[28/11/2024] At the latest Microsoft Ignite 2024 conference, Microsoft made several announcements related to Copilot, new agents, and tools.
The announcements included:
- Copilot actions in Microsoft 365 Copilot to help automate everyday repetitive tasks.
- New agents in Microsoft 365 to unlock SharePoint knowledge, provide real-time language interpretation in Microsoft Teams meetings, and automate employee self-service.
- The Copilot control system to help IT professionals confidently manage Copilot and agents securely.
“Thanks to our customers, we have the world’s best feedback loop on AI at work. We have improved Copilot’s performance (responses are twice as fast on average and response satisfaction is almost three times higher), and we’ve launched hundreds of new features. And we’re adding new value to Copilot to address the biggest pain points at work and help every employee increase their impact, from automating repetitive tasks to managing their calendar.”said Jared Spataro, director of marketing, AI at Work, at Microsoft, in a blog post.
The executive noted that Copilot’s new actions automate everyday tasks with simple fill-in-the-blank prompts that you can set and forget. “For example, you can automatically receive a summary of your most important action items at the end of each work day, create an action to collect information from your team for a weekly newsletter you send every Thursday, or automate the preparation of client meetings with a recurring action that summarizes your latest interactions before your next sync.”.
Spataro noted that they have also added new value to Copilot Pages, a dynamic and persistent canvas designed for multiplayer AI collaboration, with rich artifacts. “Now, you can ask Copilot to create everything from interactive flowcharts to blocks of code, from Microsoft Graph data, and then share them in durable pages that your team can build on. Available to the general public at the beginning of 2025”.
Screenshot of the Copilot product UI with a pie chart diagram on the left side and a page with copy and the pie chart on the right side.
The executive noted that, with Teams, rich dialogue occurs throughout the conversation, as well as in chat and on-screen presentations. “Copilot in Teams can now understand, recap, and answer questions based on visual content shared on screen, from PowerPoint to the web, in addition to transcription and chat. You can also ask Copilot for a quick summary of a shared file on a chat to get all your main points without having to open the file. The public preview will arrive in early 2025.
Now, Spataro added, with a single message, Copilot in PowerPoint can translate entire presentations into one of 40 languages, while maintaining the overall layout of each slide. It’s like having an expert translator working at your side. Generally available in 2025.
On the other hand, the executive indicated that Copilot in Outlook can now help you schedule focus time or one-on-one meetings with a colleague (checking both calendars to find the best time) and write a meeting agenda. It will be available by the end of November.
Transforming all business processes with agents
Spataro said Copilot is where you interact with agents, and Copilot Studio is where you can easily create, manage, and connect agents to Copilot. “We’re introducing agents in Microsoft 365 designed to help scale individual impact and transform business processes. These new agents complement the autonomous agents we announced in October 2024 for sales, service, finance, and supply chain professionals, and not We’re just getting started. We will be creating many more agents in the coming year that will give customers the competitive advantage they need to prepare their organization for the future.”.
Shows the relationship between the user, Copilot, Copilot Studio, agents and the Copilot control system.
- Microsoft announced that every SharePoint site now has an agent, so every employee can quickly access this huge knowledge base. “You can use agents in SharePoint to quickly pull project details from a rework schedule, summarize a recent white paper, or search for a document in seconds”explained the executive.
- The Teams interpreter agent provides real-time voice-to-speech interpretation during meetings, and you can choose to have it simulate your voice when speaking for a more personal and engaging experience. Public preview will arrive in early 2025.
- The employee self-service agent in Business Chat quickly answers common policy questions and makes it easy to complete key tasks, starting with HR and IT. You can help employees understand their benefits, for example, or order a new laptop. And it can be customized in Copilot Studio to meet the unique needs of your organization. In private preview.
- Other agents include Facilitator, which takes real-time notes in Teams meetings and chats, and Project Manager, which automates plan creation and even completes tasks in Microsoft Planner. In public preview.
Spataro noted that, in the coming months, partners like ServiceNow, Workday and Cohere, along with dozens more, will add their agents to Copilot, bringing their unique and mission-critical expertise to HR, finance and sales organizations in the workflow. S&P Global, CB Insights and others are introducing new connectors, allowing Copilot to reference more types of business data.
Equipping IT to lead AI transformation
Microsoft also introduced the Copilot Control System, designed for IT to confidently adopt and accelerate the business value of Copilot and agents.
- Data Protection: Enables intelligent anchoring of company data while respecting your organization’s controls. Therefore, the executive noted that, to give IT even more control, they announced that SharePoint Advanced Management will be included at no additional charge for Copilot customers to accelerate adoption and address oversharing with reporting and governance controls. integrated content. Available to the general public in early 2025.
- Management controls allow IT to control access and usage of Copilot and agents, including controls over which users can use Copilot and agents, along with visibility into agent status and lifecycle. “And we announced that Copilot in Microsoft 365 management centers will be available to all Copilot customers to automate time-consuming IT tasks, provide personalized insights to improve tenant management, and answer admin questions. In private preview; generally available in early 2025”Spataro noted.
- Measurement and reporting enable business and IT leaders to track adoption patterns and ROI using Copilot and agents. “We’re announcing that Microsoft Viva Insights will be included in Copilot at no additional charge as part of the new Copilot Analytics. Copilot Analytics provides out-of-the-box experiences to measure Copilot adoption and business impact, customizable reports for deeper analysis, and the new Customer Report. Copilot business impact to analyze the use of Copilot against key business performance indicators in sales, finance, marketing and more”.
Other news
In Microsoft Places, Microsoft has added AI-powered location insights into Teams and Outlook with Copilot, so you can optimize office days to improve in-person connections. “Key features include Copilot recommendations for when to go to the office based on colleagues’ shared work plans with planned building locations. Generally available”Spataro concluded.
Franca Cavassa, CTOPerú
