Microsoft has announced 'Scout,' an always-on AI agent based on OpenClaw, and the first in its 'Autopilot' series that will perform tasks on behalf of users.
Microsoft has announced Microsoft Scout , an always-on AI agent for Microsoft 365. Based on the
Introducing Microsoft Scout: Your always-on personal agent | Microsoft 365 Blog
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/02/introducing-microsoft-scout-your-always-on-personal-agent/
Microsoft Scout documentation | Microsoft Learn
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/
Introducing Microsoft Scout - YouTube
'Autopilots' is a new category introduced by Microsoft that refers to agents that operate continuously in the background, rather than requiring instructions from the user each time, and perform tasks within the scope of permissions and policies set by the user or organization. While traditional AI assistants focused on answering questions and providing support for one-off tasks, Scout aims to understand the user's priorities and continuously move the workflow forward.
The newly announced Scout will integrate with various Microsoft 365 apps and will be available on Windows 11 and later, and macOS 12 Monterey and later. It can handle data related to daily work, such as chat, email, calendar, and contacts, and users will interact with Scout within Teams. Furthermore, the processing scope can be expanded to browsers, local resources, and MCP servers through the desktop app.
The core use of Scout is automating the coordination tasks that occur in daily work. Microsoft cites examples such as coordinating meeting schedules across time zones, notifying users of important meetings, generating materials needed for meeting preparation, keeping track of upcoming deliverables, allocating time on the calendar for tasks, and detecting stalled decision-making.
For autonomous execution, there are two mechanisms: 'Heartbeat,' which performs background checks every 15 to 120 minutes, and 'Automations,' which executes tasks independently according to a schedule or conditions. In addition to bundled skills such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint document creation and editing, automatic browser editing of Loop documents, and 'Web Artifacts Builder' for creating HTML dashboards and charts, you can also add your own custom skills by placing SKILL.md files.
As a desktop application, Scout supports creating, editing, and searching local files. It can handle Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and code files, and also allows for shell command execution, building, testing, and scripting. Playwright is used for browser operations.
Integration with Microsoft 365 allows you to handle email, calendar, Teams messages, OneDrive files, and meeting information. For example, you can edit code you're working on, run a build, send the results via email, and then schedule a follow-up meeting—all within a single conversation.
Scout can run in the background and execute tasks based on user-defined schedules and triggers. For complex tasks, it also features the ability to launch sub-agents in parallel, specializing in areas such as investigation and code review, and then consolidate and report the results.
Scout is based on OpenClaw's open-source technology, and Microsoft plans to add enterprise-level security verification features to OpenClaw as well. This will allow companies using OpenClaw to verify whether 'this agent is configured according to internal rules' and 'it is not able to access unauthorized data or functions,' and to record the results as audit records.
Scout uses '
Furthermore, emphasis is placed on controls designed for enterprise use. Each Scout agent operates under a managed Entra ID, rather than a shared anonymous service account, allowing tracking of who performed the work within the organization's directory. Credentials are limited to the scope of the task and are concealed from logs and diagnostic information. In addition, Scout can only access approved resources and destinations, and can require human approval for highly sensitive operations. Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels and data loss prevention policies are also applied before sending or writing.
According to Microsoft, an early Scout desktop experience is already being used internally, and through that experience, they are verifying how always-on agents handle coordination tasks in real-world work, identify risks early, and keep work moving forward. Scout is not yet generally available at the time of writing, and is currently in the process of expanding its availability to a limited number of customers in a private preview and to Frontier organizations. To use it, registration with Frontier, configuration of Intune policies, and proof of opt-in are required, and users with a GitHub Copilot license can download and install a trial version. The Work IQ API is scheduled to be generally available on June 16, 2026.
In addition to Scout itself, Microsoft has also announced '
Furthermore, Microsoft has announced ASSERT , an open-source framework for creating agent evaluations based on organizational policies and requirements, and the Agent Control Specification (ACS), which places safety controls at each stage of the agent development process, as a developer platform for securely evaluating and controlling AI agents. The theme is ensuring reliability when moving autonomous agents like Scout from the experimental stage to production.
In addition, ' Web IQ ' was announced as a foundation for agents to handle external information. Web IQ is not a search result for humans, but a system that delivers fresh, relevant, and reliable information that AI agents use for reasoning with low latency and token efficiency. Microsoft describes it as 'an MCP-native and model-independent neutral platform.'
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