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Microsoft Announces Researcher and Analyst Agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft on Tuesday announced two new AI-powered reasoning agents: Researcher and Analyst. Both will begin rolling out for some Microsoft 365 Copilot users in April.
The new agents are designed to provide deep, expert-level assistance by securely integrating work data, including e-mails, meetings, files and chats, with external sources across the Web.
Researcher combines OpenAI's research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot orchestration and search capabilities to help users tackle complex research tasks. The agent is built to deliver higher-quality and more accurate insights than previously possible, Microsoft said.
"You can use Researcher to build a detailed go-to-market strategy based on the context of all your work data and broader competitive data from the web; identify whitespace opportunities for a new product based on emerging trends and internal data; or create a comprehensive quarterly report for a client review detailing work to date along with the latest market analysis," said Microsoft's Jared Spataro in a blog post.
Researcher also supports integration with third-party systems such as Salesforce, ServiceNow and Confluence.
Also unveiled was Analyst, a data analysis agent powered by OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model. The agent uses chain-of-thought reasoning and Python-based computation to mimic human analytical thinking, according to the company.
Analyst is capable of transforming raw data into actionable insights, such as generating demand forecasts, creating customer behavior visualizations or developing revenue projections. It also allows users to view and verify the code it runs during analysis.
Both Researcher and Analyst will be available beginning in April through Microsoft’s new "Frontier" program, which gives customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license early access to features still in development.
The initiative signals Microsoft’s continued push to embed reasoning capabilities into the workplace, offering what it calls "expertise on demand" within the flow of daily work.
Agent Deployment Platform for Copilot Studio
Microsoft also announced deep reasoning and agent flows in Copilot Studio, which will allow organizations to build agents that can execute complex, multistep business processes or automate tasks through predictable flows.
Along with the new platform, new features have gone live that will allow autonomous agents to act independently, trigger events and manage business processes without manual intervention in Copilot Studio.
Microsoft emphasized that everything announced will be backed by the Copilot Control System, which enforces enterprise-level data grounding, access governance and compliance controls for IT teams.