Microsoft is announcing many exciting news for all their products at Microsoft Ignite. I will compile all the most important news regarding M365 Copilot in this article. A little further down, you will find a complete list of the biggest updates, but let me first start with a brief introduction about Microsoft’s main focus moving forward.
Copilot Agents
Microsoft makes it clear that Copilot will continue to be the user interface for users when utilizing AI, but this year’s focus is largely on how you can expand the possibilities with “Copilot Studio” and “Copilot Agents.”
Copilot remains your AI assistant for “everything,” and with agents, you will be able to create specialists that perform more specific tasks. For example, there could be an agent that only has knowledge about a SharePoint site and answers questions solely about the content in that area. Alternatively, you can create autonomous agents that carry out actions automatically based on triggers.
For regular users, agents can be created through Business Chat, while more advanced users/IT professionals can create and edit agents in Copilot Studio. Here, third-party sources outside of M365 can also be connected, such as on-prem data, APIs for other specialized systems, and more. This is not new, but much of the functionality being introduced now significantly enhances the experience.
But we don’t necessarily need to create all the agents ourselves. Microsoft creates some of these for us.
The Employee Self-Service Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat) is designed to swiftly address common workplace policy inquiries and facilitate essential HR and IT tasks. Through BizChat, users can access information on benefits and payroll, initiate leave requests, request new laptops from IT, and receive assistance with Microsoft 365 products and services—all within a single platform. This agent is currently available in private preview.
Facilitator agent: The Facilitator agent operates in Teams meetings and chats for more effective collaboration. In meetings, the Facilitator takes notes in real time so that everyone can co-write and collaborate seamlessly. In chats, the Facilitator shares a summary of important information while the conversation is ongoing. This agent is currently in “public preview” and should be available for testing by most users shortly.
Interpreter agent: The Interpreter agent in Microsoft Teams enables real-time speech-to-speech translation during meetings, supporting up to nine languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish. This feature allows participants to speak and listen in their preferred language, with the option to have the Interpreter simulate their personal voice for a more inclusive experience. The Interpreter agent is scheduled for public preview in early 2025.
Project Manager agent: The Project Manager agent in Microsoft Planner automates project management tasks, handling everything from planning to execution. It can automatically create new plans from scratch or utilize pre-configured templates. Once a plan is established, the agent oversees the entire project, including task assignments, progress tracking, reminders, notifications, and status reporting. Additionally, it can complete tasks such as content creation. This agent is currently in public preview and should be available for testing to most users shortly.
Copilot Actions
Copilot Actions in Microsoft 365 Copilot enable automation of repetitive tasks through simple, fill-in-the-blank prompts that you can set and forget. For instance, you can schedule a specific prompt to run daily at 08:00 when you start work, or automate the creation of new documents based on certain triggers. This functionality is currently in private preview.
Copilot BizChat og Pages
Microsoft 365 Copilot’s Business Chat (BizChat) has recently introduced “Copilot Pages,” allowing users to save chat content into Loop components for enhanced collaboration. In early 2025, BizChat is expected to expand its capabilities to include the creation of more advanced graphs and visualizations within these pages, further enriching the collaborative experience.
Copilot in Outlook
Prioritize my inbox: Quickly analyzes your entire inbox and prioritizes your emails based on subjects, keywords, or people important to you.
Schedule 1:1s and focus time: With this feature, Copilot can reduce the time it takes to schedule a meeting or find focus time to just a few clicks. Simply ask Copilot to find focus time or schedule a meeting with someone, and it will identify a suitable time for both parties.
Draft agendas for a meeting: Copilot can help you draft meeting agendas; simply enter your goals or a brief description of the meeting into Copilot, and it will create a detailed agenda with summaries and bullet points to keep the meeting on track.
Copilot i Excel
Using everyday language, you can now unlock new data insights and visualizations with Copilot in Excel powered by Python. Simply ask Copilot to perform advanced analyses such as machine learning, predictive forecasting, and more.
Creating a project budget, survey response tracker, or sales report from scratch can be daunting and time-consuming, but Copilot in Excel’s new startup experience helps users of all skill levels create personalized spreadsheets. Simply tell Copilot what you want to create, and it will suggest and refine a template to give you a strong starting point.
Copilot i PowerPoint
Microsoft’s Copilot Narrative Builder, introduced this fall, streamlines the creation of presentations by leveraging AI to generate initial drafts based on branded templates, speaker notes, and built-in transitions and animations. Currently, it operates using data the AI model has been trained on. However, upcoming enhancements will enable the integration of internal data into the Narrative Builder, allowing for more personalized and context-specific presentations.
Starting in December 2024, Copilot in PowerPoint for the web will offer a presentation translation feature, enabling users to translate entire presentations into one of 40 languages while maintaining the design integrity of each slide. This functionality will be generally available on the web in December and on desktop and Mac in January 2025.
Copilot i Teams
In the near future, Copilot in Microsoft Teams will offer several enhanced features:
- Copilot can use information shared via PPT and Excel live during a meeting as part of the meeting summary and answer questions about it.
- Summary of files shared in Teams
- If you use intelligent meeting recap, you can get it on.
Sharepoint Advanced Management
One of the most important things we discuss when using AI on your own data is gaining control over access.
Summary of all the news
