IT a.m. – Mar 9, 2026
Microsoft Bundles Copilot Into New E7 License at $99/User/Month
Microsoft is launching Microsoft 365 E7, a new top-tier bundle that packages its full Office suite with Copilot AI for $99 per user per month. The move represents a 65% price jump over E5 and aims to boost Copilot adoption, which currently sits at just 3% of its 450M+ commercial user base.
- E7 consolidates E5 ($57), Copilot ($30), and security tools into one SKU, offering a modest discount over buying separately but a steep increase over current E5 spend.
- Microsoft is betting that bundling will drive AI adoption the same way it pushed Teams and Defender adoption through E5.
- Organizations on existing enterprise agreements will face renewal pressure to move up-tier, especially as Microsoft signals E5 may eventually lose feature parity.
IT leaders need to model E7 costs against current E5+Copilot spend now. Renewal negotiations just got more complex, and waiting could mean losing leverage as Microsoft pushes bundled AI as the default.
🛡️ Cybersecurity News
Dutch intelligence accuses Russia-backed hackers of running a large-scale global hacking campaign against Signal and WhatsApp users.
Salt Typhoon has breached top American phone companies and targeted multiple countries, making it one of the most prolific recent hacking groups.
🌩️ Cloud News
Netflix engineers describe an internal automation platform that migrates nearly 400 RDS PostgreSQL clusters to Aurora, reducing downtime and operational risk. The platform coordinates replication, CDC handling, controlled cutover, and rollback while supporting service teams in a self-service model.
🧠 AI News
Anthropic filed suit against the Department of Defense after being labeled a supply chain risk, calling the actions unprecedented and unlawful.
Microsoft launched Copilot Cowork, integrating Anthropic’s Claude Cowork technology into Microsoft 365 Copilot using Work IQ to ground actions in work data.
📈 M&A News
Nvidia-backed British AI infrastructure startup Nscale has raised another $2 billion megaround. Former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg have joined the board.
Lyzr AI, which builds infrastructure for enterprise AI agents, closed an Accenture-led funding round that quintupled its valuation to $250 million.
⚙️ DevOps News
GitHub Copilot now integrates with Jira, allowing users to assign issues to the AI agent and receive draft pull requests. This integration eliminates context switching between planning and coding workflows.
🏗️ Infrastructure News
Qualcomm introduced the Arduino Ventuno Q, a single-board computer for AI and robotics powered by the Dragonwing IQ8 processor with 16GB RAM.
🏢 Top AI Data Engineering Firms
Electronics Firm Ditches Entire SaaS Stack for AI-Built Alternatives
A 70-person consumer electronics company is replacing its full SaaS stack – ERP, HRMS, CRM, helpdesk, and e-commerce – with custom solutions built by agentic AI, signaling a direct threat to traditional software vendors.
- Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna highlights this as a leading example of how AI-generated code is collapsing the cost of custom software, making buy-vs-build calculus favor building for the first time in decades.
- The shift raises hard questions for SaaS vendors: if code is essentially free, value must come from data, workflow intelligence, and trust – not features alone.
SaaS vendors, MSPs, and IT leaders must reassess software strategies as AI-driven custom development erodes the core value proposition of off-the-shelf platforms.
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