What you need to know
- Microsoft’s Copilot Studio will soon support the creation of autonomous agents if you are participating in the company’s public preview.
- Copilot agents are AI-powered tools that can assist with a wide range of tasks and processes.
- Agents can autonomously respond to specific triggers or respond to prompts.
- Microsoft also introduced 10 new autonomous agents to Dynamics 365 designed to help sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams.
Microsoft has announced that the ability to create custom Copilot agents will enter public preview at Microsoft Ignite starting November 19, 2024. The Copilot agent is a step toward the future we see in movies and TV, where we can have AI handle things for us. for you. Agents can work autonomously or respond to prompts to assist organizations and employees. Its capabilities will expand over time as you can create custom Copilot agents, but it can already assist with tasks such as lead generation, order fulfillment, staff onboarding, sales enablement, and supply chain automation. Masu.
CoPilot agents can obtain context from data in Microsoft 365 Graph, systems of record, Dataverse, and Fabric.
What is a co-pilot agent?
CoPilot agents are AI assistants that you can create to help you with specific tasks. Microsoft says agents can assist departments such as IT, marketing, sales, customer service, and finance. The tech giant also sees value in tools for travel, retail, and financial services.
Microsoft envisions a future where organizations have a variety of AI-powered agents operating autonomously and responding to prompts. Microsoft explains that you can think of the Copilot agent as “a new app for an AI-powered world.”
Microsoft says agents created with Copilot Studio run the “latest model.” Most notably, OpenAI o1 is currently powering some agents, but this is in limited private preview.
Copilot Agent recently entered private preview and is scheduled to enter public preview next month. Microsoft shared quotes from multiple companies using custom agents to demonstrate how this tool can help their organizations.
“We are using AI for time-consuming tasks,” said William Hewish, Pets at Home CIO. and can make decisions quickly.” “This has enabled us to empower our colleagues, both through the level of information they have at their fingertips and the time they can spend on more nuanced and insightful work.Agent’s solution enables interest protection teams to You can evaluate profit loss cases more effectively and spend more time on expert analysis rather than just gathering information.”
McKinsey & Company built the Copilot agent to help review client proposals and saw early success. “We see tremendous potential for agents to help clients rewire the way they operate their businesses,” said Rodney Zemmel, senior partner at McKinsey & Company.
Salesforce CEO drama
Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff recently called out Copilot and dubbed the new AI tool “the new Microsoft Clippy.” The executive argued that Copilot was not providing value to customers and predicted that the tool would not be around for long.
“It’s disappointing given how Copilot was sold to our customers. It’s ineffective,” Benioff said. “We have data all over the floor, and we’re not providing any value. We’re yet to find customers doing transformational work with Copilot. Copilot is just the new Microsoft Clippy.”
Benioff believes that “Salesforce can beat Microsoft in AI.” The CEO’s confidence is at least partly due to Agentforce, Salesforce’s new tool that helps build customized AI agents. Agentforce can handle “trillions of AI transactions a week,” and Benioff is full of praise for the tool.
“This must be magic. What’s happening to my customers right now is crazy,” the Salesforce CEO said.
Both Salesforce and Microsoft are working on tools to build custom AI agents, but it’s still early days for Agentforce and Copilot agents. Microsoft’s product is currently in public preview, so we’ll be able to get a more accurate picture of how it compares to Agentforce.
Autonomous agents in Dynamics 365
Microsoft also introduced 10 new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 to help sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams. Microsoft emphasized that the agents available in Dynamics 365 adhere to the tech giant’s security, privacy, and AI accountability standards, and shared several examples of agents currently available in Dynamics 365.
- Sales Qualified Agent: In a profession where time literally equals money, this agent allows sellers to focus their time on their highest priority sales opportunities, while agents classified as Microsoft Confidential lead the investigation. to help prioritize opportunities and guide customer interactions with personalized emails and responses.
- Supplier communication agent: This agent allows customers to autonomously track supplier performance, detect delays, and respond accordingly to optimize supply chains and minimize costly disruptions. . This frees procurement teams from time-consuming manual monitoring and firefighting efforts.
- Customer intent and customer knowledge management agent: You have one chance to make a first impression with a company. These two agents are a game-changer for customer care teams facing high call volumes, staff shortages, and increased customer expectations. These agents collaborate with customer service representatives by learning how to solve customer problems and autonomously adding knowledge base articles to extend best practices across the care team.
Microsoft will be speaking about custom AI agents at its Ignite conference from November 19th to 22nd. Tickets to attend Ignite in person are sold out, but you can also attend the event online. There, tech giants will showcase their tools in action and highlight how they can help organizations.
