Better Together One externalized authorization layer across every agent, tool, API, and data source — Microsoft and beyond.
Microsoft 365 E5/E7 gives you a powerful security, identity, compliance, and agent-management foundation. PlainID complements it with externalized, fine-grained, cross-platform runtime authorization and policy governance for agent, tool, API, and data interactions.
Two layers. Microsoft secures and governs its estate; PlainID makes that context enforceable, everywhere.
E5 brings Entra ID P2, Defender, Purview, Intune, and advanced security analytics that protect users, devices, identity, data, and collaboration surfaces. It's a strong foundation for workforce security and AI readiness — but Microsoft doesn't position it as the full agent-control plane.
E7 includes E5 and adds Copilot, Agent 365, and Entra Suite. It's positioned for agent observability, security, governance and compliance, secure access to AI, apps, and resources, and agentic operations.
PlainID handles agent discovery and visibility, centralized policy management, runtime enforcement across prompts, tools, APIs, and data, and full audit. Identity foundations stay integrated with your enterprise identity and secrets providers.
Microsoft identifies, protects, and governs the Microsoft estate. PlainID turns that context into consistent, fine-grained authorization decisions at runtime — across heterogeneous agent frameworks, MCP gateways, APIs, SaaS, data sources, and RAG/vector environments.
PlainID makes Microsoft identity, security, and data signals actionable as fine-grained authorization decisions for agents, tools, APIs, and data — across both Microsoft and non-Microsoft environments.
Guardian agents supervise AI agents — monitoring, blocking risky actions, and enforcing policy across platforms.
Gartner warns that incumbents unable to update quickly with modern controls could leave critical gaps — and advises picking a best-of-breed provider to counter the sophisticated emerging threats and unpredictable behavior of AI agents.
Legacy IAM stops at validating an agent's identity. The next layer natively converges identity and data — dynamically evaluating the sensitivity of the data an agent touches, in real time, so that even valid identities cannot expose unauthorized data.
No cloud provider can unilaterally enforce runtime control once agents operate across another provider's cloud. Only a neutral, trusted guardian-agent layer supplies the missing universal enforcement mechanism.
Source: Gartner, Market Guide for Guardian Agents, 25 February 2026 (ID G00836388).
Discover agents and resources, govern policy centrally, enforce runtime authorization across the agentic flow, and keep all of it auditable.
Uses enterprise identity, machine identity, and secrets platforms as trusted sources; evaluates human, agent, service, and delegated identity context together.
E5 supplies Entra ID P2 identity and access management; E7 adds Entra Suite and Agent 365 agent identity and access packages.
PlainID doesn't replace Microsoft identity — it consumes and enriches identity context for authorization.
Agent registry, profile enrichment, access graph, MCP and tool discovery, and resource discovery and categorization.
E7 Agent 365 provides a centralized agent registry, usage insights, and visual mapping of agent activity. E5 alone isn't the dedicated agent-management tier.
PlainID expands visibility into authorization-relevant relationships across agents, MCP tools, APIs, data, and resources — and adds agents and resources from non-Microsoft technologies.
Policy360, no-code and policy-as-code authoring, governance, simulation, certification, delegated administration, and cross-identity policies.
Microsoft policy spans Entra Conditional Access, Purview data and compliance controls, Defender and Intune security controls, and E7 Agent 365 guardrails and templates.
PlainID extends Microsoft identity controls into full business authorization logic — including the end-user identity and the resources being accessed — across vendors.
Runtime authorization with enriched context and externalized decisions: SDKs, gateway plugins, MCP controls, tool- and parameter-level controls, data access controls, and input/output guardrails.
E7 Agent 365 adds agent security controls, risk-based access, real-time protection, and the ability to block unsafe behaviors and tool invocations.
Microsoft provides security signals and platform controls for Microsoft-managed resources; PlainID adds fine-grained decisions near protected tools, APIs, and data — and extends control to non-Microsoft resources.
Authorization decision audit trail, policy-to-decision correlation, cross-flow traceability, access and authorization insights, and admin audit.
E7 includes agent observability logs, agent analytics, and logging, reporting, and audit for agent actions and interactions.
