After Google and OpenAI shared AI news on Tuesday, Microsoft made its own announcements, including details on two “deep thinking” agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot that it claims are the first of their kind – Researcher and Analyst – as well as new capabilities for custom AI agents. Researcher relies on the OpenAI AI deep learning model to conduct “complex, multi-step research” and also has access to third-party data through connectors to sources such as Salesforce or ServiceNow so that business customers can get insights from different tools.
Analyst is based on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model, and Microsoft claims that through the chain of reasoning, it is able to turn raw data into spreadsheets, execute Python code that can be viewed on the fly, and work at the level of a skilled data scientist to produce reports like this one (pdf).
These tools will be available to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensees in April as part of the Early Access Program, along with the new autonomous agent capabilities that are being rolled out in Copilot Studio now.
Microsoft claims that the new agent flows in Copilot are powerful enough to “automate any task you can imagine” with rule-based workflows that include artificial intelligence actions. The LinkedIn announcement describes situations such as an agent flow directing feedback emails to the right team, but we’ll have to see it in action to see how it’s better than adding a checkbox or two, or how well its “low-code” experience works, and whether it can deliver on the promises that AI companies make about agents.
