Microsoft 365 personalized assistants are released in final version. An update on their potential in terms of process development.
Microsoft is moving its intelligent assistant Copilot into the era of automation. To do this, the publisher announced on September 16 that it will deploy the final version of its Copilot Agents in the coming weeks. The ambition? Not only to answer questions in natural language in the context of the Office suite, but also to run personalized assistants. These agents, previously available in preview, will be able to range from simple agents based on prompts and answers to fully autonomous advanced agents, including the handling of repetitive tasks.
Copilot Agents operate in the background, fully managed and orchestrated by Copilot. They don’t just provide information, they can also perform tasks. By adding building blocks to them, such as sending emails, updating files or creating support tickets, they become digital assistants. These integrations with existing business systems will allow them to support action sequences that are part of real workflows.
A new mode of automation in Office
To make it easier to create Copilot Agents, Microsoft is announcing Agent Builder, a new simplified experience powered by Copilot Studio. Via Agent Builder, anyone will be able to quickly create an agent directly in natural language from the Copilot chat (BizChat). All you have to do is specify what you want the agent to accomplish and choose the data sources to integrate, whether specific documents or databases. Once the agent is ready, it can be used individually, shared with a small group or deployed across the organization.
Via Agent Builder, for example, it will be possible to create an agent linked to SharePoint. “In a few moments, you will have a powerful information resource that you can share with your colleagues via Teams or Outlook. You will be able to mention the agent like any other collaborator (@xxx, editor’s note), transmit information to him and ask him questions which he will answer in real time,” explains Microsoft.
“No need to be an expert in AI or development to take full advantage of it”
Creating agents in SharePoint will be intuitive, requiring just a few clicks and no coding skills. Users will also be able to further customize their agents through Copilot Studio, adding advanced capabilities, including autonomy. “You don’t need to be an AI or development expert to take full advantage of this,” the publisher comments.
Copilot Agents and Agent Builder will be rolled out to all Copilot customers in the coming weeks, with integration with SharePoint entering public beta in early October.
Human-machine collaboration
Microsoft also plans to offer pre-configured agents. This will be the case, for example, of the Visual Creator Agent, which will help create images, designs and (later) videos generated by AI. Other agents will then be added to the latter.
Despite the radical changes that generative AI implies, Microsoft insists on an ethical and responsible approach related to its Copilot Agents. All have the same guarantees in terms of responsible AI: the data will remain confined in an approved Microsoft 365 environment and everything will take place within a secure tenant.
