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Microsoft has announced the preview release of its Copilot Studio autonomous agents at Microsoft Ignite 2024.
The Copilot Studio aims to facilitate the creation of autonomous agents that can transform how businesses build and operate by leveraging AI-driven innovations. The update appears to seek enhancement in the quality and effectiveness of agents, introducing new autonomous capabilities, along with voice and image features, and an agents library.
According to the company, the rollout is part of an ongoing initiative to capitalise on AI-powered capabilities within the Microsoft Power Platform. Over the past year, the platform has seen nearly 600,000 organisations adopt solutions like Microsoft Copilot, with usage increasing fourfold annually.
A Microsoft representative noted, "In one of the most significant advancements, Microsoft announced that the Copilot Studio autonomous agents are now available in preview. These autonomous agents enable customers and users to build powerful autonomous agents for a multitude of use cases."
With the introduction of the Copilot Studio in 2023, businesses gained a platform to integrate advanced AI into conversational workflows. By enabling users to build custom agents, Microsoft hopes to streamline processes such as customer engagement and partner relationships.
The company stressed, "Autonomous agents can work independently, detecting events like an email arriving, and use generative AI to trigger a series of actions. By automating complex tasks, these agents can orchestrate workflows and work unprompted alongside or on behalf of users or entire teams."
The preview also includes an agent library and autonomous triggers that initiate tasks automatically based on signals across a business. This addition facilitates the automation of complex tasks efficiently.
In conjunction with autonomous agents, Microsoft has announced the preview of the agent builder within Power Apps, allowing organisations to transition rapidly into the AI-first era. This tool builds on knowledge and logic from existing apps to allow makers to develop agents that autonomously manage tasks, seeking to eliminate repetitive processes and enhance productivity.
Accenture has participated in the Early Access Program for autonomous agents. Rich Holsman, Senior Managing Director of Global Data and AI at Accenture, stated, "Accenture joined Microsoft Copilot Studio's Early Access Program on autonomous agents and tapped into our deep industry and functional expertise to swiftly create high-impact, agent-driven use cases that drive workforce efficiency and enhance customer experiences. We developed nine powerful agents for Business Operations and Industry, positioned to increase operational efficiency by 40%, raise customer satisfaction scores by 10% to 20%, and lower costs by 15%. The simplicity of Copilot Studio's agentic platform, ease of use, and configurability played a critical role in our success."
Pets at Home has similarly utilised the Copilot Studio for developing agents to optimise business workflows, with a focus on the profit protection team. William Hewish, Chief Information Officer at Pets at Home, commented, "We're using AI to do the time-consuming work so our colleagues can use all resources and expertise to make decisions quickly based on large amounts of data. It's truly helped empower colleagues through both the level of information at their fingertips, and in time spent on more nuanced and insightful work."
Further developments include the plan designer in Power Apps, designed to integrate AI-powered assistance directly into app creation by allowing users to describe business challenges and receive guided solutions from Copilot.
Integration with Microsoft Azure AI services enhances the functionality provided by Copilot Studio, and a forthcoming pay-as-you-go option for Azure subscriptions aims to facilitate flexible usage of these AI capabilities.
Microsoft continues to refine the Power Platform to accommodate these changes. New governance and security measures are part of this evolution, offering advanced threat protection and disaster recovery features to ensure scalable, secure, and reliable business applications.
