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AI agent platforms and frameworks: what each one is for, and what changed in 2026

An AI agent platform is the managed service that runs agents in production: it hosts each session in isolation, connects it to tools and data, keeps its memory, gives it an identity, records what it did and enforces policy. In 2026 every vendor converged on the same building blocks, so the question is which platform fits your data and identity.

In this guide: 83 pages

Key takeaways

  1. There are three ways to get an agent: buy one embedded in software you already run (Agentforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft 365 Copilot), build on a cloud agent platform (Microsoft Foundry, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform) or run your own code. An enterprise whose data spans two clouds ends up with two of the three.
  2. All three clouds now sell the same seven blocks: a runtime, a managed agent loop, a tool gateway, an identity, a registry, memory, and observability with evaluation. The names differ and the shape is the same.
  3. 2026 was the year of renames and retirements: Azure AI Foundry became Microsoft Foundry, Vertex AI became Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, Amazon Bedrock Agents became "Classic" and closed to new customers on 30 Jul 2026, and OpenAI shut down the Assistants API on 26 Aug 2026 with Agent Builder to follow on 30 Nov 2026.
  4. Frameworks stabilised (LangGraph 1.0, Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0, Strands 1.0, Google ADK 2.0) and the platforms host them. Keep the agent logic in framework code and let the platform supply isolation, identity and policy.
  5. Data gravity and the identity provider decide more than feature tables do. Pick the platform where the data and permissions already live, and plan the exit before the first agent ships.
Three ways to get an enterprise AI agent, and the building blocks each one needsBuy an agent embedded in software you already run, such as Agentforce, ServiceNow AI Agents or Microsoft 365 Copilot agents; build on a cloud agent platform such as Microsoft Foundry, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore or Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform; or run custom code on your own compute with a framework such as LangGraph, Agent Framework, Strands or ADK. Every route needs the same seven blocks: runtime, harness, tool gateway, identity, registry, memory, and observability with evaluation. The SaaS vendor supplies them inside its product, the platform supplies them as services, and with custom code you build them.Three routesBuy: embedded SaaS agentsAgentforce, ServiceNow AI Agents,Microsoft 365 Copilot agentsVendor supplies the blocksBuild on a cloud platformMicrosoft Foundry, Bedrock AgentCore,Gemini Enterprise Agent PlatformPlatform supplies themCustom code, your computeLangGraph, Agent Framework, Strands,ADK on containers or KubernetesYou build and run themBuilding blocks every route needsRuntimeHarnessTool gatewayIdentityRegistryMemoryObservability and evaluationThree ways to get an enterprise AI agent, and the building blocks each one needsBuy an agent embedded in software you already run, such as Agentforce, ServiceNow AI Agents or Microsoft 365 Copilot agents; build on a cloud agent platform such as Microsoft Foundry, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore or Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform; or run custom code on your own compute with a framework such as LangGraph, Agent Framework, Strands or ADK. Every route needs the same seven blocks: runtime, harness, tool gateway, identity, registry, memory, and observability with evaluation. The SaaS vendor supplies them inside its product, the platform supplies them as services, and with custom code you build them.Three routesBuy: embedded SaaS agentsAgentforce, ServiceNow AI Agents,Microsoft 365 Copilot agentsVendor supplies the blocksBuild on a cloud platformMicrosoft Foundry, Bedrock AgentCore,Gemini Enterprise Agent PlatformPlatform supplies themCustom code, your computeLangGraph, Agent Framework, Strands,ADK on containers or KubernetesYou build and run themBlocks every route needsRuntimeHarnessTool gatewayIdentityRegistryMemoryObservability and evaluation
The three ways to get an enterprise agent, and the building blocks every route needs. Embedded SaaS agents supply the blocks inside one vendor; cloud agent platforms supply them as services; custom code means you build or assemble them yourself.

Why does the platform choice matter more now than it did a year ago?

