Microsoft goes deep on new Copilot Studio and M365 research and reasoning features

MSDW Insight: The push to bring the latest OpenAI advances to Copilot Studio continues at maximum velocity. Greater support for process automation scenarios suggests increased overlap with other services, especially as Copilot Studio reaches for more business scenarios that include approvals and routing. Customers and partners will be challenged to internalize the distinctions and apply the right tools for the right cases.

Microsoft announced two new agent capabilities in Microsoft Copilot Studio that the company says will allow customers to add complex task execution and sequenced actions. 

Deep reasoning in Copilot Studio enters preview now and “gives agents critical thinking skills,” according to Microsoft CVP Charles Lamanna. Copilot Studio agents are gaining these new capabilities thanks to Open AI o1, and the result, when applied to complex enterprise data, will be “thoughtful decisions”. “For example, businesses can use deep reasoning to forecast demand across global markets or optimize supply chains,” Lamanna claimed.

Deep reasoning is available in both conversational and autonomous agents, and an orchestrator within Copilot Studio decides when to use these capabilities. 

Last week, Microsoft announced general availability for generative orchestration in Copilot Studio, including dynamic chaining. This allows an agent the ability to, at runtime, assemble the conversation based on the input and the assets available

People building agents “can always override this behavior and explicitly control which steps invoke deep reasoning by simply including the keyword ‘Reason’ in agent-building instructions,” Lamanna stated.