In the recent history of technology, our focus for software and online experiences has been on the enablement of speed to data. In the era of AI, we are seeing a shift towards speed of outcome, giving us the delivery of content, insights and innovation at a remarkable pace.
With this technology being accessible with natural language, innovation is being democratised for everyone. And we’re seeing an incredible response, with workers at nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies already using Microsoft 365 Copilot to tackle repetitive and mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on the work that really matters.
With the introduction of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Agents, businesses are stepping into the next phase of AI-driven transformation. But what is this exactly?
The agentic world
You may be familiar already with the idea that Copilot is the UI for GenAI, working as an ‘organizing layer’ for how you use this technology in your organization. The hot topic for AI transformation in 2025 and beyond is what you can do when you embed AI to every business process and workflow using AI agents.
Simply put, agents are AI tools that can work on behalf of an individual or team to operate and undertake business activities. Agents work by reasoning over the data in your organization for a specific workflow or process. We create them to automate tasks or generate greater speed to an outcome you want to achieve. The transformational aspect of this capability is how this can all be created with natural language, enabling anyone with a Copilot to create one in tools like Copilot Studio.
While of course every organization will have a control system to manage, secure and measure the impact of Agents, what’s exciting is how this will bring AI into more workflows so we can focus on high-value work where we are co-reasoning with machines. Ultimately, this can only help us not just realize greater productivity, but create opportunities for better decision-making, creativity and problem solving.
Agents are bringing clarity to complexity
The ability of agents to reason over your data is a significant opportunity to bring clarity and reduce complexity in every business process. Workflows such as data analysis and report generation are great business cases for this, as through Copilot Chat, an employee will be able to generate the outcome they want with less manual effort and greater accuracy.
This can only help decision making too as in today’s fast-moving business environment, access to real-time insights is crucial. Whether the information you need is stored across any of your M365 apps, like Word, Excel or your organization’s SharePoint sites, employees can surface key trends, new insights and actionable recommendations.
With this support from Agents, presented in natural language, businesses can mitigate risks, seize opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge.
There is this great example of Agents being inserted into daily operations with this story from Ma’aden, a mining business from Saudi Arabia. They’ve empowered their employees with Copilot and created Agents to help them with governance documents and delegation of authority policies. Integrated directly into Teams, their workforce has tailored agents to help with work. All up, the team is saving 2,200 hours per month.
The UK’s biggest pet care company, Pets at Home, has created a range of agents to drive productivity and drive better customer experiences. Created in Copilot Studio, Agents are helping the retail fraud detection team spot suspicious transactions, discount abuse and even fake damaged deliveries. Agents are also helping customers choose the right products for their pets’ well-being.
And in the United States, U.S. AutoForce pays thousands of invoices per day and 50% of orders are for same day delivery. Their legacy supply chain and warehouse management tools could no longer reliably perform at this volume and the finance team was stretched due to manual accounting processes. With Copilot for Finance and Agents in Excel, the team are now making the complex simple with the ability to summarize spreadsheets, calculate queries, find information, and work with financial data faster and more easily.
At Dow, the team is using Agents to optimize logistics and cut costs with two supply chain agents. Their first one is a prompt-and-response agent which analyzes freight invoices, flagging discrepancies with the aim of significantly reducing costs. And the second is an autonomous agent built in Copilot Studio, which processes PDF invoices from email, automatically detecting and routing mismatches for correction around the clock. Together, these agents advance Dow’s commitment to operational excellence.
Agents are reimagining customer interactions
We all know customer expectations are constantly evolving as technology does. This is especially true when it comes to the expectation we all deliver more personal, more efficient experiences.
Using Copilot chat, any customer-facing representative will be able to use an Agent to quickly retrieve the correct information quickly to make customer service processes more efficient. This could include real-time data and information about clients or a product in answer to a query or question. And with this all being intelligently based on your data, the responses will be standardised, relevant and able to scale.
The outcome will be a more proactive, and immediate experience for all of our customers.
And then there is the impact on sales. Imagine a sales team instantly accessing customer histories without having to open a CRM tool and instead immediately being able to resolve queries. Or a field technician resolving complex issues with AI-guided troubleshooting. These are the workflows of tomorrow – enabled today by Copilot Chat and Agents.
Berlin-based Parloa wanted to provide more personalized, human-like experiences when handling customer inquiries. To address this need, they launched their AI Agent Management platform. This platform enables any company to quickly deploy generative AI-powered virtual customer agents at scale, helping organizations automate customer interactions across phone, chat, and messaging apps.
And financial services are trying to solve this problem too. In Australia, the team at Bank of Queensland, is using Copilot agents to deliver on opportunities faster and give customers the services they need, when they need it.
In the tourism industry, Holland America developed a virtual agent using Microsoft Copilot Studio that acts as a digital concierge on their website to support new and existing customers and travel advisors. The agent has achieved a strong resolution rate and is currently handling thousands of conversations per week, with telemetry indicating that there has been a reduction in enquiries for call center agents.
The future of work is here
Our vision is bold yet simple: a Copilot for every employee and agents that transform every business process. The AI-powered workplace is no longer a distant future – it’s here, reshaping how businesses operate, innovate, and thrive. The journey toward AI transformation is well underway, and those who embrace it today will lead the way into a smarter, more agile tomorrow.