The platform choice matters because the platform is now where identity, policy and evidence live, so switching later means rebuilding the controls as well as the agent. A year ago a platform was a place to host a prompt. On 2 Nov 2026 it gives the agent its identity, checks every tool call against a policy, records the trace an auditor will ask for and holds the registry entry a regulator may expect.

Governance went generally available on every cloud in 2026. Microsoft Agent 365 and Entra Agent ID reached general availability on 1 May 2026. AgentCore Policy went generally available on 3 Mar 2026 and AgentCore Evaluations on 31 Mar 2026. Google Agent Gateway, Agent Registry and Agent Observability went generally available on 18 Jun 2026. Those services are tied to the platform that runs the agent, so a platform decision is also a governance decision.

The same year brought churn. Amazon Bedrock Agents became "Agents Classic" and closed to new customers on 30 Jul 2026, OpenAI shut down the Assistants API on 26 Aug 2026 with Agent Builder to follow on 30 Nov 2026, Google renamed Vertex AI to Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on 22 Apr 2026, and Semantic Kernel and AutoGen became Microsoft Agent Framework. Anyone who built on the retired products is migrating this year.

The third reason is cost shape. Every platform moved to consumption billing (Copilot Credits, Agentforce Flex Credits, AgentCore per capability, OpenAI hosted sandbox compute per active turn since 9 Oct 2026), so spend scales with how much the agent loops, and the platform is where the caps live. The sub-page on build vs buy covers the cost drivers.

How does an agent platform work?

An agent platform works by wrapping the agent loop in seven managed services, so that the team writes the instructions and tools and the platform supplies isolation, identity, policy and evidence. The blocks are the same on Microsoft, AWS and Google; only the names and the preview labels differ.

  1. Isolated session runtime. Each conversation or task gets its own sandbox. AgentCore Runtime runs "each user session in a dedicated microVM with isolated CPU, memory, and filesystem", for up to 8 hours on microVMs or 14 days on Instances; Foundry hosted agents run in microVM-level isolation and suspend between turns.
  2. Managed harness. The vendor runs the loop from configuration: AgentCore harness (generally available 17 Jun 2026), Foundry prompt agents with an optional Microsoft Copilot harness (preview), the three Copilot Studio harnesses, Claude Managed Agents (beta), the OpenAI Agents API (public beta 10 Sep 2026) and the Google Managed Agents API (preview).
  3. Bring-your-own-framework hosting. Foundry hosted agents take code built with Agent Framework, LangGraph, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Anthropic Agent SDK or custom code, as a container or a .zip. AgentCore Runtime works with CrewAI, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Google ADK, the OpenAI Agents SDK and Strands, with any model.
  4. Tool gateway, usually speaking MCP (the Model Context Protocol, the standard agents use to call tools). AgentCore Gateway wraps APIs, Lambda functions and existing MCP servers, and AgentCore Policy checks every call against rules written in natural language or the Dogwood policy language, compatible with Cedar. Foundry Toolboxes expose a curated set of tools through one managed MCP-compatible endpoint. Google Agent Gateway is "a central policy enforcement point to govern all agent tool calls".
  5. Agent identity. The agent gets its own identity, separate from the user and from ordinary app registrations, and acts on behalf of a user or as itself: Microsoft Entra Agent ID, AgentCore Identity (workload identities with any identity provider) and Google Agent Identity (API in preview since 18 Jun 2026).
  6. Registry. A catalogue of approved agents, MCP servers, tools and skills: the Agent 365 registry, AWS Agent Registry and Google Agent Registry. The registry topic covers all three.
  7. Memory, observability and evaluation. AgentCore Memory is generally available with semantic, summary, user-preference and episodic strategies; Foundry memory is in public preview; Google Memory Bank memory profiles went generally available on 15 Jul 2026. Traces follow OpenTelemetry, and each cloud ships evaluators.

Interoperability runs through two protocols. MCP connects agents to tools; A2A (agent-to-agent, version 1.0.0 since 12 Mar 2026) connects agents to each other. Foundry runs A2A 1.0 as generally available, Copilot Studio A2A has been generally available since April 2026 with 0.3-style payloads still in its documentation, Google Agent Registry stores v1 agent cards, and the documented AgentCore path pins the 0.3 SDK.

