Microsoft has launched a range of new agentic capabilities to its AI Copilot platform that includes enabling users to build their own agents that can understand the nature of their work and even “act on their behalf.”
From November, Copilot users can create their own agents in Copilot Studio, a new application that was originally announced for private view earlier in the year but will now be made public.
The AI agents range from prompt-and-response to fully autonomous. Users should think of them as the new “apps for an AI-powered world,”, the company said.
They agents can draw on the context of a user’s work data in Microsoft 365 Graph, systems of record, Dataverse and Fabric and support everything from the IT help desk to employee onboarding, acting as a personal concierge for sales and service, it added.
All agents can be interacted with through Copilot.
Microsoft also announced ten new autonomous agents for its enterprise platform Dynamics 365. These agents promise to build capacity for sales, service, finance and supply chain teams
They include a Sales Qualification Agent which enables sellers to focus their time on the highest priority sales opportunities, while the agent researches leads, helps prioritize opportunities and guides customer outreach with personalized emails and responses.
A Supplier Communications Agent enables customers to optimize their supply chain and minimize costly disruptions by autonomously tracking supplier performance, detecting delays and responding accordingly.
And a Customer Intent and Customer Knowledge Management Agents that works with customer service to resolve customer issues.
The agents coming to Dynamics 365 follow Microsoft’s core security, privacy and responsible AI commitments. Those built in Copilot Studio include guardrails and controls established by maker-defined instructions, knowledge and actions, Microsoft said.
Several organizations are already using the new Copilot Studio applications to create autonomous agents.
McKinsey & Company is running a pilot to speed up the client onboarding process that has so far shown it can be reduced by 90% and administrative work by 30%.
Thomson Reuters built a professional-grade agent to speed up the legal due diligence workflow, with initial testing showing some tasks can be done in half the time.
Already 60% of Fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft 365 Copilot to accelerate business results and empower their teams said Microsoft.
It pointed to telecommunications company Lumen Technologies that uses Copilot to support sales associates and projects a resulting $50 million in savings annually.
Meanwhile, manufacturing and technology firm Honeywell equates productivity gains from using Copilot to having 187 full-time employees.
Microsoft said it will create many more agents for Copilot in the coming year that will give customers the "competitive advantage they need to future-proof their organization.".
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