By Aditya Soni

(Reuters) -Microsoft will allow customers to create autonomous artificial intelligence agents starting next month, in its latest move to exploit the growing technology amid growing investor scrutiny over given its significant investments in AI.

The company positions autonomous agents – programs that require little human intervention unlike chatbots – as “applications for an AI-driven world” capable of handling customer queries, identifying prospects and managing stocks.

Other big tech companies such as Salesforce have also touted the potential of these agents, tools that some analysts say could make it easier for companies to monetize the billions of dollars they invest in AI.

Microsoft said its customers can use Copilot Studio – an application that requires little knowledge of computer code – to create such agents in public preview starting in November. It uses several AI models developed internally and by OpenAI for agents.

The company is also introducing 10 ready-to-use agents that can facilitate routine tasks ranging from supply chain management to expense tracking and customer communications.

In a demonstration, McKinsey & Co, which had early access to the tools, created an agent that could handle customer requests by checking interaction history, identifying the consultant for the task, and scheduling a follow-up meeting .

“The idea is that Copilot (the company’s chatbot) is the user interface for the AI,” Charles Lamanna, vice president of Copilot business and industry at Microsoft, told Reuters.

“Each employee will have a Copilot, their personalized AI agent, and then use that Copilot to interface and interact with the sea of ​​AI agents that will be there.”

Tech giants face pressure to show returns on their big AI investments. Microsoft shares fell 2.8% in the September quarter, underperforming the S&P 500, but remain up more than 10% for the year.

Some concerns have increased in recent months about the pace of Copilot adoption, with research firm Gartner saying in August that its survey of 152 IT organizations showed the vast majority had not progressed their Copilot initiatives at all. beyond the pilot stage.

(Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bangalore; Editing by Varun HK)