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 around Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure and its Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) platform. In the field of AI, the company introduced new specially designed AI agents that do not require programming and can directly perform certain tasks in Microsoft 365 applications. Additionally, a new Copilot Action feature was also announced , which allows users to automate everyday repetitive tasks.
Microsoft Introduces New AI Agents at Ignite 2024
In a blog postMicrosoft detailed new AI features and tools. The tech giant already has AI agents that can be interacted with through Copilot, as well as a Copilot Studio where users can create their own custom AI agents. But now, four new specially designed AI agents have been introduced. The main difference here is that these agents are pre-trained and are qualified to perform business-centric tasks with high accuracy and efficiency.
Among them, agents in Sharepoint can find project details from an organizational database, summary meeting notes and memos, as well as find particular documents. Users can request details of a file or project through natural conversation and a vague description of it. The tool also allows users to create and share custom agents to target a specific type of content. This is now generally available.
The facilitator agent in Teams can take real-time notes during a meeting and in discussions, and the project manager agent in Microsoft Planner can automate the creation of plans and complete tasks. Both of these are available in public preview.
Another AI agent showcased at the event is the Employee Self-Service Agent. Available in Business Chat, it can answer common policy questions related to the organization and perform certain HR and IT tasks such as requesting time off or requesting a new laptop. This AI agent is available in private preview.
Finally, the Interpreter agent in Teams can provide real-time speech-to-speech interpretation 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 in preview in early 2025.
Co-Pilot Action Feature Announced
At Ignite 2024, Microsoft also announced several new features for Copilot. Among them, Copilot Actions will allow users to automate repetitive daily tasks such as collecting contributions from colleagues, receiving a summary of action items at the end of the day, and much more. Users can automate these tasks by setting up fill-in-the-blank prompts once. Once enabled, the feature will perform the task every day without any manual intervention. This is available in private preview.
Co-pilot action
Photo credit: Microsoft
Apart from this, Copilot Pages also gets a new feature called rich artifacts. It can generate interactive flowcharts, code blocks and more with simple text prompts. Copilot in PowerPoint also benefits from a translation feature capable of translating entire presentations into any of the 40 supported languages. Teams also benefits from a quick summary feature, where users can upload a file to a chat and get a summary without having to open the file. All of these features will be available in public preview next year.
