Alice Chambers |
Microsoft announced new artificial intelligence-powered capabilities to improve productivity across business operations – from sales to supply chain management – at its AI Tour in London on 21 October.
First, users can create autonomous agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot Studio, which is currently in public preview, to create, manage and connect agents to Copilot.
“Think of agents as the new apps for an AI-powered world,” said Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of AI at Work at Microsoft. “Every organisation will have a constellation of agents – ranging from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous. They will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to execute and orchestrate businesses process. Copilot is how you’ll interact with these agents, and they’ll do everything from accelerating lead generation and processing sales orders to automating your supply chain.”
Organisations like Clifford Chance, an international law firm, McKinsey & Company, UK-based pet care business Pets at Home and Thomson Reuters are using Copilot Studio as early adopters to create autonomous agents to increase revenue. Pets at Home, for example, created agents to help its retail fraud detection and profit protection teams to investigate suspicious transactions and compile cases for human review more efficiently.
“We have some fantastic data – there are eight million customers in our Pets Club, with 10 million pets,” said William Hewish, chief information officer at Pets at Home. “We’re using machine learning and AI algorithms to produce recommendations for next best actions. We can give information to our colleagues in our pet care centres about our customers’ pets, and what they would typically buy or need at their life stage. We can bring that same data to life across our organisation so that we’re really relevant to customers, and we’re helping them make the best decisions for their pet, whether they are in a store, online or at the veterinary practice.”
Pets at Home have created autonomous agents to improve fraud detection and increase profits
Second, Microsoft revealed ten new autonomous agents in Microsoft Dynamics 365 to build capacity for team members in sales, services, finance and supply chain departments.
“These new agents are designed to help every sales, service, finance and supply chain team drive business value – and are just the start,” said Spataro. “We will create many more agents in the coming year that will give customers the competitive advantage they need to future-proof their organisation.”
Some of the new tools include a Sales Qualification Agent, which enables sellers to focus their time on high-priority sales opportunities; Supplier Communication Agent, which detects delays in supply chains and responds accordingly; and multiple Customer Knowledge Management Agents that work together to cover high call volumes talent shortages and customer expectations.
“With Copilot and agents, the possibilities are endless,” said Spataro. “At Microsoft, we’re using Copilot and agents to reimagine business process across every function while empowering employees to scale their impact. Using Copilot, one sales team has achieved 9.4 per cent higher revenue per seller and closed 20 per cent more deals. And thanks to Copilot, one team is resolving customer cases nearly 12 per cent faster. Our Marketing team is seeing a 21.5 per cent increase in conversion rate on Azure.com with a custom agent designed to assist buyers. And in Human Resources, our employee self-service agent is helping answer questions with 42 per cent greater accuracy.”