What is each platform for?

Each platform is built for a particular builder and a particular place where the data lives: Copilot Studio for makers in Microsoft 365, Foundry, AgentCore and the Google platform for engineering teams, Agentforce and ServiceNow for agents inside one system of record. The table gives the purpose and status of each on 2 Nov 2026.

Platforms by vendor, what each is for, and its status on 2 Nov 2026.

PlatformWhat it is forStatus and dates
Microsoft Copilot StudioLow-code agents for Microsoft 365, published to Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, websites and phone numbers; three harnesses (GitHub Copilot, Customer Conversation, standard); Copilot Credits.MCP generally available 29 May 2025; A2A April 2026; evaluations March 2026; computer use May 2026; Entra Agent ID per new agent since July 2026. The GitHub Copilot harness was called a production-ready preview in June 2026; no preview label on 19 Oct 2026.
Microsoft Foundry and Foundry Agent ServicePro-code Azure platform: prompt agents, voice-based prompt agents, hosted agents (your container, any framework), the Responses API, Toolboxes, memory, tracing, Entra identity, virtual networks, publishing to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot.Generally available May 2025 (as Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, now Foundry Agent Service; renamed 18 Nov 2025). Hosted agents generally available per the 2 Jun 2026 Azure update (the Build recap said early July). Multi-agent workflows, voice, Toolboxes, memory, optimizer, Copilot harness: preview.
Amazon Bedrock AgentCoreModular platform for any framework and model: Harness, Runtime, Memory, Gateway, Identity, Code Interpreter, Browser, Observability, Evaluations, Optimization, Policy, Payments, AWS Agent Registry.Generally available 13 Oct 2025 in nine Regions; Policy 3 Mar 2026; Evaluations 31 Mar 2026; harness 17 Jun 2026; Agent Registry 31 Aug 2026. Payments and Optimization status unverified.
Amazon Bedrock Agents ClassicThe original managed agents with action groups, knowledge bases and supervisor multi-agent collaboration.Closed to new customers 30 Jul 2026; model catalog frozen; no end-of-life date; AWS points new work to AgentCore.
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Agent RuntimeGoogle Cloud platform in four pillars: Build (ADK, Agent Studio, Managed Agents API), Scale (Agent Runtime, Sessions, Memory Bank), Govern (Agent Registry, Agent Identity, Agent Gateway, Model Armor), Optimize (evaluation, simulation, observability).Renamed from Vertex AI on 22 Apr 2026; Agent Runtime was Vertex AI Agent Engine. Gateway, Registry, Observability generally available 18 Jun 2026; Agent Identity API and Managed Agents API preview.
Salesforce AgentforceCRM-embedded agents on Data 360: Atlas Reasoning Engine, Agent Builder, native MCP client, AgentExchange; agents run within existing Salesforce permissions; Flex Credits, per resolution or per user.Agentforce 360 generally available 13 Oct 2025; AIforce and Agentforce Coworker announced 15 Sep 2026.
ServiceNow AI AgentsWorkflow-embedded agents: AI Agent Orchestrator, AI Agent Studio, AI Control Tower for ServiceNow and third-party agents, AI Agent Fabric for MCP and A2A.Orchestrator and Studio generally available 12 Mar 2025; Control Tower 6 May 2025; Agent Fabric general availability unconfirmed.
OpenAI Agents API and Agents SDKAgents SDK (since 11 Mar 2025), Agents API (managed Codex harness), Responses and Conversations APIs, ChatKit for an embeddable chat UI.Agents API public beta 10 Sep 2026; Assistants API shut down 26 Aug 2026; Agent Builder shuts down 30 Nov 2026, ChatKit remains.

Two pairs cause the most confusion. Microsoft Foundry is the pro-code Azure platform and Copilot Studio is the low-code Microsoft 365 tool; the sub-page on Copilot Studio vs Microsoft Foundry sets them side by side. Amazon Bedrock Agents Classic and AgentCore are two products, and AWS says "full multi-agent collaboration requires custom framework code" on the AgentCore harness.

