The feature to build custom autonomous agents using Copilot Studio is now available in public preview.
Key points:
- Microsoft has also launched ten new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 to support sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams.
- Microsoft’s Copilot Studio will soon allow public preview users to create autonomous agents.
- They can act autonomously based on specific triggers or respond to prompts.
- These AI-powered agents assist with various tasks and processes.
Microsoft revealed that the option to create custom Copilot agents will enter public preview at Microsoft Ignite on November 19, 2024. These AI-driven agents represent a future where you can delegate tasks to AI. They can operate autonomously or respond to prompts, supporting both organizations and workers. As custom Copilot agents can be developed, their capabilities will grow, but they already assist with tasks like lead generation, order processing, staff onboarding, sales support, and supply chain automation.
Copilot agents can gather context from data within Microsoft 365 Graph, systems of record, Dataverse, and Fabric.
What is a Copilot agent?
Copilot agents are AI assistants designed to handle specific tasks. According to Microsoft, these agents can assist departments like IT, marketing, sales, customer service, and finance. They also hold potential value for industries such as travel, retail, and financial services.
Microsoft imagines a future where organizations use a variety of AI-powered agents that can function autonomously or respond to prompts. The company describes Copilot agents as “the new apps for an AI-driven world.”
According to Microsoft, agents created using Copilot Studio operate on the “latest models,” with some currently powered by OpenAI o1, though this is still in a limited private preview. Copilot agents recently entered private preview and are set to be available in public preview next month. Microsoft also shared testimonials from companies using custom agents to demonstrate how the tool benefits organizations.
“We’re leveraging AI to handle time-consuming tasks, allowing our teams to focus their resources and expertise on making faster, data-driven decisions,” said William Hewish, CIO of Pets at Home. “It has truly empowered our employees by providing easy access to information and freeing up time for more complex and insightful work. The agents solution enables our profit protection team to better evaluate potential profit loss cases, dedicating more time to skilled analysis rather than just gathering information.”
McKinsey & Company developed a Copilot agent to assist with reviewing client proposals and has already experienced early success. “We recognize significant potential for agents to help our clients transform their business operations,” said Rodney Zemmel, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.
Drama involving the CEO of Salesforce
Recently, Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff criticized Copilot, referring to it as the “new Microsoft Clippy.” He argued that the AI tool fails to provide value to customers and forecasted that it won’t last long.
“When you examine how Copilot has been marketed to our clients, it’s disheartening. It doesn’t function properly,” Benioff stated. “It dumps data everywhere and does not add value. I haven’t encountered a single customer who has achieved transformational work with Copilot. It’s simply the new Microsoft Clippy.”
Benioff is confident that “Salesforce can outpace Microsoft in AI.” This confidence is partly attributed to Agentforce, a new Salesforce tool designed to create customized AI agents. Agentforce is capable of managing “a couple of trillion AI transactions per week,” and Benioff has been very enthusiastic about its capabilities.
“This feels like witchcraft; what’s happening with my customers right now is incredible,” said the Salesforce CEO.
Salesforce and Microsoft are developing tools for creating custom AI agents, but it’s still early for both Agentforce and Copilot agents. With Microsoft’s offering now in public preview, we will have a clearer understanding of how it compares to Agentforce.
Dynamics 365 Autonomous agents
Microsoft has also launched ten new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 to assist sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams. The company emphasizes that these agents adhere to its standards for security, privacy, and AI responsibility. Here are a few examples of the agents now available in Dynamics 365:
- Sales Qualification Agent: In a field where time is money, this agent allows salespeople to concentrate on the most important opportunities. It autonomously researches leads, helps prioritize prospects, and assists in crafting personalized emails and responses for customer outreach.
- Supplier Communications Agent: This agent helps customers enhance their supply chain management by autonomously monitoring supplier performance, identifying delays, and responding as needed. This alleviates the manual burden on procurement teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks.
- Customer Intent and Customer Knowledge Management Agents: These two agents are crucial for customer care teams dealing with high call volumes, staff shortages, and increasing customer expectations. They work alongside customer service representatives by learning to resolve issues and autonomously adding knowledge-based articles to share best practices across the team.
Microsoft will discuss custom AI agents at its Ignite conference, scheduled for November 19-22. While in-person tickets are sold out, the event will also be accessible online. During the conference, the tech giant will demonstrate the tools in action and showcase how they assist organizations.