CData Bridges Enterprise Data and Agentic AI at Microsoft Ignite 2025

/ AI, Data Management, Events, Microsoft Ignite 2025

The News

At Microsoft Ignite 2025, CData Software announced that its Connect AI platform now provides full Model Context Protocol (MCP) connectivity inside Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Agent 365, enabling enterprises to build AI agents that can read, write, and act on real-time data across more than 350 enterprise systems.

Analysis

The Race Toward Connected, Context-Aware Enterprise Agents

Ignite 2025 emphasized a core reality for developers where AI agents are only as capable as the data they can securely access. Across pre-briefings and sessions, Microsoft repeatedly framed Agent 365 as a governance layer for enterprise AI, while Copilot Studio becomes the place developers assemble agents.

But our data shows the challenge remains steep. 89.3% of organizations maintain centralized API repositories, yet 53.1% still struggle with integration issues, and 50.7% report performance and scalability concerns with existing API lifecycle tools. With enterprises using 3–5 cloud providers and hundreds of SaaS systems, fragmentation is now the default.

CData’s announcement lands directly in this gap: connectivity, context, and control, the three barriers preventing agentic systems from scaling responsibly.

Connecting Copilot and Agent 365 to the Broader Enterprise Data Universe

CData Connect AI could bring something developers repeatedly asked for throughout Ignite: a single way for agents to access real-time operational data without stitching together dozens of connectors.

The significance of this integration is threefold:

  • Microsoft gains an MCP-native gateway to 350+ enterprise systems (Salesforce, SAP, NetSuite, ServiceNow, Snowflake, and more).
  • Developers get a semantic layer that teaches AI agents how each system works—its schema, relationships, objects, and business logic.
  • IT maintains governance through Agent 365, ensuring permissions, access levels, and audit controls remain intact.

This aligns strongly with theCUBE Research’s insight that 64.2% of organizations now view DevOps-driven governance as essential, and nearly 70% plan increased investment in AI/ML delivery pipelines.

CData isn’t simply adding connectors; it’s giving Copilot agents the ability to reason across systems, not just fetch data from them.

Why This Matters to Developers

Developers building agentic applications continue to wrestle with several entrenched issues:

  • API fragmentation across hundreds of SaaS and on-prem systems
  • Schema inconsistency, requiring brittle transformations
  • Security enforcement that breaks down across federated data paths
  • Query/token explosion when large datasets must be brought to the agent
  • Heavy RAG pipelines that fail to capture system-level semantics

By abstracting API differences, standardizing metadata understanding, and inheriting source-system RBAC, CData attempts to reduce the engineering overhead required to build reliable multi-system agents.

How This May Influence Developer Patterns Going Forward

As enterprises experiment with agentic workflows in Copilot Studio, a platform like Connect AI may shift how developers approach system integration:

  • Cross-system agent logic becomes more feasible without custom ETL, embedding schemas directly into reasoning.
  • Hybrid and regulated environments can extend existing identity and RBAC through Agent 365 for safer deployments.
  • AI-specific CRUD downscoping may help reduce risk when exposing sensitive systems to automated agents.
  • Unified MCP endpoints may help teams collapse connector sprawl and reduce token overhead in AI queries.

While the pace of adoption will vary, this integration positions CData as a utility layer that helps enterprise teams operationalize AI agents faster without reinventing the data plumbing for every system.

Looking Ahead

Ignite 2025 solidified that the next stage of generative AI will be agentic, and that enterprises require governed access to real-time data to make those agents useful. As 73.4% of organizations plan to accelerate AI/ML investment, the pressure to unify data access across SaaS, cloud, and on-prem systems will only intensify.

CData’s MCP integration positions the company at a critical intersection:

  • Microsoft is betting heavily on Agent 365 governance.
  • Copilot Studio is becoming the enterprise agent factory.
  • Developers need a way to bridge hundreds of fragmented systems without compromising performance or security.

If CData continues to expand semantic intelligence, unified connectors, and workspace-level governance, it could become a foundational layer powering how enterprise agents access and reason over real-time data. With Microsoft’s ecosystem momentum behind it, this is one of the more meaningful agentic infrastructure announcements from Ignite 2025.

Authors

  • Paul Nashawaty

    Paul Nashawaty, Practice Leader and Lead Principal Analyst, specializes in application modernization across build, release and operations. With a wealth of expertise in digital transformation initiatives spanning front-end and back-end systems, he also possesses comprehensive knowledge of the underlying infrastructure ecosystem crucial for supporting modernization endeavors. With over 25 years of experience, Paul has a proven track record in implementing effective go-to-market strategies, including the identification of new market channels, the growth and cultivation of partner ecosystems, and the successful execution of strategic plans resulting in positive business outcomes for his clients.

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  • With over 15 years of hands-on experience in operations roles across legal, financial, and technology sectors, Sam Weston brings deep expertise in the systems that power modern enterprises such as ERP, CRM, HCM, CX, and beyond. Her career has spanned the full spectrum of enterprise applications, from optimizing business processes and managing platforms to leading digital transformation initiatives.

    Sam has transitioned her expertise into the analyst arena, focusing on enterprise applications and the evolving role they play in business productivity and transformation. She provides independent insights that bridge technology capabilities with business outcomes, helping organizations and vendors alike navigate a changing enterprise software landscape.

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