What was renamed or retired in 2026?

Eight product names changed or disappeared between September 2025 and November 2026, so most tutorials written before then use a name that no longer exists. The table maps the old name to the current state.

Agent platform renames and retirements, September 2025 to November 2026Eight dated changes in order: 29 Sep 2025 Claude Code SDK renamed Claude Agent SDK; 9 Oct 2025 Google Agentspace became Gemini Enterprise; 18 Nov 2025 Azure AI Foundry became Microsoft Foundry; 3 Apr 2026 Semantic Kernel and AutoGen succeeded by Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0; 22 Apr 2026 Vertex AI renamed Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Agent Engine renamed Agent Runtime; 30 Jul 2026 Amazon Bedrock Agents became Classic and closed to new customers; 26 Aug 2026 OpenAI Assistants API shut down; 30 Nov 2026, scheduled, OpenAI Agent Builder and Evals platform shut down.Renames (blue) and retirements (teal)29 Sep 2025Claude Code SDK is nowClaude Agent SDK9 Oct 2025Agentspace becomesGemini Enterprise18 Nov 2025Azure AI Foundry becomesMicrosoft Foundry3 Apr 2026Semantic Kernel, AutoGento Agent Framework 1.022 Apr 2026Vertex AI becomes GeminiEnterprise Agent Platform30 Jul 2026Bedrock Agents Classic;closed to new customers26 Aug 2026OpenAI Assistants APIshut down30 Nov 2026Scheduled: Agent Builderand Evals shut downAgent platform renames and retirements, September 2025 to November 2026Eight dated changes in order: 29 Sep 2025 Claude Code SDK renamed Claude Agent SDK; 9 Oct 2025 Google Agentspace became Gemini Enterprise; 18 Nov 2025 Azure AI Foundry became Microsoft Foundry; 3 Apr 2026 Semantic Kernel and AutoGen succeeded by Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0; 22 Apr 2026 Vertex AI renamed Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Agent Engine renamed Agent Runtime; 30 Jul 2026 Amazon Bedrock Agents became Classic and closed to new customers; 26 Aug 2026 OpenAI Assistants API shut down; 30 Nov 2026, scheduled, OpenAI Agent Builder and Evals platform shut down.29 Sep 2025Claude Code SDK is nowClaude Agent SDK9 Oct 2025Agentspace becomesGemini Enterprise18 Nov 2025Azure AI Foundry becomesMicrosoft Foundry3 Apr 2026Semantic Kernel, AutoGento Agent Framework 1.022 Apr 2026Vertex AI becomes GeminiEnterprise Agent Platform30 Jul 2026Bedrock Agents Classic;closed to new customers26 Aug 2026OpenAI Assistants APIshut down30 Nov 2026Scheduled: Agent Builderand Evals shut down
Renames and retirements across the agent platforms, September 2025 to November 2026, with the scheduled retirement still ahead.

Old name, current state on 2 Nov 2026 and the date of the change.

Old nameCurrent stateWhen
Azure AI Foundry (previous name of the hub and its agent service)Microsoft Foundry; Foundry Agent Service. Azure AI Services became Foundry Tools18 Nov 2025
Semantic Kernel and AutoGen (previous SDKs)Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0 replaces both; the AutoGen repository is archived3 Apr 2026
Vertex AI, Vertex AI Agent Engine and Agent Engine Memory Bank (previous names)Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform; Agent Runtime; Agent Platform Memory Bank22 Apr 2026
Google Agentspace (previous name)Gemini Enterprise9 Oct 2025
Amazon Bedrock Agents (previous name)Amazon Bedrock Agents Classic, closed to new customers, model catalog frozen30 Jul 2026
OpenAI Assistants APIShut down; use the Responses and Conversations APIs26 Aug 2026
OpenAI Agent Builder; OpenAI Evals platformDeprecated 3 Jun 2026; both shut down 30 Nov 2026. ChatKit remains30 Nov 2026 (scheduled)
Claude Code SDKClaude Agent SDK29 Sep 2025

The practical rule: when a document says Vertex AI, Azure AI Foundry, Bedrock Agents or Semantic Kernel without a date, treat it as the old name and check the current page before you follow it.

