Omnissa One 2026: What stood out for the agentic end-user era

Omnissa MCP Server

Omnissa now offers a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets administrators use the agentic tool of their choice to work with services across the Omnissa platform, with access limited to whatever that admin's existing role and permissions already allow.

I'm seeing this a lot lately. What I like about this is that Omnissa's MCP server is scoped to all of Omnissa's products, so Workspace One, Horizon, DEX, Intelligence and more are all available. This can provide a lot of value as organizations incorporate AI into endpoint management and security, UX, compliance and even endpoint purchasing. It also helps with the general desire to consolidate data sources and align all IT and security teams around the same information.

Elara

On the compliance note, Elara is a new product that sits above Workspace One, Horizon and third-party systems such as Microsoft Intune and ServiceNow, correlating signals across people, identities, devices, apps and AI tools so IT can decide whether an AI-driven action or change should happen before it happens. The beta, for which the waitlist is open now, includes shadow AI discovery; an AI gateway that controls model access and meters token use across providers; change control that checks actions for conflicts and routes them to approvers; and an audit trail of every decision.

This is the Holy Grail these days, and dozens of vendors have something like this in the works. What makes Elara stand out from the pack -- and believe me, they all have their unique advantages -- is that Omnissa is already a leader in endpoint management, workspace automation and intelligence, and desktop virtualization, so it can offer these features as part of an integrated, robust, digital workspace platform. The fact that it works without Workspace One is interesting, but then it's one of many tools that sound similar.

Horizon Delegate

End-user agentic AI is a challenge to deal with for many reasons. For example, agents run in the end-user context, so they have access to the same network, apps and files that human users have. Users are incapable of building, maintaining and securing their own agentic environments, and nor should they be. But the technology to natively give them the proper tools, UX and guardrails is in its infancy.

But there is a place where all of those problems have been solved and where identity governs access to apps, network, files and more: Windows. This makes VDI and desktop as a service (DaaS) well suited to host agentic users. Microsoft recognized this when it made Windows 365 for Agents, and Horizon Delegate takes that concept to the next level.

Horizon Delegate gives each user a persistent agent that runs inside their Horizon session and does work on their behalf with their existing identity and permissions, even after they disconnect. A user on their phone could, for example, ask it to build a presentation from a Confluence page and let it work on the desktop in the background. Omnissa positions it as the supervised middle ground between a human-driven workspace and fully autonomous agents, and the requests travel over the same Horizon channel organizations already trust instead of exposing the desktop to a new cloud service. It's expected in limited availability with Horizon 2609.

DEX

Digital employee experience has been a focus for Omnissa for many years, and this year saw the addition of a beta of the DEX Agent. This agent provides root cause analysis of issues based on data gathered from Omnissa Intelligence -- formerly Workspace One Intelligence -- using playbooks that are either existing or automatically generated by looking at past Workspace One Assist session summaries. The investigation runs on its own, but nothing runs on a device until an admin approves the recommended playbook, which then executes through Freestyle Orchestrator. Admins decide how much the agent is allowed to handle, and it works across Windows, Mac, virtual desktops and mobile.

There are some additional features that help to quantify the value of DEX, which has historically been hard to do: You either had to believe in DEX or not. I saw dashboards that show real-time experience-level agreement and ROI depictions. Plus, device refresh decisions can now be based on device performance, using experience scores that are considered alongside device age, warranty status, etc. This intelligent device refresh is increasingly top of mind for organizations as they try to deal with increasing and fluctuating hardware prices.

The MCP server also opens DEX to outside agents, so tools such as ServiceNow, Moveworks and Salesforce Agentforce can pull device data and root cause analysis directly.

Cloud PC

Finally, there was Cloud PC, which is an Omnissa-operated DaaS platform that delivers Horizon desktops with Workspace One management, security and DEX in one fixed-price service. In fact, all management is done via Workspace One. There are other Windows DaaS platforms out there like Omnissa Cloud PC -- including Microsoft's own Windows 365, which calls its virtual desktops Cloud PCs -- but having something that includes the lion's share of the Omnissa platform in one fixed price sets it apart.

Though nothing like this was announced, it's easy to see how Horizon Delegate and Cloud PC could integrate with one another and how Delegate could be extended beyond Horizon to work with other agentic workflows down the road.

Omnissa's new CEO appointment

I couldn't wrap up Omnissa One without mentioning the departure of former CEO Shankar Iyer and the appointment of Amit Singh. While this certainly stole some of the news, the reality is that one to two days isn't enough time to formulate an evaluation of the change. My initial thought is that, despite being owned by private equity firm KKR, Omnissa has been spared the typical private equity playbook of consolidation and operating cost reduction. Will that calm continue, or will we see big changes?

As with any CEO switch, some changes are certainly coming, and there might be some opportunities for consolidation once the dust settles. It's hard to tell after just a few days and a brief keynote appearance, but I'll pay close attention as things progress. Whatever happens, Singh is inheriting a lot of opportunity.

Looking ahead

The next few months will be interesting to watch as the various betas give way to generally available products, we learn more about how Elara will be priced and packaged, and we see what kind of changes come as a result of the new CEO.

The key takeaway for me is that Omnissa is well positioned to take a chance on something like Elara, and I think the timing is right. Customers are increasingly aware of the visibility, governance, shadow AI and identity challenges that come along with end-user AI, and Omnissa is in a position to help without customers having to layer on more disjointed tools. They face stiff competition and a lot of innovation, though, so there's a lot to get right in a short period of time.

Gabe Knuth is the senior end-user computing analyst for Omdia.

Omdia is a division of Informa TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.