such as Jira, GitLab, Zammad or Zendesk. Agent 365 controls whether an agent identity may access a resource. covey's rules also cover the single action inside the target system, such as a reply to a customer or a delete.
- Audit
- Microsoft describes audit and threat protection through Purview and Defender. covey records each run with its tool calls, screenshots and cost, readable by someone who was not there.Vendor claim[1]
Where Agent 365 is ahead
- It sits where Microsoft-centred IT already works: Entra, the Microsoft 365 admin center, Defender and Purview. There is no new sign-in and no new tool for the IT team.
- The identity lifecycle: sponsors with automatic handover, access that expires, risk detection.
- It covers agents from several vendors in one register.
- Microsoft's standing with buyers and its existing purchasing channels.
Which one fits
Microsoft Agent 365
Choose Agent 365 if your agents live in Microsoft 365 and Copilot Studio, the Microsoft cloud is already settled, and what you need is an inventory with identity, Conditional Access and lifecycle for them.
covey
Choose covey if your agents need a workplace of their own on your hosts: a container, a backlog, brokered access to systems outside Microsoft, and a recording of every run. The two can also sit side by side, with Agent 365 as the register and covey as the place where the work happens.
Sources
Checked on September 29, 2026. Statements about Microsoft Agent 365 come from its own public sources: documentation, repository, release notes or website. Anything marked as a vendor claim appears only on marketing or pricing pages.
Other comparisons
Paperclip
The closest relative: open source, self-hosted, agents run like staff. Paperclip runs agents as host processes by default; covey gives each one its own container.
Checked on September 29, 2026Personal and organisational agents (cloud)OpenAI dots
dots are always-on agents that run in OpenAI's cloud on GPT-6 Astra. covey runs an organisation's agents on its own servers, with Claude Code or Codex as the engine.
Checked on September 29, 2026Framework and platformCrewAI
CrewAI is a Python framework for programming agents, plus a platform to deploy them. covey runs agents you describe in configuration.
Checked on September 29, 2026SaaS workforceRelevance AI
Relevance AI builds and runs agent teams in its own cloud, without code. covey runs agents on your hosts, each in its own container.
Checked on September 29, 2026