Microsoft Corp is launching a set of artificial intelligence tools designed to send emails, manage records and take other actions on behalf of business employees, expanding an AI push that seeks to compete with rivals such as Salesforce Inc. Intensifies.
The Redmond, Washington-based software maker said Monday it will deploy 10 “autonomous agents” to complete tasks on people’s behalf in areas such as sales, customer support and accounting. The agents will be available in a “public preview”, starting in December and continuing until early 2025. Microsoft also said that Copilot Studio, which lets companies create their own agents, will soon get the ability to have those agents act on their own initiative. It will be released in a preview version next month.
Jared Spataro, who oversees Microsoft’s workplace AI products, said agents are like smartphone apps for the AI age. AI tools, some acting autonomously and others in conjunction with a worker, can complete tasks like researching and sorting through sales leads or updating a customer support ticket after a phone call.
“We’ve just got places where people spend a lot of time and a lot of money,” Spataro said. “Those are tasks and processes that they wish they didn’t have to do, but they have to do over and over again. There’s higher yield if we can essentially automate it.”
Microsoft, due to its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, is at the forefront of technology industry efforts to incorporate software with the ability to generate text and images and display human reasoning. Starting in 2023, Microsoft has focused on AI features that require a prompt from the user — a prime example is the company’s Copilot, which it has deployed on Word, Outlook, and other products.
The next step is to create agents – devices that can complete established tasks without human intervention by combining logic powered by generative AI with existing databases and software. ServiceNow Inc., Workday Inc., HubSpot Inc. And SAP SE are among the cadre of software companies now pushing AI agents.
Salesforce, the largest maker of customer management software, promoted the new approach at its annual Dreamforce conference last month, saying its agents could handle tasks like customer service without supervision. The company said its tool – AgentForce – will become generally available later this month, with a starting price of about $2 per conversation.
While promoting Salesforce’s tools, Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff has also repeatedly taken aim at Microsoft’s efforts over the past few weeks. “When you look at how CoPilot has been delivered to customers, it’s disappointing,” Benioff posted on X on Wednesday.
Microsoft has not announced pricing on its agents, which will be added to the company’s Dynamics 365 software. Copilot Studio, a custom agent-building tool, is included in Microsoft 365 Copilot, which it sells to business customers for $30 per user, per month.
“All the competitive positioning will really depend on who actually has the product that actual customers are using and what they’re feeling,” Spataro said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
