Microsoft is introducing autonomous intelligent workers, or virtual workers, that can handle tasks such as answering customer questions and identifying sales strategies, as the tech sector tries to show investors that the AI ​​boom can create valuable products.
The US technology company is giving customers the ability to create their own AI assistants and is releasing 10 bots that can perform a variety of tasks including supply chain management and customer service.
Early adopters of Copilot Studio, which will launch next month, include blue chip consulting firm McKinsey, which is developing an agent to answer new customer questions for tasks such as scheduling follow-up meetings. Other early adopters include law firm Clifford Chance and retailer Pets At Home.
Microsoft presents AI assistants, who work without human intervention, as an example of technology that can increase productivity – an economic measure, or the amount of work done by an employee for each hour worked.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who revealed AI assistants at a company event in London, said the tool would reduce “tediousness” and increase productivity by freeing up time for more important tasks.
“These tools are revolutionizing work, increasing cost and reducing waste,” he said.
Nadella described Copilot Studio, which does not require technical expertise from users, as “a code-free way to create assistants”. Microsoft is empowering agents with several AI models developed internally by OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
Microsoft is also developing an AI assistant that can do business on behalf of users. The company’s AI director, Mustafa Suleyman, said he had seen “amazing demos” where the assistant was shopping on its own, but had also experienced a “car crash period” in development. Sulyeman added, however, that the agent with these powers will emerge “in areas, not years”.
When asked about fears that AI could affect jobs, Charles Lamanna, a vice president at Microsoft, told the Guardian that assistants will eliminate “mundane, menial” jobs.
“I think it’s more of a catalyst and a tool than anything else,” he said.
Lamanna said the arrival of AI tools as assistants in modern offices is similar to the arrival of personal computers decades ago.
“The personal computer didn’t appear on every desk from its inception but it eventually became on every desk because it brought so much technology and information into the hands of every worker,” he said.
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“We think that AI will have the same journey. It is appearing in small departments and systems, but it is only a matter of time until it appears in all parts of the organization.”
Andrew Rogoyski, director of the Institute for People-Centred AI, at the University of Surrey, said that AI agents can help technology companies bring value to investors who have strongly supported the technology. In June, Goldman Sachs questioned whether the $1tn investment in AI over the next few years “will ever pay off”.
“AI companies have consumed a lot of capital investment and need to recoup some of that investment,” Rogoyski said. “Sponsors are a way to show daily benefits, although the money they will bring is an open question.”
However, he warned that agents have been discussed as an idea for many years but that “we have not yet provided an agent that is as capable as a worker”.
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