Which frameworks do people build with, and do they still matter?

Frameworks still matter because they hold the agent logic you can take with you, and the platforms now host them rather than replace them. The major ones reached 1.0 or 2.0 in the last 18 months.

Agent frameworks with their orchestration model and status on 2 Nov 2026.

FrameworkVendorOrchestration and durabilityStatus
LangGraph and LangChainLangChainGraph of nodes and edges; checkpointers; interrupts for approval; resumes after a restart1.0 on 22 Oct 2025
Microsoft Agent FrameworkMicrosoftGraph workflows; handoff, group chat, Magentic-One; checkpointing; Durable Extension (preview)1.0 generally available 3 Apr 2026
Strands AgentsAWSAgents as tools, swarm, graph, workflow; sessions on filesystem or S3; powers the AgentCore harness1.0 on 15 Jul 2025
Google ADKGoogleSequential, parallel and loop agents; 2.0 graph workflows; sessions and Memory Bank on Agent RuntimePython 2.0 generally available 19 May 2026
OpenAI Agents SDKOpenAIAgents, handoffs, guardrails; sessions, tracing, human in the loop; Temporal integrationFirst release 11 Mar 2025
CrewAICrewAI Inc.Role-based Crews inside Flows; managed deployment through AMPCurrent version unverified
Claude Agent SDKAnthropicAgent loop with subagents, compaction and MCP; hosted as Claude Managed Agents (beta since 8 Apr 2026)Renamed 29 Sep 2025

Durable execution engines sit underneath for long-running work: LangGraph checkpointers, the Agent Framework Durable Extension, AWS Lambda durable functions (launched 2 Dec 2025), Step Functions and Temporal. Replay needs deterministic orchestration code, and a tool call that sends an email or a payment can repeat under an at-least-once engine, so make those calls idempotent.

How do Microsoft, AWS and Google implement it?

The nine capabilities an agent platform supplies, with the product and status each cloud showed on 2 Nov 2026. No column is ranked above another; the fit depends on where your data and identities live.

Capability, Microsoft, AWS, Google

CapabilityMicrosoftAWSGoogle
BuildCopilot Studio (low-code); Foundry prompt and hosted agents (pro-code); Agent Framework 1.0 (3 Apr 2026)AgentCore harness (17 Jun 2026) or any framework; Strands Agents 1.0ADK (Python 2.0, 19 May 2026); Agent Studio; Agent Designer; Managed Agents API (preview)
RuntimeFoundry hosted agents (2 Jun 2026 Azure update) and prompt agents; Copilot Studio harnessesAgentCore Runtime (13 Oct 2025): microVM per sessionAgent Runtime, formerly Vertex AI Agent Engine (renamed 22 Apr 2026)
MemoryFoundry memory (public preview)AgentCore Memory: semantic, summary, user-preference, episodicMemory Bank; memory profiles 15 Jul 2026
IdentityEntra Agent ID (Learn page dated 1 May 2026); per new Copilot Studio agent since July 2026AgentCore Identity (13 Oct 2025): workload identities, any IdPAgent Identity, SPIFFE-based (API preview since 18 Jun 2026)
RegistryAgent 365 registry (1 May 2026); cross-cloud sync previewAWS Agent Registry (31 Aug 2026)Agent Registry (18 Jun 2026)
Gateway and policyToolboxes (preview); API Management AI gateway; Entra Conditional Access for agentsAgentCore Gateway (13 Oct 2025); AgentCore Policy (3 Mar 2026)Agent Gateway (18 Jun 2026); IAM Unified Access Policies (31 Aug 2026)
GuardrailsPrompt Shields (since Aug 2024); Foundry tool-call guardrails (preview)Bedrock Guardrails; Automated Reasoning checks (6 Aug 2025)Model Armor; Agent Gateway integration (24 Jun 2026)
ObservabilityFoundry tracing (prompt and hosted agents; workflows preview); Application Insights Agents view (preview)AgentCore Observability on CloudWatch (13 Oct 2025)Agent Observability (18 Jun 2026)
EvaluationFoundry evaluators (several preview); Copilot Studio evaluations (Mar 2026)AgentCore Evaluations (31 Mar 2026), 13 built-in evaluatorsAgent evaluation and simulation

