At the Build 2025 developer conference in Seattle, Microsoft laid out an ambitious roadmap for the future of artificial intelligence, one that imagines a world where AI agents from different companies can not only work together but also retain meaningful memories of their interactions with users.
The initiative is a clear signal of Microsoft’s determination to dominate the next phase of the AI revolution — one defined by interoperable, memory-rich digital assistants.
Speaking to reporters and analysts at the company’s Redmond headquarters ahead of the event, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott said the tech giant is championing open standards that would allow AI agents from different developers to collaborate across platforms. He pointed to the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open-source standard introduced by Anthropic and backed by Google, as a key part of this strategy.
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“Your imagination gets to drive what the agentic web becomes,” Scott said, “not just a handful of companies that happen to see some of these problems first.”
From the Internet to the Agentic Web
Scott drew parallels between today’s AI evolution and the early days of the internet. Just as hypertext protocols in the 1990s unlocked the World Wide Web, Microsoft sees MCP as the infrastructure for what it calls the “agentic web” — a new digital ecosystem where intelligent agents interact, delegate tasks, and co-exist in real time across corporate boundaries.
In this new framework, AI agents would be able to coordinate on tasks like resolving software bugs or managing workflow without being siloed by company firewalls or closed APIs. Microsoft believes this open architecture will democratize AI development and unleash a wave of innovation similar to what the internet enabled three decades ago.
Giving AI a Better Memory
Beyond interoperability, Microsoft is also aiming to solve one of AI’s most persistent limitations: memory. Most of today’s AI agents operate in a transactional, stateless manner — each request or interaction is treated in isolation, often without recollection of previous context. Scott acknowledged this flaw, saying, “Most of what we’re building feels very transactional.”
To address this, Microsoft is introducing a method called structured retrieval augmentation. Instead of attempting to store and recall entire conversations, a process that consumes vast amounts of computing power, this technique allows AI agents to extract and preserve short, meaningful snippets from each interaction. The idea is to create a compact, retrievable roadmap of what was discussed.
“This is a core part of how you train a biological brain,” Scott said. “You don’t brute force everything in your head every time you need to solve a particular problem.”
The approach promises to make AI agents more personalized and context-aware, without the prohibitively high cost associated with current large-context models.
Tools for the AI Workforce
The company is also expected to debut new developer tools to manage and deploy AI agents as part of its enterprise offerings. According to an internal memo reported by Business Insider, Microsoft will roll out “Tenant Copilot” — a system designed to oversee agent activities on behalf of organizations — and “Agent Factory,” a development environment that lets companies build and train their own custom AI agents.
These efforts are part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to position AI agents as “digital teammates” — assistants that go beyond simple chatbot functions to perform sophisticated, autonomous tasks alongside human workers.
By aligning with MCP and pursuing cross-platform standards, Microsoft is signaling that it wants AI to be open, modular, and deeply integrated into everyday workflows, not a set of isolated tools owned by a few tech giants.
The Build 2025 conference, which began on May 19, features keynotes from CEO Satya Nadella and other executives, focusing on Microsoft’s expanding suite of AI technologies. The event is available online, with the company expected to reveal more details about Windows Copilot, AI-integrated development environments, and new partnerships in the AI ecosystem.
However, Microsoft’s big bet rests on whether the industry will embrace its call for collaboration. If successful, the agentic web could reshape how we use and interact with artificial intelligence in the future.