Microsoft to Launch Autonomous AI Agents, Facing Salesforce Challenge
On October 2024, Microsoft announced it will allow businesses to create their own autonomous agents AI through its Copilot Studio platform starting next month.
Microsoft is squarely competing with Salesforce, which introduced similar AI tools in September. The technology giant announced the update at its “AI Tour” event in London on Monday, which showed its intent to expand the availability of those autonomous AI agents from what was a private preview.
These AI autonomous agents act like virtual workers in performing a series of tasks unsupervised. By integrating these into its Dynamics 365 suite, Microsoft is betting that these agents will enhance everything from sales to supply chain management. The autonomous agents AI will go into public preview, opening the door for more organizations to build their own AI tools by speaking in natural language rather than programming languages.
Autonomous Agent in AI
Jared Spataro, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, showed how McKinsey used Copilot Studio and built an OpenAI autonomous agent that can scan emails, find out what the emails are, fetch information regarding them, and even communicate with the right team members before composing a response.
“We’re excited about that because of the business value that it can drive,” Spataro said, noting that McKinsey was able to reduce lead time as much as 90% with these AI-driven solutions.
Microsoft AI agents technology was also demonstrated in customer service, where an agent received a request, gathered contextual information about an order, compared the issue against other known issues, and followed up with an email to the customer. The capabilities of a Microsoft AI agent promise greater efficiency and better customer service across industries.
Autonomous AI and Autonomous Agents Market the Growing Competition
The Microsoft push comes as competition in the AI space is heating up. Salesforce released its AI agent platform, Agentforce, this year, which can be used by businesses to create AI agents that meet their specific needs. Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s CEO for the UK and Ireland, refers to this kind of AI copilot provided by Microsoft as “just that—copilots.”
This technology may not be enough for enterprises, she said. For an AI agent to hold value in terms of business, they need to be contextualized within customer data, Bahrololoumi emphasized.
But amidst the competition, Microsoft continues to move forward. In another news release, the company issued a five-year agreement with the UK government to provide access to AI tools consisting of Microsoft 365 suite, Azure cloud services, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. This agreement, penned through the Crown Commercial Service, will give public sector entities access to the “advanced AI capabilities” of Microsoft.
With competition getting thicker, Microsoft and Salesforce have been investing aggressively in AI to drive innovation and address the growing demand for autonomous agents AI business solutions.
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