Microsoft will allow companies to start building their own autonomous AI agents from next month, returning to the fight against Salesforce-a, which introduced its configured AI agents in September.
At the AI Tour event in London on Monday, Microsoft revealed plans to allow organizations to create their own autonomous agents within Copilot Studio, the US tech giant’s platform for customizing and building so-called “copilot” assistants.
These agents were previously available in a private version after Microsoft initially announced them in May. Starting next month, it will go public, meaning more organizations will be able to start building their own AI agents.
AI agents can act as virtual workers that can perform a variety of tasks without supervision. They are considered a major evolution of AI based on large language models from the chat interface, creating an experience that blends seamlessly into the background.
In addition to adding the ability to create autonomous agents in Copilot Studio, Microsoft said it will also launch 10 new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365, a suite of applications for enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management.
Microsoft plans to introduce new agents in Dynamics 365 for sales, service, finance and supply chain teams.
How can AI agents be used?
Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for modern work and business applications, on Monday showed an example of an AI agent developed at the consulting firm McKinsey.
The agent is shown analyzing the email to find out what the communication is about, checking its history, mapping it to standard industry terms, and then finding the right person at the firm to take the next step before writing and summarizing the answer.
It may seem like “magic,” but the firm was able to develop its AI agent using only human language, not programming languages, according to Spataro.
“We’re excited about this because it can bring business value,” he noted, adding that McKinsey found it could reduce wait times by as much as 90%.
The competition is fierce
Microsoft is further engaged in AI agents at a time when competition is intensifying in the extremely dynamic space of artificial intelligence.
Last month, at its annual Dreamforce event in San Francisco, Salesforce unveiled a new platform called Agentforce, which allows businesses to create their own AI agents.
Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, criticized the ‘copilot’ model of AI assistants as not meeting the needs of businesses.
“All of these copilots are triggered at the edge, or in email — they’re not connected to or based in the context of customer data,” Bahrololoumi told CNBC in an interview earlier this month. “How will it accurately and responsibly represent the company? He won’t.”
“I don’t think we’ll see as many Copilots for enterprise activity,” she added. “I’m not saying that Copilots won’t exist for other purposes. But in an enterprise context, how autonomous enterprises can plan, execute and take action — you’re no longer in Copilot.”
Microsoft declined to comment on Bahrololoumi’s statements when contacted by CNBC.
Microsoft and Salesforce have a long and tumultuous history of conflict. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff once called on European regulators to investigate Microsoft’s deal to buy LinkedIn, suggesting it violated competition rules.
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Source: www.itnetwork.rs
