Microsoft has taken generative AI one step further with the announcement of AI agents. The arrival of Dynamics 365 Copilot already transformed the modern workplace by offering a personal assistant to lighten the workload and support with automating repetitive tasks. Building on this, personalised AI agents can now be created to specialise in a certain area, process or solution that’s used within the business, so you can evenly split the workload and free up time to prioritise long-term strategy work.
The announcement marks a step forward in business productivity and efficiency across industries as AI gains more autonomy. From professional services to retail, teams across all industries will be able to benefit from a purpose-built expert that can take on a fair share of the workload.
Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about Microsoft’s AI agents, including its capabilities, use cases and benefits.
What are Microsoft AI Agents?
Available across the Dynamics 365 sales, customer service, finance and supply chain solutions, Microsoft's autonomous AI agents can work alongside teams or independently, as a field expert to complete a range of advanced tasks. From drafting detailed responses to customer questions to fulfilling sales orders, an agent can handle complex processes, freeing employees up to focus on other priorities.
Dynamics 365 offers ready-made agents that will already be an expert of common routines, however businesses can also use Copilot Studio to build agents that specialise in specific areas of your business, such as your product catalogue.
Microsoft have stated that this level of automation has the potential to help companies save up to $50 million annually and could equivalate to ‘adding 187 full-time employees’ across the business.
What sets autonomous agents apart from Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot has already revolutionised Microsoft’s platforms, helping with content generation, administrative tasks, data analysis and much more. Expanding on these capabilities, AI agents can gather context of a business to deliver advanced automation to enhance team output and productivity.
Their capabilities include:
- Planning – AI agents are able to plan and organise actions to reach a desired goal.
- Memory – AI agents can remember past conversations and behaviours, which they use to inform future actions, allowing for continued improvement.
- Increased context – with the ability to process information from their environment, the technology can head into a task with greater context of wider goals and objectives.
- Tool usage – AI agents can use a range of tools within platforms, including search and code execution, extending the range of tasks it’s able to perform.
Because of this, agents have so much more autonomy, allowing them to do so much more than generative AI. For example, while Copilot can support with drafting emails, summarising meeting notes and preparing a report, an agent could prioritise opportunities and handle personalised customer outreach, while your sales team focus on building relationships with high priority customers.
The advanced use cases of AI agents
From supply chain to sales, AI agents can optimise performance across every aspect of your business.
Customer Intent and Customer Knowledge Management Agents
High call volumes and increased customer expectations are just two of the main customer care challenges that Microsoft’s AI agents can support. The agents can listen to customer care teams resolve queries and build out a range of advice articles in a best practice hub to help scale the quality of service across the team.
Sales Qualification Agent
Got big sales targets to meet? An AI agent can handle customer service queries and proactively flag new prospects to follow up with, allowing your team to focus on building valuable human connections with customers.
Supplier Communications Agent
AI agents can cast an extra eye over a business’ supply chain, offering around-the-clock monitoring of supplier performance, while detecting and responding to delays. With this in hand, procurement teams can focus on other priorities, knowing it’s in hand.
The top 3 business benefits of agents in Dynamics 365
Businesses who utilise Dynamics 365’s agents will be able to overcome key challenges and increase their competitive by:
- Solving resource shortages – since agents can specialise in a certain role, task or process, teams can benefit from a dedicated digital worker that will continuously improve and make suggestions, without getting bored of the repetition of its role.
- Upskill team members – by using agents to build out best-practice content from shadowing calls and team members, employees will have the insight to continuously learn on the job and increase the quality of performance.
- Focus on key priorities – with agents working alongside current employees, they’re able to work on fulfilling, long-term actions, such as the annual strategy, business development or milestone campaign planning.
Get started with AI Agents for Dynamics 365
Would you like to integrate AI agents into your Copilot and Dynamics 365 environment? Speak to one of our experts to find out how you can get up and running on Copilot Studio to build out autonomous personal assistants that can support your teams with time-consuming tasks.