Microsoft unveils Copilot Agents, an AI business assistant

Microsoft’s annual Build event unsurprisingly focused on AI this year. Big Tech companies have all been hopping aboard the AI hype train, with Google most recently showing off its own AI products at its Google I/O event last week.

Earlier at this year’s Build, Microsoft announced Team Copilot, an AI chatbot that acts as a co-worker for entire teams and companies, using the group’s shared knowledge to answer questions and queries. Mashable noted how similar Team Copilot is to Google’s own AI chatbot for teams, AI Teammate, which the company announced last week at Google I/O.

But Microsoft was far from done. Right after its Team Copilot announcement, Microsoft shared another new AI product, Copilot Agents, which act as AI assistants for employees and co-workers. Once again, the feature appears very similar to another AI product Google shared at Google I/O.

Microsoft’s ‘Copilot Agents’ sounds familiar

According to Microsoft, Copilot Agents are an AI-powered feature that can “independently and proactively orchestrate tasks for you.”

Users will be able to provide Copilot with a completely custom job description or choose from a handful of pre-made templates. Copilot will then create an AI agent that gets to work in the background to complete whatever tasks are part of the job given to it.

Copilot will be able to ask for help when it encounters a situation it cannot handle or needs more information about. It can also refer to all its existing knowledge and learn from new feedback to complete tasks.

Copilot agents can be built inside Copilot Studio, and Microsoft claims it’s simple enough that anyone will be able to build their own to automate tasks.

Microsoft Copilot Agents shared a demo of its AI-powered personal assistant feature.
Credit: Microsoft

Again, much like Team Copilot and Google’s AI Teammates, this might sound familiar to you. Last week, Google shared its own version of the AI personal assistant concept, AI Agents. Google provided an example where its AI Agent would be able to complete a product refund from an online shopping order for the user. Microsoft’s examples focused more on business automation, like tasking a Copilot Agent with onboarding a new employee.

It’s not ready for the market yet

Maybe Microsoft’s Copilot Agents or Google’s AI Agents seem interesting to you. However, much like Microsoft’s Team Copilot and Google’s AI Teammates, neither are available to the public yet.

According to Microsoft, the company is currently testing the feature with a select group and plans to provide a public preview later this year.

Microsoft and other Big Tech companies continue to concentrate their efforts on AI products, yet so much of what’s being promoted has yet to hit the market. Will these products be able to perform the tasks that we’re being told they can do when they are eventually released? Would you trust an AI agent from Microsoft or Google to go ahead on its own to complete tasks for you? Even if these concepts do appeal to you, proceed with caution if and when they get released.