From Active Directory to AI Agents: The 25-Year Saga of Microsoft's Identity

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From Active Directory to AI Agents: The 25-Year Saga of Microsoft's Identity

This episode is for the die hard AD + Azure AD + Entra fans! The history of Microsoft Identity like it's never been told before.

Merill Fernando

Jun 14, 2025

Transcript

In this very special episode, I sit down with the "Yoda of Entra" himself, Tarek Dawoud, who also happens to be my manager!

We dig deep into the fascinating and often surprising history of Microsoft's identity platforms. Tarek, who has been on the team since 2007, takes us on a journey from the revolutionary launch of Active Directory in 1999, through the creation of the cloud services that battled Google Apps, to the formation of the identity division and the eventual rebrand to Entra.

You'll hear the inside story on how our customer experience team became a "secret weapon" and, most excitingly, we'll look at what the future holds for Identity and Access Management in the new age of AI agents.

Watch on YouTube

PS. Can I ask a favor? If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and rating! Thank you 🙏 - Merill

About Tarek Dawoud

Tarek Dawoud is a long-time veteran at Microsoft, having been with the company for over 18 years. Tarek currently leads the architecture team within the customer engineering (CXE) organization, where he helps customers deploy Entra, gathers insights for the product group, and works to solve the hardest identity problems.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarekdawoud/

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