PlainID adds a cross-vendor observability layer with explainable authorization evidence: what policy decided, why, and what context was evaluated.
Where Microsoft E7 and Agent 365 stop, PlainID picks up — carrying the same policy model across the rest of the estate.
Entra Agent ID gives agents first-class identity and lifecycle controls.
PlainID consumes agent identity as an authorization attribute, combining it with user, resource, action, risk, and business context.
Conditional Access evaluates agent, user, and session risk, plus device, location, and network.
PlainID adds fine-grained authorization after authentication: what the agent can do, on which resource, for which purpose, under which business conditions.
Enforces Microsoft 365 permissions, restricted access control, restricted content discovery, and sharing policies.
PlainID extends the same policy model to non-Microsoft repositories, databases, APIs, MCP servers, RAG/vector stores, and application data.
Purview provides sensitivity, DLP, audit, DSPM, and compliance signals.
PlainID uses sensitivity and classification context as input to runtime authorization decisions and masking instructions.
Defender and the Agent Registry surface risks like prompt injection, sensitive-data access, excessive permissions, and shadow agents.
PlainID uses risk as an authorization condition, enforcing allow, deny, mask, or step-up decisions inline.
Strongest for Microsoft-native access paths — SharePoint/OneDrive, Conditional Access, DLP-supported flows, and Defender protections.
PlainID provides externalized runtime authorization for Microsoft and non-Microsoft agents, MCP tools, APIs, data, parameters, prompts, and outputs.
Considers user, agent, session, risk, device, location, permissions, and content-governance signals.
PlainID adds decisions that combine end user + agent + delegated identity + action + resource + data sensitivity + business context + environment + risk.
Coverage reflects Microsoft's public positioning by SKU. PlainID is the complementary layer throughout — extending or deepening each capability across the full estate.
PlainIDCross-identity model for human, non-human, machine, and agent context; delegated and on-behalf-of accountability; JIT and zero-standing-privilege patterns; identity enrichment.
Better togetherUse Microsoft as the identity source of truth and risk-signal provider; use PlainID to translate identities and delegated context into fine-grained runtime decisions.
PlainIDAuthoritative agent registry with profile enrichment, ownership, environment, frameworks, connected systems, and business purpose.
Better togetherAgent 365 gives a Microsoft-native inventory; PlainID extends discovery, relationship mapping, and runtime authorization across MCP servers, tools, APIs, data, RAG/vector stores, and non-Microsoft agents.
PlainIDMCP discovery, tool categorization and enrichment, resource discovery and classification, and tool-change detection.
Better togetherPlainID gives a deeper MCP and tool authorization inventory — and makes that inventory actionable in policy.
PlainIDPolicy360 and a native policy view: no-code authoring, policy-as-code, relationship-based rules, dry-run, simulation, certification, explainability, and delegated administration.
Better togetherPlainID provides a centralized authorization policy plane that spans Microsoft and non-Microsoft tools, APIs, and data.
PlainIDExternalized, context-rich authorization decisions at execution time for agents and humans — based on identity, action, resource, environment, sensitivity, and risk.
Better togetherMicrosoft evaluates access and risk in its ecosystem; PlainID adds application- and resource-level decisioning across heterogeneous runtime points.
PlainIDMCP tool control, tool-level authorization, tool parameter controls, dynamic scope adjustment, allow/deny lists, gateway plugins, SDKs, and the MCP Gateway.
Better togetherPlainID deepens granularity: which agent can call which tool or API, with which parameters, under which context.
PlainIDStructured and unstructured data access control, row-level filtering, column masking, and vector/RAG discovery with metadata enrichment.
Better togetherPurview classifies and protects; PlainID makes real-time decisions before retrieval or exposure, applying masking and filtering instructions.
PlainIDClassifies and restricts prompts, detects sensitive intent and disallowed actions, categorizes outputs, and masks or encrypts sensitive output elements.
Better togetherPlainID adds business-context input and output guardrails at runtime — allow or block prompts, and mask sensitive and PII data in responses.
PlainIDAuthorization decision audit trail, policy-to-decision correlation, business-readable reasoning, admin audit, simulation audit, and cross-flow traceability.
Better togetherPlainID provides full audit and observability for every runtime event, across technologies.