BOSTON – October 29, 2026 -- IANS has made its Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server for Microsoft Copilot generally available, giving security teams access to peer decision data, vendor assessments and practitioner insight inside Copilot Chat and Copilot Cowork.
IANS Agent delivers cited answers across three Copilot entry points
In Copilot Chat, users can select IANS as a source for a prompt and receive answers with citations linking to the underlying IANS material. In Copilot Cowork, IANS runs as a plugin for multi-step tasks. The IANS Agent offers a dedicated conversation powered solely by IANS intelligence.
A Microsoft 365 administrator enables IANS in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Each user's access follows the organization's IANS subscription.
Peer benchmarks draw on 4,000 expert calls and 3,500 polls
The data set includes more than 4,000 summarized Ask-an-Expert calls and more than 3,500 Faculty polls. It also includes compensation, budget and staffing benchmarks from more than 600 security leaders. Teams can compare how organizations of similar industry and size handled the same question.
Other functions include:
- Tracking active threats, with remediation steps and Faculty analysis of major breaches
- Evaluating vendors using more than 300 IANS assessments, which IANS describes as free of vendor influence
- Turning current security news into executive talking points and action plans
- Building board and executive briefings grounded in peer data
Users can also request an Ask-an-Expert session with one of more than 170 IANS Faculty members, all practicing security practitioners.
Microsoft and IANS stress admin controls and peer context
IANS Chief Product Officer Paul Henderson said teams can see "what organizations like theirs actually did, and with what results." Chantrelle Nielsen, Principal Product Manager for the Copilot Platform at Microsoft, said teams can use the data under the administrative controls they already apply to Microsoft 365.
Availability is limited to MCP-enabled subscriptions with Copilot licenses
The server is available now to IANS clients whose subscription includes MCP access and whose users hold Microsoft Copilot licenses. IANS also offers the MCP Server in Claude.