Dates without a label are general availability dates. Microsoft’s pages disagreed on the hosted-agents date and Google’s release notes carry conflicting labels for Agent Identity; both are quoted at the more cautious reading.

When should you not standardise on one platform, and what goes wrong?

Do not force one platform on a company whose data sits in two clouds; moving the data costs more than a second registry. Do not build on a feature that was preview on 2 Nov 2026 without a fallback, because preview carries no service-level agreement. These are the failures we see most often.

  • Building on a product that is being retired

    Teams that started on Amazon Bedrock Agents, now "Classic", in early 2026 sit on a product closed to new customers with a frozen model catalog. Teams on the OpenAI Assistants API had one year of notice. Check the deprecation page before the first sprint.

  • Feature gaps on migration

    AWS says stage-specific prompt overrides from Bedrock Agents Classic are "not directly replicated" on the AgentCore harness and that full multi-agent collaboration needs custom framework code. Migrations are rebuilds of the orchestration, so plan them as such.

  • Preview treated as production

    Agent 365 preview features run without production SLAs, the Google Agent Identity API is preview, and Foundry memory and Toolboxes are preview. Write the status into the design document and re-check it after Ignite and re:Invent.

  • Policy inside the prompt

    A rule written into the instructions can be talked around. Tool-call policy belongs outside the model: AgentCore Policy, Google Agent Gateway, Entra Conditional Access for agents, or an API Management gateway in front of the tools.

  • Region and residency surprises

    AgentCore launched generally available in nine Regions and Lambda durable functions in one. Copilot Studio warns that some external models may process data outside your geography.

What should you decide before you commit to a platform?

The decisions that settle most platform arguments, in the order we take them.

  • Where the data lives and which identity provider governs it: Entra, AWS IAM or Google IAM. The platform that already holds both wins most ties.
  • Who will build: makers (Copilot Studio, Agent Designer, Agentforce Agent Builder) or engineers (Foundry hosted agents, AgentCore, ADK on Agent Runtime). Many companies need both, registered in one place.
  • Which systems the agent must act in, and whether each has an MCP server, a connector or only an API that a gateway must wrap.
  • The policy point for tool calls, named: AgentCore Policy, Google Agent Gateway, Entra Conditional Access for agents, or an API gateway. One per cloud.
  • The registry and identity of record for every agent, including the ones built by makers.
  • Which features in the design are preview on the day you sign, and the fallback for each.
  • The cost meter per platform (credits, per second, per invocation, per user) and the hard cap that stops a runaway loop.
  • The exit: agent logic in framework code, MCP and A2A at the edges, exportable traces and evaluation sets, memory you can delete.

Enterprise example · Worked example · illustrative

An insurer with 12,000 staff settles on two platforms

Illustrative scenario. A property and casualty insurer with 12,000 employees, a Microsoft 365 E5 tenant, a claims platform on AWS, and a two-year-old inventory of agents on three products.

The trigger was a platform review. The company had 90 Copilot Studio agents built by makers, a claims-document agent an engineering team had built on Amazon Bedrock Agents, now "Classic", in late 2025, and a pilot on a start-up platform that had since been acquired. The engineering lead wanted one platform. The architecture board asked where each agent’s data and identity already lived.

The answer split cleanly. The maker agents read SharePoint, Dataverse and the HR system through Microsoft 365 Copilot connectors under Entra identities, so they stayed on Copilot Studio with the Agent 365 registry as the system of record. The claims agent read documents in S3 and wrote to the claims platform in the same AWS account, so it moved to AgentCore, with the orchestration rewritten in Strands because the routing-mode multi-agent setup did not carry over.

