Dive Brief:
- Microsoft will let customers build autonomous AI agents using Copilot Studio starting next month, the company said Monday.
- Copilots can assist or fully automate specific workflows, drawing on enterprise data from systems like Microsoft 365 Graph, systems of record, Dataverse and Fabric, the company said.
- Microsoft also announced 10 new use cases for autonomous agents within its ERP and CRM solution, Dynamics 365. AI agents can vet sales opportunities, track supply chain performance and support customer service teams.
Dive Insight:
The first wave of generative AI showcased the technology's ability to respond to queries, supporting human output. A second coming of the technology is focused on specialized autonomous agents that carry out end-to-end tasks with little human oversight.
“Think of agents as the new apps for an AI-powered world,” said Jared Spataro, CMO, AI at work at Microsoft, in a Monday blog post. “Every organization will have a constellation of agents — ranging from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous. They will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to execute and orchestrate businesses process.”
Microsoft said autonomous agents are already supporting work processes at McKinsey & Company, Pets at Home and Thomson Reuters, among other organizations.
Agents produced with Copilot Studio scan for signals in business data platforms, systems and databases. Users can configure the tools to initiate tasks on their own, Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president, Business & Industry Copilot, at Microsoft, said in a blog post.
Executives are closely tracking the vendor shift toward autonomous AI, with 82% of organizations planning to integrate these tools in the next 1 to 3 years, according to Capgemini data. AI software spending is set to reach nearly $300 billion by 2027, Gartner expects.
Vendors, vying for a slice of enterprise AI budgets, have quickly deployed new agent-based capabilities in recent months.
In August, Salesforce unveiled its Agentforce platform, a collection of generative AI agents focused on customer and employee service. Salesforce-owned Slack also released an Agentforce interface within the collaboration tool.
SAP plugged agent capabilities into its generative AI assistant Joule earlier this month. The features tackle financial dispute resolution, bill payments and ledger updates. Meta, too, said it is exploring agent use cases for its Llama family of LLMs.
