Build 2024: Microsoft Unveils New Team Copilot to Boost Productivity with Process Automation

Published: May 21, 2024

Hero approved Microsoft 365

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Key Takeaways:

  • Microsoft is expanding its Copilot AI assistant beyond personal use to support entire teams, departments, or companies.
  • Microsoft is enhancing Copilot Studio to allow developers to create custom copilots for automating business processes.
  • Microsoft says that all extensibility features for Copilot are being consolidated into Copilot extensions.

Microsoft continues to improve Copilot for Microsoft 365 which became generally available for commercial customers in November 2023. The company is getting ready to introduce new Team Copilot to help teams enhance collaboration and streamline project management.

“Team Copilot expands Copilot beyond a personal assistant to act on behalf of a team, a department, or
an entire company. And of course, you’re always in control – assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot
so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative, together,” explained Jared Spataro – CVP, AI at Work, Microsoft.

With this release, Team Copilot will be available for customers in Microsoft Teams, Loop, Planner, and other Microsoft 365 apps. The Copilot AI assistant will serve as a meeting facilitator by automatically managing the agenda and taking notes in Teams meetings.

Additionally, Copilot for Microsoft 365 will work as a group moderator in Microsoft Teams chats. Users will be able to use natural language commands to ask questions and summarize important information to catch up on lengthy conversations. In Microsoft Planner, the AI assistant will automatically create and assign tasks, track deadlines, as well as alerts team members when their input or action is required on a task.

Microsoft plans to release the new Team Copilot capabilities in public preview in the coming months. It will require a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, which costs $30 per user per month for those businesses with 300 or fewer employees.

Agents: custom copilots

Microsoft has introduced new features in Copilot Studio that will allow developers to create custom copilots that act as agents to automate common business processes (such as the end-to-end order fulfillment process). These new capabilities also enable users to reason over actions and user inputs, learn based on user feedback, use memory and knowledge for context, as well as record exception requests and ask for help. The new features, which are currently available in Early Access Program, will become generally available in the coming months.

Additionally, Microsoft now lets organizations create custom copilots in SharePoint. This feature enables employees to ask questions and find information in files and documents stored on SharePoint sites. This new capability is currently available for commercial customers enrolled in Early Access Program, and will be available in public preview by the end of this year.

Copilot Studio - Agent capabilities - Teaching
Copilot Studio – Agent capabilities – Teaching (Image Credits: Microsoft)

Copilot extensions

Microsoft also announced today that it’s consolidating all extensibility concepts of Copilot for Microsoft 365 (such as plugins and connectors) into Copilot extensions. With Copilot extensions, users can tailor the productivity assistant’s actions and integrate it with various business systems. Microsoft says that developers can use Copilot Studio and Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code to build Copilot extensions.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 currently supports extensions in preview from Jira, Priority Matrix and Mural, and other popular apps. Enterprise administrators can control and manage access to Copilot extensions through the Microsoft 365 admin center. Microsoft is also adding support for connectors in Copilot Studio to help developers quickly create Copilot extensions.

Copilot Studio - Copilot connectors
Copilot Studio – Copilot connectors (Image Credits: Microsoft)

Later this year, Microsoft plans to launch the Copilot Trust Platform in public preview for organizations. It should help to enhance the security, ethical standards, and efficiency of Microsoft Copilot for enterprise customers.

In related news, Microsoft has also announced new data protection capabilities for Microsoft Teams Premium customers at Build 2024. The company also detailed several new features for Microsoft Teams and Loop, and you can find more details in our separate post.

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