Two rules kept the split from becoming sprawl. Every agent got an identity in its own provider (Entra Agent ID or AgentCore Identity) and a registry record, with the Agent 365 sync to AWS Bedrock switched on in preview and a monthly manual reconciliation. And the policy point was named per cloud: Power Platform data policies and Entra Conditional Access for the maker agents, AgentCore Gateway with AgentCore Policy for the claims agent.

The start-up platform was retired. Two of its three agents were rebuilt, one on each platform, the third was dropped, and the exit took six weeks because prompts, evaluation sets and traces had been exported in open formats. The standard now reads: two platforms, one registry of record per cloud, one reconciliation owner, and no agent on a product closed to new customers.

Platform
Copilot Studio for maker agents on Microsoft 365; Amazon Bedrock AgentCore for the claims agent next to its data
Owner
A named owner per agent in each cloud’s registry; the platform team owns the monthly reconciliation
Identity
Microsoft Entra Agent ID for every Copilot Studio agent; AgentCore Identity workload identity for the claims agent
Registry
Agent 365 registry and AWS Agent Registry as systems of record; cross-cloud sync in preview with a manual fallback
Risk tier
Tier 1 reads the maker’s own files; tier 2 reads shared data; tier 3 writes to the claims platform and needs approval, an evaluation gate and monitoring
Approval
Microsoft 365 admin center Requests queue for maker agents; AWS Agent Registry DRAFT to APPROVED workflow for the claims agent
Policy point
Power Platform data policies and Entra Conditional Access; AgentCore Gateway with AgentCore Policy on every tool call
Retirement
Start-up platform exited in six weeks with prompts, evaluation sets and traces exported; the Bedrock Agents Classic agent rebuilt on AgentCore

How do you start?

  1. List every agent you run and the product it runs on. Mark any on a product closed to new customers or scheduled to shut down.
  2. For each business unit, write down where its data lives and which identity provider governs it. That usually names the platform.
  3. Pick one scoped workflow per platform and build it with the controls in place: identity, registry record, policy point, trace, evaluation set.
  4. Write the preview list: every feature that was preview on 2 Nov 2026 gets a fallback or a date.
  5. Set the cost meter and the hard cap before the agent reaches users.
  6. Test the exit on the pilot: export the prompt, the evaluation set and the traces.
  7. Review after Microsoft Ignite and AWS re:Invent in late 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Microsoft Foundry the same as Copilot?

No. Microsoft Foundry is the pro-code Azure platform for building and hosting agents. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the assistant inside Microsoft 365, and Copilot Studio is the low-code tool for building agents that publish into it. Foundry agents can also be published to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is where the names meet.

What is the difference between Amazon Bedrock Agents Classic and AgentCore?

Amazon Bedrock Agents is now Agents Classic: the original managed agent product, closed to new customers since 30 Jul 2026 with a frozen model catalog. AgentCore is the modular platform AWS recommends instead: runtime, harness, memory, gateway, identity, policy, observability, evaluations and a registry that work with any framework and model.

Is Vertex AI gone, or was it renamed?

The name changed. Google renamed Vertex AI to Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on 22 Apr 2026, and Vertex AI Agent Engine became Agent Runtime. The platform describes itself as an evolution of Vertex AI, and old URLs redirect to the new pages.

Can we run LangGraph or another framework on Foundry or AgentCore?

Yes. Foundry hosted agents accept code built with Agent Framework, LangGraph, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Anthropic Agent SDK or custom code, shipped as a container or a .zip. AgentCore Runtime works with CrewAI, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Google ADK, the OpenAI Agents SDK and Strands.

What happened to the OpenAI Assistants API and Agent Builder?

OpenAI announced the Assistants API deprecation on 26 Aug 2025 and shut it down on 26 Aug 2026; the replacements are the Responses and Conversations APIs. Agent Builder was deprecated on 3 Jun 2026 and shuts down on 30 Nov 2026 with the Evals platform; OpenAI points to the Agents SDK, and ChatKit remains.

