Microsoft has introduced a slew of artificial intelligence releases and updates relating to AI agents, Copilot, Azure AI, a strategic partnership, and a new study.
The news came from Microsoft Ignite, the tech giant’s largest annual conference for IT professionals, developers and partners to gain insight into the latest innovations and initiatives at Microsoft.
The long list of AI announcements includes additional AI agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, agent building and agent capabilities via Copilot Studio and Azure AI, Copilot updates for Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, and more. It also delves into Copilot analytics, a strategic partnership, plus the results from a study into generative AI in business.
AI Agents
New agents have been created for Microsoft 365 to take on mundane and complex business processes.
Agents in SharePoint are now generally available to provide employees with rapid insights, helping them make decisions based on SharePoint content. The agents can be adjusted to have their own names and behaviours, and they can be shared over emails, chats, and meetings.
An Employee Self-Service Agent has been added to offer answers to common workplace policy-related questions.
A Facilitator agent, which works in Teams meetings and chats to improve collaboration, is currently in preview. It takes real-time notes, enabling anyone to co-author and it shares a summary of key information to chats that are mentioned during conversations.
In preview early next year, the interpreter agent allows for real-time interpretation in Teams meetings in up to nine languages. Participants can get an interpreter to simulate their voice to make for a “more inclusive” experience.
A Project Manager agent will, as the name suggests, automate project management in Planner. This includes every stage of a project, such as plan creation, assignment of tasks, progress tracking, reminders, notifications, status reporting, content creation, and more.
Copilot Studio and Azure AI
Copilot Studio has implemented new autonomous agent capabilities that allow users to build agents to perform the tasks they wish, without needing to prompt an agent every time. They act in the background and react when specific events take place, such as receiving an email or recording a file.
An agent library has also been introduced to provide assistance to users in the form of templates for common agent situations, which can then be customised with the Copilot Studio.
Copilot and Azure have announced new agent building tools like Microsoft Agent SDK, which can be used to build full-stack, multichannel, and trusted agents using the Agent SDK. Now available in preview, Agent SDK lets developers access the Copilot Trust Layer and build agents that leverage Microsoft 365 data.
Azure AI Foundry integrations combine Copilot Studio and Azure AII Foundry, prioritising the most requested features, such as adding custom search indices as a knowledge source through Azure AI Search.
Copilot Studio has been updated to include image upload, voice-enabled agent building, and advanced knowledge tuning. This means users will be able to upload images to Copilot for analysis and Q&A, integrate voice experiences in apps and websites to engage with customers, and fill the knowledge gap by matching specific instructions at the root of all unanswered questions.
Image upload and advanced knowledge tuning are in preview, while voice-enabled agent building is in private preview.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
In private preview, Microsoft 365 Copilot Actions can be assigned repetitive tasks, like getting a status update or agenda items, gathering weekly reports, or scheduling email summaries.
Users will also be able to analyse screen-shared content presented in Teams using Copilot to gain valuable insights. Copilot can reason over any shared content on screen, thereby enhancing the user experience through a “360-degree view” of meetings. For example, a user could ask Copilot to summarise content on the screen. The capability will enter preview in early 2025.
Copilot in Teams will be able summarise the content of files shared in a Teams chat. New file summaries in one to one and group chats in Teams allow Copilot in Teams to summarise the content and confer the key points to a user without opening the file. Copilot files summaries will be in preview in early 2025 for both mobile and desktop clients.
New Copilot features in PowerPoint include a Narrative Builder based on files that can bring together insights from a document to create a narrative with branded designs from templates, speaker notes, transitions, and animations. The Narrative Builder will be generally available in January.
Copilot can also translate a PowerPoint into 40 languages, while maintain the design of each slide. This feature will be generally available with Copilot in PowerPoint on the web from the beginning of December and for Mac and desktop in January next year.
Copilot will use images from asset libraries ‘SharePoint Organisation Asset Library’ and ‘Templafy’, enabling users to create presentations using their organisation’s images, saving time and keeping presentations on brand. Organisations image support will become generally available with Microsoft 365 Copilot in the first quarter of 2025.
‘Task-tailored’ spreadsheet templates can be created with Copilot in Excel for budgeting projects, inventory tracking, sales reports, and more. Suggest the Copilot you want to create and Copilot will suggest a template with headers, formulas, and visuals. This will be generally available by the end of the year with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel.
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Copilot updates in Outlook have been designed to simplify scheduling meetings and keep attendees “on task”. Copilot can be utilised to schedule focus time or one to ones, work out the best time for both people, and even draft an agenda for a meeting. The updates will be available by the end of the month with Microsoft 365 in Outlook.
Now in preview, you can organise multimodal notes in OneNote with Copilot. Copilot can use a combination of typed, handwritten, and voice notes on pages within a single section. Users can ask it to organise the current section with any specifics like the number and type of groups.
The latest Copilot Pages features assist with content creation, including rich artifacts, multi-page support, prompts grounded on Page content, and Pages available on mobile.
The general availability of Microsoft Places adds location understanding on Teams and Outlook. With AI-powered location understanding on Teams and Outlook, Copilot can help employees to improve productivity and in-person connections. Meanwhile, admins can get an understanding of hybrid work patterns and the spaces being used, allowing them to make more informed decisions.
Key Copilot features resulting from Microsoft Places include recommended in-office days, managed bookings, workplace presence, places finder, and space analytics.
Copilot will help to explain Microsoft 365 usage and trends to admins. Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft 365 Administration Centres (Copilot in MAC) can “transform” the IT admin experience by using AI to enhance routine tasks, generate insights that improve decision-making, and bolster IT professionals’ understanding. It will be available in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, Teams admin centre, and SharePoint admin centre.
In Teams, Copilot in MAC can be used to summarise meeting reports and troubleshoot call quality or other issues via Copilot’s natural language interface.
Copilot in MAC is currently available in private preview and will be generally available early next year.
Copilot Analytics can offer business impact measurement capabilities for deeper analytics, which will include a Copilot dashboard, Microsoft 365 admin centre reporting, and Viva Insights.
The Copilot Prompt Gallery has new features to increase AI adoption, such as agent prompt support and trending prompt lists.
Strategic Partnership
Microsoft has formed a strategic partnership with C3 AI, an enterprise AI application software company, which the tech giant says will accelerate the adoption of enterprise AI and help customers to achieve rapid time-to-value in supply chain optimisation, production optimisation, predictive maintenance, government efficiency, and more.
The agreement combines C3 AI’s application software, such as C3 Generative AI, with Microsoft Azure’s ecosystem.
C3 AI’s complete suite of enterprise AI application software will be made available on the Microsoft Commercial Clous portal, improving customer access.
New GenAI Study
A new International Data Corporation study commissioned by Microsoft called ‘The Business Opportunity of AI’ has found that the potential return on investment for AI products increases as enterprises commit to investing in AI. In fact, the top leaders using generative AI are seeing a ten times return on their investments.
More than half of those surveyed are planning to build custom industry and line-of-business applications over the next two years.
Further key findings included generative AI usage leaping from 55 percent in 2023 to 75 percent in 2024.
The return on investment for every one dollar invested in generative AI yields three dollars and seventy cents.
AI deployments take less than eight months and organisations are getting value from them within 13 months.
43 percent of respondents said that productivity use cases have provided the biggest return on investment.
The biggest obstacle to introducing generative AI solutions uncovered by the research was not having the necessary technical and day-to-day AI skills.
