Copilot Studio allows enterprise users to build AI agents using a low-code design interface and thousands of prebuilt connectors. The agents can act independently, initiate events, and more. At the AI Tour in London, Microsoft today announced new capabilities in Copilot Studio that will be available in public preview next month after the Ignite 2024 event.
Autonomous triggers are coming to Copilot Studio. With this capability, agents created in Copilot Studio can automatically respond to events originating from various tools, systems, and databases and initiate tasks. They can also be scheduled to run hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.
Copilot agents can create dynamic plans on the fly to handle and complete tasks. If required, Copilot users can analyze the underlying logic, including key details, steps, and systems involved. This will be helpful for debugging a Copilot agent.
The new "Activity" tab in Copilot Studio will allow enterprises to access a complete log of past agent runs, including progress tracking, block identification, trend analysis, and a review of earlier decisions made by agents.
Microsoft highlighted that Copilot Studio agents use various foundational models, including the new OpenAI o1 series, for advanced reasoning tasks involved in complex problems.
Microsoft also announced ten new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 to support sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams:
- The Sales Qualification Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales can free up time for the seller to spend on higher value activities by researching and prioritizing inbound leads in the pipe and developing personalized sales emails to initiate a sales conversation.
- The Sales Order Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central will automate the order intake process from entry to confirmation by interacting with customers, capturing their preferences.
- The Supplier Communications Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management autonomously manages collaboration with suppliers to confirm order delivery, while helping to preempt potential delays.
Financial Reconciliation Agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance helps teams prepare and cleanse data sets to simplify and reduce time spent on the most labor-intensive part of the financial period close process that leads to financial reporting.
Account Reconciliation Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, designed for accountants and controllers, automates the matching and clearing of transactions between subledgers and the general ledger, helping them speed up the financial close process. This enhances cash flow visibility and can result in faster decisions to drive business performance.
Time and Expense Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations autonomously manages time entry, expense tracking, and approval workflows. It helps get invoices to customers promptly, preventing revenue leakage and helps ensure projects stay on track and within budget.
The Customer Intent Agent enables evergreen self-service by continuously discovering new intents from past and current customer conversations across all channels, mapping issues and corresponding resolutions maintained by the agent in a library.
The Customer Knowledge Management Agent helps ensure knowledge articles are kept perpetually up to date by analyzing case notes, transcripts, summaries, and other artifacts from human-assisted cases to uncover insights.
Case Management Agent for Customer Service automates key tasks throughout the case lifecycle—creation, resolution, follow up, closure—to reduce handle time and alleviate the burden on service representatives.
Scheduling Operations Agent for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service enables dispatchers to provide optimized schedules for technicians, even as conditions change throughout the workday—for example, accounting for issues such as traffic delays, double bookings, or last-minute cancellations that often result in conflicts or gaps.
These ten autonomous agents will become available in public preview later in 2024 and will be generally available in 2025. Microsoft also mentioned that it will create many more agents in the coming year.