Which AI agent platform is the best?

There is no single answer, and each vendor’s pages describe only its own stack. The platform that already holds your data and your identities is usually the right one for that workload, and a company with data in two clouds needs two.

In this topic

Copilot Studio vs Microsoft FoundryRead Microsoft vs AWS vs GoogleRead
Agent frameworks comparedcoming
Build vs buyRead
Reference architecture on Azurecoming
Reference architecture on AWScoming

Sources

Each source was read on 2 November 2026. The date shown is the date on the page, or the page’s ms.date for Microsoft Learn; an undated page shows the date it was read.

  1. What is Microsoft Foundry Agent Service? Microsoft Learn, 26 October 2026
  2. Harnesses in Copilot Studio Microsoft Learn, 19 October 2026
  3. What’s new in Copilot Studio Microsoft Learn, 22 October 2026
  4. Agent Builder in Microsoft 365 Copilot Microsoft Learn, 26 October 2026
  5. Microsoft Agent 365 overview Microsoft Learn, 23 October 2026
  6. Microsoft Agent 365 now generally available Microsoft Security Blog, 1 May 2026
  7. What’s new in Microsoft Entra Agent ID Microsoft Learn, 1 May 2026
  8. Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0 Microsoft Developer Blogs, 3 April 2026
  9. Foundry hosted agents now generally available (Azure update AZ563596) Microsoft Azure updates, via the mc.merill.net mirror, 2 June 2026
  10. What’s new in Microsoft Foundry at Build 2026 Microsoft Developer Blogs, 2 June 2026
  11. Azure AI Services is now Foundry Tools (Azure update AZ526132) Microsoft Azure updates, via the mc.merill.net mirror, 18 November 2025
  12. Introducing multi-agent workflows in Foundry Agent Service Microsoft Developer Blogs, 25 November 2025
  13. Copilot Studio billing rates and usage management Microsoft Learn, 30 October 2026
  14. What is Amazon Bedrock AgentCore? AWS documentation, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  15. AgentCore Runtime AWS documentation, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  16. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore is now generally available AWS What’s New, 13 October 2025
  17. Policy for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore generally available AWS What’s New, 3 March 2026
  18. AgentCore Evaluations generally available AWS What’s New, 31 March 2026
  19. Top announcements of the AWS Summit in New York 2026 AWS News Blog, 17 June 2026
  20. AWS Agent Registry now generally available AWS What’s New, 31 August 2026
  21. Amazon Bedrock Agents Classic maintenance mode AWS documentation, 30 July 2026
  22. Introducing Strands Agents 1.0 AWS Open Source Blog, 15 July 2025
  23. Build multi-step applications and AI workflows with AWS Lambda durable functions AWS News Blog, 2 December 2025
  24. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform overview Google Cloud, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  25. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform release notes Google Cloud, 28 October 2026
  26. Welcome to Google Cloud Next ’26 Google Cloud Blog, 22 April 2026
  27. Introducing Gemini Enterprise Google Cloud Blog, 9 October 2025
  28. Agent Development Kit Google, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  29. OpenAI API deprecations OpenAI, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  30. OpenAI API changelog OpenAI, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  31. OpenAI Agents SDK OpenAI, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  32. Claude platform release notes Anthropic, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  33. Scaling Managed Agents Anthropic, 8 April 2026
  34. Salesforce announces Agentforce 360 Salesforce, 13 October 2025
  35. Introducing AIforce Salesforce, 15 September 2026
  36. ServiceNow Yokohama release: AI Agent Orchestrator and AI Agent Studio ServiceNow (press release), 12 March 2025
  37. ServiceNow launches AI Control Tower ServiceNow (press release), 6 May 2025
  38. LangChain and LangGraph 1.0 LangChain, 22 October 2025
  39. Announcing Workflows 1.0 LlamaIndex, 30 June 2025
  40. CrewAI introduction CrewAI, undated page, read 2 November 2026
  41. A2A protocol specification, version 1.0.0 A2A project, 12 March 2026

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