Microsoft’s Office 365 apps have been the cornerstone for many working professionals’ day-to-day workflows for years. As a result, when the company developed its AI assistant, Copilot, it was only natural to infuse it across the 365 apps, and now, it is getting even more helpful.
Also: Microsoft’s Copilot AI is coming to your Office apps – and it won’t come cheap
On Wednesday, Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat which builds on the traditional free Microsoft 365 Copilot chat experience, introducing pay-as-you-go agents that can automate repetitive tasks.
With Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, commercial customers can still chat with Copilot regarding content across their Microsoft 365 applications, such as asking for quick summaries from an email thread or asking for help preparing for a meeting on their Outlook calendar by leveraging GPT-4o. However, the bonus is now being able to create, discover, and pin agents.
Agents are AI assistants that can carry out repetitive tasks for you with minimal or no instruction. The Microsoft 365 agents, which can be grounded on both your work data and the web, can be programmed using natural language in Copilot Agent Builder and Copilot Studio. Both tools are accessible right in Copilot Chat.
“People often mystify agents, but I think of it like creating an Excel spreadsheet,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Building agents should be as simple as that.”
Business use cases for agents could include a customer service representative using a CRM agent to provide them with account details before a meeting, or a field service agent accessing step-by-step instructions stored in SharePoint, according to Microsoft.
Using agents does come at an additional cost, priced on a metered basis. The costs are determined by the sum of messages used by your organization, with message usage varying depending on the agent’s complexity and use of specific features, according to Microsoft. IT admins stay in control, with the ability to create organization-wide agents and manage agent deployment.
Also: Autonomous businesses will be powered by AI agents
To get started, customers can visit the Copilot Chat website, where they should see the new “Create agent” option on the right-hand tab. This release comes a day after OpenAI launched Tasks, a similar feature that lets users prompt the chatbot once to carry out recurring future tasks — a baby step into agentic AI.
AI chatbots have proven to be helpful assistants, and the next frontier is getting them to help with minimal direction. As a result, AI agents are poised to become one of the most prominent AI trends in 2025, with many companies, such as Salesforce, Asana, and even Microsoft, launching AI agent enterprise offerings toward the end of last year.