Microsoft will next month provide businesses with the opportunity to make their own autonomous artificial intelligence agents.
It is worth noting that the mentioned solution of the specified technology giant is indicative in the context of the current configuration of competition in the machine intelligence market. As pointed out by the media, to a large extent, the new offer from Microsoft is a kind of reaction to the actions of Salesforce, which last month presented its own configurable agentic artificial intelligence tools.
On Monday, October 21, as part of the AI Tour event in London, the technology giant, which is the developer of the world’s most popular operating system for personal computers and several other devices called Windows, announced plans to allow organizations to create their own autonomous agents in Copilot Studio, a platform for customization and building so-called copilot assistants.
Currently, access to the mentioned virtual agents is provided to users in private preview mode. Microsoft initially announced these digital products in May. Starting next month, virtual agents will be available for public preview. This expansion of the product scale in terms of the user’s ability to interact with digital assistants means that the number of organizations that will be able to build their own artificial intelligence agents will increase.
It is worth noting that in one of the scenarios of applying the mentioned agents can actually be virtual workers. The corresponding digital products, operating based on artificial intelligence technologies, can perform several tasks without supervision. Experts and developers characterize virtual agents of machine intelligence as a new stage in the context of the implementation of the process of evolution of digital thinking systems. In this case, it means the progress of artificial intelligence based on large language models from chat interfaces. As part of the corresponding stage of AI evolution, the experience that blends more seamlessly into the background is being formed.
It is worth noting that the addition of the ability to build autonomous agents in Copilot Studio is not the only announcement made by Microsoft on Monday. The technology giant also announced plans to launch 10 new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365, the suite of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management apps. The company intends to introduce the mentioned digital products for sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams.
Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of modern work and business apps, on Monday displayed an example of an artificial intelligence agent developed at consulting firm McKinsey. In this case, it was demonstrated how a virtual product analyzes an email to find out what the communication is about, checks its history, maps it to industry-standard terms, and then finds the right person in the company to take the next step before writing and summarizing a response.
Jared Spataro stated that it may seem like magic, but McKinsey was able to develop its own artificial intelligence agent using human language rather than programming languages. In the relevant context, he also separately noted that Microsoft is excited about this because it can drive the business value. Moreover, Jared Spataro stated that McKinsey found that using an artificial intelligence agent could reduce lead time by as much as 90%.
Microsoft is doubling its efforts in developing artificial intelligence agents. The implementation of the relevant solution is carried out at a time of increasing competition in the machine intelligence industry. This state of affairs is logical since AI actually corresponds to what can be described as the main technology of modernity, which has great potential both in the context of applying capabilities to solve specific specialized tasks and in terms of global impact on the economy and the world as a space for the existence of human civilization as a whole. The use of artificial intelligence agents is a concrete example of the practical benefits of advanced technology.
Last month, Salesforce demonstrated a new platform called Agentforce as part of its annual Dreamforce showcase in San Francisco. This platform provides enterprise organizations with the opportunity to develop their own artificial intelligence agents.
Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s chief executive officer in the UK and Ireland, negatively assessed the copilot model of AI assistants. According to her, the corresponding virtual products do not meet the needs of enterprises. During a conversation with media representatives last month, Zahra Bahrololoumi noted that all the mentioned copilots were activated on the edge, or in email. Moreover, she separately underlined that the specified virtual products are not connected to or grounded within the context of customer data. Zahra Bahrololoumi also questioned whether these assistants would accurately and responsibly represent the company. Besides, she assumes that there won’t be many copilots for enterprise artificial intelligence activity. At the same time, Zahra Bahrololoumi did not state that these virtual products would not exist for other purposes.
Microsoft did not comment on the mentioned Zahra Bahrololoumi’s statements to journalists. It is worth noting that this technology giant and Salesforce have been in a state of rivalry with each other for a long period. Salesforce’s chief executive officer Marc Benioff has called on European regulators to investigate Microsoft’s deal to acquire LinkedIn. According to him, in this case, the rules of competition were violated.
Microsoft also announced on Monday that it has entered into a five-year deal with the government of the United Kingdom to provide public sector organizations with access to its artificial intelligence tools.
It is worth noting that during the active development and spread of machine intelligence, the issue of cybersecurity is of particular importance. In the relevant context, an important circumstance is that fraudsters also have access to artificial intelligence tools, which is why their activities have become more sophisticated. To counter this threat in the cybersecurity area, among other things, personal user awareness is needed. For example, a query in an Internet search system, such as how to know if my camera is hacked, will allow anyone to get information about signs of unauthorized access to the device. Digital literacy is also a tool for countering cybercrime.
