What are Copilot Agents?

What are Copilot Agents?

One of the most important new features of Microsoft Copilot everyone is talking about that was announced at Microsoft Ignite 2024 is Copilot Agents.

They were introduced as AI-powered tools designed to streamline workflows, improve communication, and enhance productivity.

Copilot Agents specialise in different areas, providing tailored responses dependant on their specific skill set to meet the unique needs of modern workplaces.

In this blog we are going to explore the capabilities of each Copilot Agent.

Future Capabilities of the Facilitator Agent:

The Facilitator Agent is a Copilot agent that will also eventually take on even more responsibilities, with the goal of managing meetings from start to finish. These future capabilities will include:

• Creating and maintaining meeting agendas. This will save you time preparing for your meetings.
• Moderating discussions to keep conversations focused. Perhaps it might give you reminders of how long is left in the meeting and how far you have progressed through the agenda, drawing attention to key points of discussion and what decisions still need to be made.
• Managing action items, from assignment to completion. We think that this will likely have the ability to keep track of the actions that have been taken in previous meetings. Perhaps even following up with the assigned owner of the task following the meeting to remind them a task is still due. Then holding attendees accountable in follow up meetings to the tasks that they have been assigned.

Interpreter Agent

Effective communication in a global workplace can be challenging, especially when language barriers come into play. The Copilot Agent known as Interpreter Agent will be able to bridge gaps easier to increase collaboration with a multilingual workforce.

Traditionally, organisations have relied on costly interpretation services to ensure inclusivity in meetings.

The Interpreter Agent is set to change this by offering a seamless, real-time solution for language interpretation within Microsoft Teams.

Key Features of Interpreter Agent:

The Copilot Agent known as Interpreter Agent enables real-time speech-to-speech interpretation, allowing participants to:

• Speak and listen in their preferred language during Teams meetings. Making it easier than ever for a multilingual team to work together.
• Overcome language barriers instantly, creating inclusive discussions. Ensuring that everyone has a voice during the meeting.
• Experience a personalised touch with the Interpreter simulating their voice for a natural and immersive experience. This will likely require the user to setup a voice profile. We have already seen this implemented for noise suppression. It only takes a user 30 seconds to setup but makes a huge difference to Teams meetings.

Multilingual Copilot Agents

Initially, the Interpreter Agent will support nine languages, including Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish. But we expect that Microsoft will release many more languages within the next year.

This feature will be available in public preview starting early 2025, requiring a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for access. If you need a Microsoft Copilot license you can contact us for a free consultation to discuss your Copilot requirements.

Project Manager Agent

The Copilot Agent known as Project Manager Agent is designed to simplify project processes by offering a cost-effective, AI-powered solution that assists teams in organising, executing, and managing tasks efficiently.

Key Features of Project Manager Agent:

The Project Manager Agent provides dynamic task management and content creation capabilities, allowing teams to:

• Review and refine task outputs with ease. The agent generates content that users can edit and enhance with comments, such as condensing information, formatting it into tables, or rewriting it as a narrative. This will save the team a lot of time in their day-to-day work.
• Visualise ideas and plans with Microsoft Whiteboard integration in Planner. Teams can use sticky notes to brainstorm and jot down ideas during collaborative sessions. Once completed, the sticky notes are seamlessly converted into tasks, with each note becoming a corresponding task title within the plan. Keeping the team well organised on their project.

Employee Self-Service Agent

Navigating systems and policies to find answers can be time-consuming and frustrating for employees. The Copilot Agent known as Employee Self-Service Agent changes this by offering a centralised, real-time solution for common HR and IT needs.

This truly will be a game changer for any human resources department as It allows employees to access real-time answers and take action on essential HR and IT topics, such as logging PTO hours or submitting IT helpdesk tickets.

The employee self-service agent is connected to company knowledge bases and systems. This Copilot Agent ensures employees receive accurate information while helping organisations improve service delivery and reduce administrative costs.

Through Business Chat, users can handle a variety of tasks in one place, including accessing benefits and payroll details, initiating a leave of absence, requesting IT equipment like laptops, and getting assistance with Microsoft 365 products and services.

Copilot Agents customised via Copilot Studio

The agent is fully customisable via Copilot Studio, where administrators can use pre-configured topics, workflows, and authoritative knowledge sources like SharePoint.

It also allows for integration with Microsoft-built connectors for systems such as Workday, SAP, and ServiceNow, and can create tailored responses for sensitive topics.

Currently available in private preview, the Employee Self-Service Agent requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to access.

Agents in SharePoint

Microsoft has out done themselves with this Copilot Agent. It is going to completely revolutions how employees find and consume documentation from SharePoint Online.

They have introduced Agents in SharePoint, designed to provide real-time information and insights directly from SharePoint sites. This means you can apply a Copilot Agent directly over the top of your existing document libraries within SharePoint.

Do you have a document library in SharePoint that hosts all of your company policies? Then you can apply a SharePoint Agent directly over the top of this to instantly build a specific Copilot chat bot that knows everything about your policies. Employees can then ask questions such as “How many days annual leave do I get” and the SharePoint Agent that is specially looking at documents from your policies library will have the exact answer.

These agents are grounded in the SharePoint site’s data, offering immediate, relevant answers without requiring customisation or time-consuming searches.

Key Features of Copilot SharePoint Agents:

• Ready-Made Agents: Every SharePoint site now includes a pre-configured agent tailored to its specific content. For example, new hires can access an agent linked to onboarding materials, helping them quickly get up to speed with relevant guidance. It is worth noting that currently these agents are at Site level and can only access pages and documents. List data will be available within the chat bots later into 2025.
• Custom Agents: SharePoint users can create personalised agents with just a few clicks, using specific files, folders, or sites as their data source. This allows teams to design agents perfectly suited to unique projects or tasks. It literally only takes two minutes to create and share a SharePoint Agent.

Copilot Agents in Action

These agents are designed to integrate seamlessly into daily workflows. Employees can:

• Share agents easily via email or Teams, using @ mentions in chats as they would for a teammate. They will interface with them just like any other Copilot chat.
• Customise agents further in Copilot Studio to automate workflows and include additional data sources beyond SharePoint. You can make these agents as bespoke as you like by customising them with Copilot Studio. However, you might require more advanced knowledge, this is where Valto can assist you.

Benefits of Copilot Agents

One of the best things about Copilot Agents as the content within a SharePoint site evolves, the agents automatically stay current with the latest information. So, you do not need to worry about updating your Copilot Agent.

This ensures that responses remain accurate and reflect the most recent updates, making them invaluable for decision-making, collaboration, and efficiency. 

Whether using the ready-made agents or creating custom ones, Agents in SharePoint simplify the process of accessing key insights.

This new feature is now generally available and included with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

What are Copilot Agents? – Our Expert Says

I am so excited about Copilot Agents. These products demonstrate a commitment to enhancing productivity and collaboration across organisations.

At Valto we will very quickly get return on investment from tools like the Facilitator Agent for real-time notetaking, Project manager agent, and Agents in SharePoint for up-to-date information based on our working documents.

If you have any questions about how Copilot can transform your workplace, book a free consultation with us today.

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