FLR Spectron has urged UK businesses to reassess their Microsoft licensing ahead of Microsoft 365 E7 price changes, arguing that the shift should prompt companies to review how they manage the spread of AI tools in their systems.

According to figures cited by FLR Spectron, Microsoft’s changes affect the pricing of its existing Microsoft 365 E5 and E3 tiers, while the newer E7 bundle remains at USD $99 per user. E5 rises from USD $57 to USD $60 per user, and E3 from USD $36 to USD $39, changing the economics for businesses weighing a gradual rollout of AI services against a broader bundle.

FLR Spectron’s case rests on more than software cost. Many organisations, it argues, are adding AI agents to enterprise applications without the controls needed to identify, monitor or limit what those systems can access.

That concern reflects a wider shift in corporate software. FLR Spectron pointed to a Gartner forecast that 40% of enterprise applications will feature task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025.

Cost pressure

For buyers already using much of Microsoft’s security, compliance and identity software, the unchanged E7 price could make the bundled option more attractive than assembling comparable products separately. FLR Spectron estimates the package now offers savings of about 15% compared with buying the components individually.

That calculation matters as finance and IT teams come under pressure to justify growing AI budgets. Many businesses have experimented with generative AI in isolated functions, but fewer have developed a licensing and governance model for broad use across the workforce.

FLR Spectron also argued that the issue goes beyond staff using public AI tools. AI agents embedded in business applications can operate with significant permissions while remaining difficult for security teams to detect and supervise.

Kamran Bahdur, Chief Information Officer at FLR Spectron, set out that risk in direct terms.

“Every AI agent a business deploys is a new identity with access to company systems, and most are being brought inside far faster than anyone can secure them. Each one is effectively another door into the network, often holding privileges on a par with a senior administrator, and the majority are invisible to the security team. As organisations rush agents into production, they widen their attack surface with every deployment. E7 addresses that risk head-on by providing businesses with Agent 365, which brings those agents under the same identity, monitoring and audit controls you’d apply to an employee so you can finally see them, govern them and switch them off,” Bahdur said.

Governance gap

FLR Spectron argues that the main challenge for many employers is the gap between AI adoption and internal governance. While software vendors are introducing AI features quickly, organisations often still rely on fragmented identity, security and data management tools.

Microsoft’s E7 offer, it said, seeks to bring together Defender, Entra Suite, Purview and Agent 365 in a single framework. In FLR Spectron’s view, that gives IT departments a clearer way to observe agents, apply policy controls and maintain audit oversight.

The firm also highlighted employee use of unapproved AI tools. Many workers, it said, are already turning to external services without formal authorisation from IT teams, creating risks around data leakage and compliance exposure, including under GDPR.

Bringing AI use into approved systems is one route companies are considering to reduce that risk. Sanctioned tools can be linked to internal identity controls and data policies in ways consumer-facing services often cannot.

Still, FLR Spectron stopped short of saying E7 is the right answer for every organisation. Its suitability, the firm said, depends on whether a business is ready to move from AI experiments to wider operational use.

Fabio Carvalho said many companies remain at an early stage because the basics are not yet in place.

“There’s a big difference between trialling AI and running it. Most organisations are stuck at the first because the foundation underneath isn’t there: identity, data and management are scattered across half a dozen tools, and you can’t safely scale agents on top of that. E7 provides the foundation and infrastructure for businesses to embed AI into their operations, and while the price increase is certainly a prompt, it’s this future-proofing that is encouraging earlier adopters to make the move now,” Carvalho said.

The broader issue for UK businesses is that AI spending is becoming more closely tied to questions of security architecture and software consolidation. As AI agents move from small pilots into day-to-day workflows, licensing decisions are increasingly bound up with who controls those systems, what data they can access and how quickly they can be shut down if something goes wrong.

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

HiBob has launched a Slack integration for its Bob HR platform, using the Model Context Protocol to bring workforce data into Slackbot.

The integration lets employees, managers and HR teams query Bob from within Slack using natural language and carry out some HR-related actions without leaving the messaging platform. Users can ask about compensation, performance reviews, team joins and upcoming compensation reviews through Slackbot.

