Microsoft will expand the ability to create AI agents for all its customers

dduring the AI ​​Tour stop Microsoft in London technological made two relevant announcements this promise will enable companies to fully exploit the full potential of AI. Firstly, the ability create autonomous agents using the Copilot Studio platform. will be available in public preview starting next month. While the second one is implementation of 10 autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 already pre-configured for different powers.

Coincidentally, Microsoft made this announcement a few days before it became available. “Agentforce” Autonomous AI technology for sales and service from Salesforce. Microsoft and Salesforce have had a volatile relationship over the years. That is, although they unite when it is convenient for both, most of the time they are fighting bitterly on different fronts.

Soon everyone will be able to create AI agents in Copilot Studio.

AI agents are created using Microsoft Copilot Studio.Microsoft’s comprehensive SaaS platform. And starting next month, this ability to create your own autonomous agents will move from preview to general availability. This way, more customers can improve their workflows.

“Every organization will have a group of agents ranging from those that respond quickly to those that are completely autonomous. They will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to carry out and organize business processes. Co-pilot is how you interact with these agents, and they will do everything from speeding up lead generation and sales order processing to automating your supply chain.“, explains Microsoft.

Microsoft explains that each agent can be designed to cover the business process and operate independentlydepending on certain parameters, relieving the burden on employees so that they can focus on more important tasks.

During the pilot phase, several companies such as Clifford Chance, McKinsey & Company, Pets at Home and Thomson Reuters created their own AI agents and tested their effectiveness. For example McKinsey & Company created a freelance agent to speed up the onboarding process for clients and it showed that “Delivery time can be reduced by 90% and administrative work by 30%.“

How AI agents differ from GPT

First of all we are going to install The difference between Microsoft’s co-pilots and their AI agents. Copilots are artificial intelligence assistants that work alongside the user to make recommendations; artificial intelligence agents are able to do this independently, activating when certain events are detected without human intervention.

For example, the copilot might suggest how to finish writing an email or search for relevant data in a document. For my part, AI agent can be configured to run various types of tasks of varying degrees of complexity independently. For example, an AI agent can be configured to check email and track responses from specific customers, with the ability to compose and send response emails and even attach files to them.

For my part, difference relative to GPT It’s similar. GPT is a personalized AI assistant based on OpenAI language models, customized to perform a specific task. Its main ability is to process and generate natural language, maintain a conversation, write texts, analyze information, answer questions, etc.

Likewise, it should be noted that co-pilots and AI agents are integrated into Microsoft services, being able to interact with them and pull data from the ecosystem to perform their tasks.

Preconfigured agents in Dynamics 365

As for the pre-configured autonomous agents, Microsoft said they were designed to help sales, service, finance and supply chain teams. increase the commercial value of your company.

Although the technology company presented 10 agents, promised to present many more next year. Some of the pre-configured agents that will be included in Dynamics 365 are:

• Qualified Sales Agent: Targeted at salespeople, it allows them to focus on the biggest sales opportunities while the agent is responsible for investigating leads, prioritizing opportunities, and advising the client through emails and personalized responses.
• Supplier Relations Agent: With this agent, customers can optimize their supply chain and minimize disruptions as it autonomously monitors supplier performance, detects delays and then responds.
• Agents for managing customer intent and knowledge: two different agents, but the same goal: to help make a good first impression. These two agents learn how to solve customer problems and add best practice articles for the entire team.

Security level

Microsoft emphasizes that agents migrating to Dynamics 365 are meeting their commitments to security, privacy, and responsible use of AI, and that the data sources its agents use are respected. “towards strict security measures and controls” managed in Copilot Studio, including “data loss prevention, strong authentication protocols”. In addition, it is stated that each organization can establish its own policy for the use of information.

AI agents are already playing an important role in Microsoft’s evolution.

According to Microsoft, They themselves are experiencing the transformation along with Copilot and its agents., “We use Copilot and agents to reinvent business processes across all functions while empowering employees to expand their influence. With Copilot, the sales team increased revenue per salesperson by 9.4% and closed 20% more deals. And with Copilot, the team resolves customer queries nearly 12% faster.

Our marketing team saw a 21.5% increase in conversion rates on Azure.com with a personalized agent dedicated to helping customers. And in HR, our employee self-service agent helps answer questions 42% more accurately.”

Photo: Microsoft