Managed AI Agent Operations and Optimization
Managed AI Agent Operations and Optimization is a recurring monthly service that keeps production AI agents — built in Microsoft Copilot Studio or on Microsoft Foundry, by us or by anyone else — accurate, safe, and cost-efficient after launch. Each month we review usage and outcome telemetry, refresh prompts and knowledge sources, watch consumption costs, re-check safety filters and access scopes, and record every change in a documented change log you can audit. The service is $950 per month with no lock-in — you can stop at any time. It covers operating existing agents; building new ones is a separate development engagement.
What this engagement is
AI agents drift. The knowledge sources they answer from go stale, the prompts that worked at launch degrade as usage broadens, consumption costs creep upward quietly, and the access scopes granted during the pilot are rarely reviewed again. Microsoft's own direction confirms the problem: Agent 365, generally available since May 2026, exists precisely to observe, govern, and secure agent fleets. This service is the operational discipline behind that idea — a named engineer reviewing your agents on a monthly cycle instead of nobody reviewing them at all. We operate agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio and on Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry), whether we built them or someone else did. Where you license Agent 365, we work through its observability and governance surface; where you don't, we use the platforms' native analytics and audit tooling. Every month you get a written operations report and a documented change log — what changed, why, and what it did to quality and cost. Support requests get a first response within one business hour under our published SLA.
Success criteria
What you receive
How the work unfolds
Onboarding — inventory the agents in scope, confirm access under least-privilege, document owners, knowledge sources, integrations, and safety configuration, and capture the usage and cost baseline.
Telemetry review (monthly) — analyze usage, resolution and escalation patterns, and outcome signals from Copilot Studio analytics, Foundry telemetry, or Agent 365 where licensed.
Prompt and knowledge refresh (monthly) — correct degraded answers, update instructions, and refresh or re-index stale knowledge sources within the monthly scope.
Cost watch (monthly) — track message, credit, and token consumption against the baseline; flag anomalies and recommend configuration changes that reduce spend.
Safety and access review (monthly) — re-verify content-safety filters, authentication, connection ownership, and access scopes; report and correct drift.
Reporting — deliver the written operations report and updated change log; review recommendations with your owner and agree next month's priorities.
Prerequisites
Who does what
IT Partner
- Monthly telemetry, quality, cost, safety, and access reviews for every in-scope agent.
- Prompt adjustments, knowledge refreshes, and configuration corrections within the monthly scope.
- The written monthly operations report and the auditable change log.
- Flagging cost anomalies and safety or permission drift in the month they appear.
- Maintaining the improvement backlog and honestly separating tuning from work that needs a development engagement.
- First response to support requests within one business hour under our published SLA.
Your team
- Name an owner with authority to approve changes to production agents.
- Provide and maintain the delegated access the service depends on.
- Review the monthly report and approve or decline recommendations in a timely way.
- Own the business decisions the agents encode — policies, tone, escalation rules, and acceptable-use boundaries.
- Carry Microsoft licensing and consumption costs for the agents and their platforms.
- Tell us when the business changes — new products, reorganized content, retired systems — so knowledge refreshes track reality.
What's not included
Limitations & technical notes
Frequently asked questions
What exactly do we get each month for $950?
A monthly operating cycle for your in-scope agents: telemetry and outcome review, prompt and knowledge-source refreshes, cost tracking against a documented baseline, a safety and access re-check, plus a written operations report and an auditable change log. The precise agent scope the fee covers is confirmed in writing at onboarding.
Which agent platforms do you support?
Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry), including agents deployed to Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, or web channels. Where you license Microsoft Agent 365, we work through its observe-govern-secure surface as well.
Do you only manage agents that IT Partner built?
No. We onboard agents built by your team or another vendor — the onboarding step exists precisely to inventory and document what's running, whoever built it. If an inherited agent has structural problems, the first monthly report says so plainly.
Why do AI agents need ongoing operations at all?
Because they drift. Knowledge sources go stale, prompts degrade as real usage diverges from the pilot, consumption costs creep, and access scopes granted at launch are rarely reviewed again. An unwatched agent gets quietly worse — and Microsoft shipping Agent 365 as a dedicated control plane for exactly this problem is a good signal of how real it is.
Do we need Microsoft Agent 365 for this service?
No. Agent 365 is Microsoft's control plane for observing, governing, and securing agent fleets, generally available since May 2026, and we use it where you license it. Without it, we work through Copilot Studio analytics, Foundry telemetry, and the platforms' native audit tooling.
Can we cancel whenever we want?
Yes. The service is month to month with no lock-in — you can stop at any time; all we ask is payment of outstanding, previously approved invoices. Your agents, environments, and documentation are yours throughout, so there is nothing to migrate away from.
How fast do you respond when something breaks?
Our support SLA is first response within one business hour, and we publish our monthly support statistics — including the months we missed — on our verify pages. Structural fixes are then handled within the monthly scope or quoted as development work if they go beyond it.
What does the monthly report contain?
Usage and outcome trends, quality observations from the telemetry review, cost tracking against your baseline, results of the safety and access re-check, every change we made with its rationale, and a prioritized recommendation list for the next cycle. It is written to be read by an owner, not just an engineer.
What counts as optimization versus new development?
Optimization is tuning what exists: prompt adjustments, knowledge refreshes, configuration corrections, cost tweaks. New integrations, replatforming, multi-agent redesign, or new channels are development work — we flag the boundary explicitly in the backlog and quote such work separately before touching it.
How does this relate to your AI security service?
AI Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agents is a one-time hardening engagement that establishes your AI security posture. This service is the ongoing counterpart: it re-verifies safety filters, authentication, and access scopes every month so the posture that work established doesn't silently erode.
What access do you need, and how is it controlled?
Delegated, least-privilege access to the agent environments and their analytics — scoped at onboarding, documented in the inventory, and reviewable by you at any time. We ask for the minimum the monthly cycle needs, and access changes are themselves entries in the change log.
Can you reduce what our agents cost to run?
Often, yes — cost creep from chatty prompts, oversized models, or unnecessary calls is one of the most common findings. We track consumption against the onboarding baseline and recommend specific configuration changes, but we don't promise a savings number before seeing your telemetry.
How long does onboarding take?
Onboarding runs inside the first monthly cycle for a typical small fleet: inventory, access setup, baseline capture, and documentation review. Complex estates with many agents or missing documentation can take longer, and we tell you at the start if yours will.
What happens if an agent needs work beyond the monthly scope?
It goes on the improvement backlog with an honest label: in-scope tuning we'll do in the next cycle, or development work that needs its own quote. Nothing beyond the agreed scope is started — or billed — without a written quote you approve first.