Microsoft introduced several AI agents to provide workers with AI assistance

Microsoft launched a range of AI agents on Thursday to provide workers with artificial intelligence assistance during meetings by creating agendas, taking notes, and more. The new Facilitator agent is among several Copilot agents the company said are coming to Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps.

Microsoft 365 and Copilot vice president, Nicole Herskowitz, revealed that the new collaborative agents are designed to enhance work across Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Viva Engage. She said the agents help groups coordinate, communicate, and execute more clearly and efficiently.

AI agents deliver context-aware support

The AI agents leverage work intelligence from Microsoft Graph to deliver context-aware support while maintaining security, identity, compliance, and admin controls. Herskowitz noted that each agent is tailored to the context of the group and offers unique ways for groups to collaborate in channels, meetings, and communities in Teams, libraries, and SharePoint sites. 

According to the report, a team needs to consolidate all their conversations and plans into a specific channel in Teams, equipped with an AI agent. Users in the channel can use the agent to make decisions, summarize threads, draft plans and posts, schedule checkpoints, and coordinate with the Project Manager Agent to engage the group with tasks. Microsoft revealed that each Team channel will have an AI agent that acts as a domain expert for the team and adopts the channel’s name to help with everyday tasks.

The Facilitator agent comes in handy when planning meetings in Teams to discuss a project, since it prepares agendas for the meeting. The AI agent also takes notes during the meeting, keeps the discussion on track, notes decisions, and converts them into owned actions with follow-ups. 

The Project Manager Agent tracks the agent through integration and completes some tasks independently. Users in the channel can also collectively guide the agent to re-arrange the agenda or set a meeting timer.

There‘s also the Sales Community agent, which amplifies the product launch across the Sales Community in Viva Engage and takes care of announcements while answering questions with cited sources. The AI agent also helps community managers keep discussions active and accurate in real-time.

The Knowledge Agent in SharePoint helps organize the group workspace by enriching files, applying the right tags, and tracking updates. The agent also stitches related content from the Teams channel, meetings, and Sales Community. Herskowitz acknowledged that the agents keep every project stage smooth, from planning to execution to communication.

Microsoft promises to invest more in AI agent capabilities

Microsoft added that Teams will support an open ecosystem of partner-built agents. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) will also help those agents collaborate seamlessly with native Teams agents by sharing context and invoking each other’s tools within the same workflow. The tech company also confirmed that it will continue to invest in more capabilities that enable agents in channels to communicate with other agents.

Herskowitz revealed that the new AI agents are now available to all Microsoft 365 Copilot users in public preview. Facilitator for Teams meetings is also available. She believes the organizations can confidently adopt the agents because their experiences are built on the same security, compliance, and privacy standards under Microsoft 365.

Microsoft argued that the newly designed Workflows experience in Teams helps users by making automation easier and more accessible. The firm will allow users to use newly AI-powered workflow templates to automate tasks with Copilot or their channel’s agent with no coding experience required. 

The Help Me Prepare for My Day template can scan users’ recent chats and emails to generate a personalized briefing in Teams every morning. The template can also summarize a user’s day’s agenda and pending tasks to help them start their day with clarity.

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