In October 2024, Microsoft announced a significant advancement in their generative AI efforts with the introduction of "autonomous agents." These announcements were further elaborated upon during Microsoft's annual event “Ignite” in November, where additional details regarding the availability and implementation of custom Copilot agents were disclosed. But what exactly is a custom agent, and what purpose do these agents serve? In this blog post, we will explore what challenges Copilot agents are designed to address, what they can do for you, and how you can get started.
What problem do custom agents address?
Today's generative AI tools, such as Copilot and ChatGPT, are remarkable in their ability to provide answers and generate text on anything and everything. They provide elaborate responses, but in many cases, the output is too generic. This is where custom agents come into the picture. Custom agents can be tailored to a specific role and task. By “feeding” these custom agents with very limited and specific data and by giving them strict guidance on how to act and what to do, they can become more trustworthy and beneficial work aids.
Imagine, for example, that you are a field technician. To perform your job effectively, you need precise guidance and validated answers to technical questions – not generic answers that are “almost” correct. Instead of using the same Copilot agent that everyone else uses, you could then use a custom Copilot agent that has been designed uniquely for your role and your specific work tasks. The custom agent would only use information from authorized sources that you or your colleagues have approved - like your technical service book, a Q&A database, or a support log system. This ensures you receive accurate and reliable information rather than generic responses generated from a broad internet-based language model. With a custom agent, you mitigate the risk of misinformation and enhance your efficiency and effectiveness in the field. In addition to generating answers, the agent can also perform actions on your behalf. For instance, based on certain criteria that have been defined by you or your colleagues, the custom agent can insert a new ticket in your support system or place an order for a part that is defective.
Examples of custom Copilot agents by Microsoft
Similar to the example of the field technician, there will be various specialized custom agents focusing on different areas. This is comparable to how people in an organization today perform different tasks based on skills and experience. In addition to building your own custom agents, you will also be able to leverage custom agents by Microsoft, and other vendors. During Ignite Microsoft announced several custom Copilot agents that are currently being developed or are already rolling out. Here are a few examples:
The Facilitator agent
Ineffective meetings are a common time-waster in many organizations. The Facilitator Agent, available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, aims to address this issue. You can already now turn on the Facilitator agent in a Teams meeting and have it take real-time meeting notes for you.
In the future, the Facilitator agent will be able to take on an even bigger role when it comes to end-to-end meeting management, such as managing the agenda, tracking and following up on action items, and so on, ensuring meetings become more efficient.
The Interpreter agent
The interpreter agent will be groundbreaking in improving cross-cultural communication. Imagine you are in Teams meeting with someone who speaks Spanish, a language you don’t understand. Instead of asking the person to switch to English, which he or she might not be so comfortable with, you can just turn on the Interpreter agent and select your language of choice. Instead of Spanish words coming out of his or her mouth – you will hear the person speaking in English – in his or her own voice! It is a bit freaky – but at the same time, brilliant!
Source: Introducing new agents in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Community Hub
The Project Manager agent
The role of the Project Manager agent is to support you in your various projects that you manage via Microsoft Planner. Again, the agent will be available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. The Project Manager agent will help you create tasks in your plan based on a goal that you define. In addition to just creating the tasks in the plan, the agent can also execute some of the tasks in the project. Say, for instance, that you are planning an in-person event. You define the event goals, and the Project Manager agent will collaborate with you to create a project plan, including tasks like researching venues and sending out invitations. In addition to creating the tasks, the Project Manager agent can also execute some of the tasks that it can support you with. In the example of the event, it can start researching different venues and gather the information for you to review. At any time, if the agent needs information or guidance, it will pause the work and change the status to “Needs your input”. This way, you can think of the Project Manager agent as an extra project team member, carrying out some of the work for you. Invaluable!
Building Your Own Custom Copilot Agents
While Microsoft's pre-built agents are impressive, the real power comes when your employees start creating their own agents - designed to meet the needs of your organization. Imagine your sales representatives using a custom sales agent created based on your latest sales content. Your sales reps can then turn to their Sales agent to get answers about your product catalog, how to answer customer requests based on your Q&A deck, and how to articulate the benefits of a particular service or product. What´s amazing about these agents is that they can be created by non-technical people using normal conversational language. Unless your organization has disabled the ability to create agents, anyone who has a Microsoft 365 Copilot license can create a custom agent and then share it with others as easily as you share a document today. You can learn more about creating a custom agent in the Microsoft Learn article, Build agents with Copilot Studio agent builder.
Conclusion
The introduction of custom agents, of course, raises many questions. Who should be creating these agents? What happens when we have numerous agents in our organization doing things that we might not be fully aware of? These are all valid questions and concerns, and currently, it is all too new for us to know for a fact what the outcomes will be. Some organizations are already blocking the ability to create custom agents for their employees, whereas others are allowing it and monitoring the progress. In any situation, gaining awareness and acquiring new skills are necessary to derive optimal value from this. Please join us for our upcoming webinar, “Put your Copilots in action,” on January 22nd, and let’s explore some of the opportunities and concerns of custom agents together!