Microsoft has showcased its latest AI agents and features for Copilot within Microsoft 365 at Microsoft Ignite 2024.
The tech giant already unveiled a number of these specialised AI agents last month, designed to perform specific business tasks and processes for teams and organisations.
On top of this, Microsoft has introduced updates to Copilot Studio, including autonomous agent capabilities and an agent library, plus a raft of updates to Microsoft 365 Copilot.
AI Agents
New agents have been created for Microsoft 365 to take on mundane and complex business processes.
Agents in SharePoint are now generally available to provide employees with rapid insights, helping them make decisions based on SharePoint content. The agents can be adjusted to have their own names and behaviours, and they can be shared over emails, chats, and meetings.
An Employee Self-Service Agent has been added to offer answers to common workplace policy-related questions.
A Facilitator agent, which works in Teams meetings and chats to improve collaboration, is currently in preview. It takes real-time notes, enabling anyone to co-author and it shares a summary of key information to chats that are mentioned during conversations.
In preview early next year, the interpreter agent allows for real-time interpretation in Teams meetings in up to nine languages. Participants can get an interpreter to simulate their voice to make for a “more inclusive” experience.
As the name suggests, a project manager agent will automate project management in Planner. This includes every stage of a project, such as plan creation, task assignment, progress tracking, reminders, notifications, status reporting, content creation, and more.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
In private preview, Microsoft 365 Copilot Actions can be assigned repetitive tasks, like getting a status update or agenda items, gathering weekly reports, or scheduling email summaries.
Users will also be able to analyse screen-shared content presented in Teams using Copilot to gain valuable insights. Copilot can reason over any shared content on screen, thereby enhancing the user experience through a “360-degree view” of meetings. For example, a user could ask Copilot to summarise content on the screen. The capability will enter preview in early 2025.
Copilot in Teams will be able to summarise the content of files shared in a Teams chat. New file summaries in one-to-one and group chats in Teams allow Copilot in Teams to summarise the content and confer the key points to a user without opening the file. Copilot file summaries will be in preview in early 2025 for both mobile and desktop clients.
New Copilot features in PowerPoint include a Narrative Builder based on files that can bring together insights from a document to create a narrative with branded designs from templates, speaker notes, transitions, and animations. The Narrative Builder will be generally available in January.
Copilot can also translate a PowerPoint into 40 languages while maintaining the design of each slide. This feature will be generally available with Copilot in PowerPoint on the web from the beginning of December and for Mac and desktop in January next year.
Copilot will use images from the SharePoint Organisation Asset Library and Templafy asset libraries, enabling users to create presentations using their organisation’s images, saving time and keeping presentations on brand. Organisation image support will become generally available with Microsoft 365 Copilot in the first quarter of 2025.
‘Task-tailored’ spreadsheet templates can be created with Copilot in Excel for budgeting projects, inventory tracking, sales reports, and more. Suggest the Copilot you want to create, and Copilot will suggest a template with headers, formulas, and visuals. This will be generally available by the end of the year with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel.
Copilot updates in Outlook have been designed to simplify scheduling meetings and keep attendees “on task”. Copilot can be utilised to schedule focus time or one-on-ones, work out the best time for both people, and even draft an agenda for a meeting. The updates will be available by the end of the month with Microsoft 365 in Outlook.
Now in preview, you can organise multimodal notes in OneNote with Copilot. Copilot can use a combination of typed, handwritten, and voice notes on pages within a single section. Users can ask it to organise the current section with any specifics like the number and type of groups.
The latest Copilot Pages features assist with content creation, including rich artefacts, multi-page support, prompts grounded on Page content, and Pages available on mobile.
Copilot will help to explain Microsoft 365 usage and trends to admins. Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft 365 Administration Centres (Copilot in MAC) can “transform” the IT admin experience by using AI to enhance routine tasks, generate insights that improve decision-making, and bolster IT professionals’ understanding. It will be available in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, Teams admin centre, and SharePoint admin centre.
In Teams, Copilot in MAC can be used to summarise meeting reports and troubleshoot call quality or other issues via Copilot’s natural language interface.
Copilot in MAC is currently available in private preview and will be generally available early next year.
For deeper analytics, Copilot Analytics can offer business impact measurement capabilities, which will include a Copilot dashboard, Microsoft 365 admin centre reporting, and Viva Insights.
The Copilot Prompt Gallery has new features to increase AI adoption, such as agent prompt support and trending prompt lists.
Appspace Expands Copilot Integration
Appspace, the unified workplace experience platform, has expanded its integration with Microsoft Copilot, which it says will streamline the return-to-office process and enable simplified room booking, personalised content creation, improved search, and more.
Thomas Philippart de Foy, Chief Innovation Officer at Appspace, believes it has sided with the leader in AI:
AI will revolutionise the workplace, and our integration with Microsoft Copilot is at the forefront of this transformation.”
“By expanding our collaboration with Microsoft, we deliver an AI-powered solution that brings the future of the workplace to life in engaging, productive, and employee-friendly ways.”
Appspace revealed its newly upgraded Copilot integration at Microsoft Ignite, demonstrating its visitor management functionality and the available workflows.
What Are Other Microsoft Ignite 2024 Stories?
Microsoft has announced that its workplace management solution, Places, is now generally available to bolster hybrid and flexible working.
Unveiled at this year’s Microsoft Ignite event, Microsoft Places brings AI-powered location insights to Teams and Outlook, enhanced by Microsoft 365 Copilot. This innovation seeks to help employees optimise their in-office days to foster more meaningful in-person connections.
Additionally, Microsoft is also introducing a new capability to Teams called “Storyline”. The company’s announcement asserts that it will simplify “the ways that leaders and employees share and connect with colleagues across the company, increasing visibility and engagement”.
Teams is also receiving several notable updates around boosting collaboration for multilingual teams, including meeting transcription being able to accommodate up to 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages, receiving more sophisticated live caption translated captions and transcripts capabilities, and an upgrade of intelligent meeting recap translations.
