New Microsoft 365 Copilot AI agents focus on productivity

Among the hundreds of Copilot capabilities released this quarter, Microsoft customers will see pre-built generative AI apps for Teams, SharePoint, Copilot Business Chat and more.

Among the pre-built autonomous agents are those in SharePoint, generally available now, that query content and can perform actions such as broadcasting personalized content to an email list. Employee Self-Service Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat, now in private preview, can be set up to allow employees to take actions such as starting a leave of absence or requesting a new laptop from IT.

In Teams meetings and chats, a Facilitator agent, in preview now, can take notes while employees collaborate. An Interpreter agent, planned for preview early next year, enables Teams meetings translations in up to nine languages in real-time. Meeting participants can also have the Interpreter simulate their voice.

Finally, a Project Manager agent in preview today takes on project management in Microsoft Planner, including creating or executing tasks within a plan from scratch or templates.

Microsoft joins a broader tech trend of workflow-tuned agents; two examples include Salesforce agents tuned to sales and service and Google's agents for creatives and business users.

The idea, said Gartner analyst Jason Wong, is that the software giants are giving users agents and apps before the next wave of generative AI that large language model vendors are building: role-based models that can resemble certain classes of employees such as an HR representative or a lawyer. It's all in transition at the moment.

"I don't think we're seeing one platform that's more elegant than another right now," Wong said. "It's all strung together and can be fairly brutal depending on the set of activities [a user wants to address with an agent]."

Users still have yet to trust the autonomy of autonomous agents, he continued. For now, autonomous agents are being used to accomplish the simplest of tasks. Microsoft, for example, told Wong that one of the things the company trusts GenAI bots to do in-house is writing thank-you notes.

Many Microsoft IT leaders might wonder what happens to the Microsoft Power Platform and all the apps many companies have built to automate workflows.

Wong said Power Apps aren't going anywhere soon, as rules-based automation is needed in many processes. Further, some Power Apps may invoke generative AI functions to accomplish tasks.

Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.