The move reflects a wider push by software suppliers to place business data inside conversational interfaces as companies experiment with AI agents in day-to-day work. HiBob is positioning workforce information as a missing layer in those systems, arguing that organisational structure, reporting lines, tenure and team changes shape business decisions in ways general business data alone does not capture.

Slack is central to that argument because many companies already use it as a front end for internal communications. By connecting Bob to Slack through the Model Context Protocol, HiBob aims to make employee records and HR processes available where managers and staff already work and ask questions.

Examples include checking an employee’s compa-ratio, retrieving a performance review and counting how many people joined a team in a quarter. The integration can also identify who is due for a compensation review in the following month.

Workforce context

The launch comes as software groups and corporate buyers focus on whether AI systems can do more than retrieve information from separate applications. A growing part of that debate concerns context: whether an AI tool can understand enough about an organisation and its people to support decisions, recommendations and workflows in a useful way.

HiBob argues that workforce intelligence should sit alongside financial, sales and operational information when those systems are asked to assist with work. In practice, that means linking HR data to conversational tools used by employees and managers rather than restricting it to a standalone HR system.

“The next generation of enterprise software won’t be built around applications. It will be built around AI agents,” said Ronni Zehavi, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of HiBob.

He set out the company’s view of the role employee data should play in those systems.

“Those agents can only make effective decisions if they understand the people behind the work. Workforce intelligence is a critical layer of business context, and until now it has largely been missing from AI-powered workflows. By bringing Bob into Slack, we’re helping organisations ensure that people insights are part of every decision. Modern companies don’t need more disconnected systems. They need better context delivered where decisions are made,” Zehavi said.

Broader shift

The integration also highlights the growing use of the Model Context Protocol to connect AI assistants with business software. The protocol has gained traction as companies look for more standard ways to let AI tools access data and trigger actions across applications without building separate integrations for each workflow.

For HR software providers, that creates an opportunity to move beyond back-office administration and into more regular employee interactions. Managers checking team changes, compensation timing or review history from within Slack is a different pattern of use from logging into a dedicated HR platform for occasional administrative tasks.

That could make workforce data more visible across organisations, though it also raises familiar questions about permissions, accuracy and the limits of what should be surfaced through chat interfaces. HiBob said the information available through Slackbot comes from Bob, which it described as a source of trusted people data.

Bob is HiBob’s platform for human capital management, payroll and finance. More than 5,400 organisations use the software worldwide, including eToro, Fred Perry, Huel, team.blue, SmartRecruiters and Save the Children.

The release places HiBob within a broader group of software suppliers trying to connect structured business systems to AI tools that employees can use in plain language. Rather than asking workers to switch between systems, these suppliers are increasingly trying to bring information and actions into a single conversational layer.

HiBob’s argument is that AI systems will not be fully useful to businesses unless they can account for the people behind the work as well as the work itself. The Slack integration is its attempt to put that principle into a tool employees already use throughout the working day.

After it was reported that households in the OX29 area were running without water this morning (Tuesday, June 23), Thames Water has said the issue has been fixed.

At around 7.30am, the company said it was aware of an issue impacting customers in the Witney, OX29 area and was working on a solution.

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At the time West Oxfordshire District Council said it had been informed of the problem and encouraged people to check in on vulnerable neighbours, friends and relatives possibly impacted.

However, now, it appears the issue has been fixed.

At 2pm, a spokesperson for Thames Water said: “We are pleased to confirm that repairs to the burst water pipe at Poffley End Lane have now been successfully completed, and water supplies are being restored to affected customers.

“As water returns to the network, you may initially experience lower water pressure than normal.

“This is expected while the system recharges and pressure gradually builds back up across the area. Your water supply should continue to improve throughout the afternoon.

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“If you live in a block of flats and are still experiencing issues once supplies have returned, you may need to contact your managing agent to arrange for any internal booster pumps to be checked and reset.

“Often when your water returns it may be discoloured at first (rusty, white or milky in colour), this is normal.”

They added: “We are sorry for the disruption caused and appreciate your continued support.”