Microsoft is expected to announce their new E9 licensing model. Hot on the tail of E7, E9 promises more capabilities and protections for AI management, as well as protection and enhancements for ordinary automation.
Sources close to Microsoft have indicated the following key capabilities.
- Unlimited access to everything in M365, whether or not it has been invented or discontinued.
- Unlimited Azure subscription spending, replacing the standalone “Golden Corral” plan.
- Microsoft Lifejacket, which will be part of Defender for AI. Lifejacket will monitor registered AI agents for “drowning“, information overloads that stop an agent from responding.
- “Locavore” LLM modeling so that developers will learn the name of all large language models utilized by their agents, as well as the specific data sets they have been fed on. This is also known as “farm to table” agentic development.
- Access to Azure Orbital, data centers located in Low Earth Orbit. This is largely seen as a pre-emptive compete against AWS orbital data centers expected later this year, as more and more companies seek to avoid data sovereignty law by escaping the surly bonds of Earth entirely.
- Defender T-1000, an update to Defender T-800, both hunter-killer AI models that can travel back in time to eliminate attackers before they even begin. The T-1000 uses agentic AI to fluidly adapt to threats and mimic other agents in order to deceive its quarry.
Licensing is expected to be per-user per-decade, with triennial opportunities to adjust the number of licenses. This new licensing model will underwrite the cost of new data centers and power plants to support anticipated growth in the cloud market.
Separately, Azure Akira is expected to be released in private preview for select customer. Akira will provide an ambient field of psychic energy that will elevate users to a higher plane of existence. Pricing models have not yet been announced.