Microsoft Corp. launches a set of artificial intelligence tools designed to send emails, manage records and take other actions on behalf of company employees, expanding the AI ​​dynamic that is intensifying competition with competitors like Salesforce Inc.

The Redmond, Washington-based software company said Monday it will deploy 10 “autonomous agents” to perform tasks on behalf of people in areas such as sales, customer support and accounting . The agents will be available in “public preview”, starting in December and lasting until early 2025. Microsoft also said that Copilot Studio, which allows businesses to create their own agents, will soon have the ability to allow those agents to act on their own initiative. This will be released in a preview version next month.

Agents are like smartphone apps in the AI ​​age, said Jared Spataro, who oversees Microsoft’s workplace AI products. AI tools, some acting autonomously and others in concert with an employee, can perform tasks such as finding and sorting leads or updating a customer support ticket after a phone call.

“We just found places where people are spending tons of time and tons of money,” Spataro said. “These are usually tasks and processes that they wish they didn’t have to do, but have to repeat over and over again. The return is high if we can essentially automate that.”

Microsoft, largely through its partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, is at the forefront of the tech industry’s efforts to equip software with the ability to generate text and images and display a human reasoning. Since early 2023, Microsoft has focused on AI features that require a user prompt – a prominent example being the company’s Copilot, which it has deployed in Word, Outlook and other products.

The next phase involves creating agents, tools that can accomplish established tasks without human intervention by combining reasoning powered by generative AI with existing databases and software. ServiceNow Inc., Workday Inc., HubSpot Inc. and SAP SE are among the group of software companies now emphasizing AI agents.

Salesforce, the largest maker of customer management software, spent much of its annual Dreamforce conference last month touting the new approach, saying its agents can handle tasks such as customer service without supervision. Its tool – Agentforce – will be available to everyone later this month, with an initial price of around $2 per conversation, the company said.

While promoting Salesforce’s tools, CEO Marc Benioff has also repeatedly criticized Microsoft’s efforts in recent weeks. “When you look at how Copilot has been delivered to customers, it’s disappointing,” Benioff posted Wednesday on X.

Microsoft has not announced pricing for its agents, which will be added to the company’s Dynamics 365 software. Copilot Studio, the custom agent creation tool, is included in Microsoft 365 Copilot, which it sells to enterprise customers for $30 per month per user.

“All competitive positioning will really depend on who actually has a product that real customers use and what they achieve,” Spataro said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)