Microsoft Ignite 2024, the company’s annual conference for developers and IT professionals, was held on Tuesday. At the event, the Redmond-based tech giant made several new announcements about Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, and its artificial intelligence (AI) platform Copilot. In the AI area, the company introduced new purpose-built AI agents that do not require programming and can perform certain tasks directly within Microsoft 365 apps. Additionally, a new CoPilot Actions feature was also announced that allows users to automate everyday repetitive tasks.
Microsoft introduces new AI agents at Ignite 2024
In a blog post, Microsoft explained the new AI features and tools in detail. The tech giant already has AI agents that can be interacted with through Copilot, and there is a Copilot Studio where users can create their own custom AI agents. But now, four new purpose-built AI agents have been introduced. The main difference here is that these agents are pre-trained and skilled in performing enterprise-centric tasks with high accuracy and efficiency.
Among them, agents in SharePoint can find project details, summary meeting notes and memos, as well as specialized documents from an organization’s database. Users can request any file or project details through natural conversation and its unambiguous description. The tool also allows users to create and share custom agents to scope a specific type of content. It is now generally available.
The Facilitator agent in Teams can take real-time notes during meetings and in chat, and the Project Manager agent in Microsoft Planner can automate planning and tasks. Both of these are available in public preview.
Another AI agent introduced at the event is the Employee Self-Service Agent. Available in business chat, it can answer general organization-related policy questions, and perform some HR and IT tasks such as applying for a leave of absence or requesting a new laptop. This AI agent is available in private preview.
Finally, the interpreter agent in Teams can provide speech-to-speech interpretation in real time during meetings. The AI agent can also simulate the user’s voice for a personalized experience. This is not currently available, and will be added to preview in early 2025.
Copilot action feature announced
At Ignite 2024, Microsoft also announced several new features for Copilot. Among them, Copilot Actions will allow users to automate repetitive everyday tasks such as gathering input from coworkers, getting a summary of action items at the end of the day, and more. Users can automate such tasks by setting up fill-in-the-blank prompts once. Once activated, this feature will complete the task every day without any manual intervention. It is available in private preview.
copilot action
Photo Credit: Microsoft
Additionally, Copilot Pages is also getting a new feature called Rich Artifacts. It can generate interactive flow charts, blocks of code, and more with simple text prompts. Copilot in PowerPoint is also getting a translation feature that can translate entire presentations into one of 40 supported languages. Teams is also getting a quick summary feature, where users can upload a file to the chat and get a summary without opening the file. All of these features will be available in public preview next year.
