Source: Wall Street See
Author: Fang Jiayao. The funds continue to rotate, and small cap index rose more than 2% at one point, leading the way strongly. The chip index opened high and fell low, Tesla opened high by about 7% and rose nearly 2% at the close, Nvidia fell by as much as 1.6%, and Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have all turned down in the intraday. Apple rose 1.7% to a new high. The European stock market fell by 1%, and Bentley fell by 16%, dragging down luxury goods stocks. The Chinese concept index fell by 3.6%, and JD, B Station, Nio, and Xpeng all fell by about 5%, while Baidu fell nearly 6%. Following the Trump trade, photovoltaic stocks plummeted by double digits during the trading hours, and bitcoin-related stocks jumped by double digits. Media under Trump rose more than 31%, the best in three and a half months, and energy stocks got a boost. In addition, the market bets on the Fed's interest rate cuts. As a result, yields on US short-term bonds fell, while those on long-term bonds rose. The 2/10-year yield curve was the steepest in January, and the 30-year yield exceeded the 2-year yield for the first time in half a year. Regional bank stocks rose for the sixth consecutive day, and Berkshire set new highs.

On Monday, the stock price soared and investors broke free from the fiercer competition from peers. $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ Announced the launch of a new set of AI tools to help various teams within the company work more efficiently.

These tools include the introduction of 10 'self-agents' in Dynamics 365 software. The self-agents can automatically handle specific tasks. According to Microsoft, these 'agents' will look at the user's work data in some of Microsoft's services, such as Microsoft 365 Graph, record systems, Dataverse, and Fabric, and then help users complete various tasks based on this data.

They can do a lot of things, such as helping you with IT issues, assisting new employees in getting familiar with their work, providing personalized assistance for sales and service personnel, and even automating the management of your supply chain, helping large companies save money, save time, and make their employees more efficient.

Meanwhile, Microsoft earlier introduced a series of powerful new features in Copilot Studio, where users can create and customize self-agents according to their needs. Next month, these features will be open for public testing after internal testing, allowing more users to leverage AI to rethink critical business processes.

Help more customers build autonomous agents in Copilot Studio.

microsoft stated that 60% of the large companies in the Fortune 500 are now using microsoft's Copilot tool to help them improve work efficiency. For example,$Lumen Technologies (LUMN.US)$this company uses Copilot to assist the sales team, expecting to save $50 million annually. Also,$Honeywell (HON.US)$companies mentioned that after using this tool, it is equivalent to hiring an additional 187 full-time employees. Finastra company found that after using Copilot, the time to create innovative products was reduced from seven months to seven weeks.

Microsoft also points out that companies like McKinsey and Pets at Home in the United Kingdom are using these agents to reduce time-consuming tasks such as data input and customer proposal processing. Microsoft employee Jared Spataro mentioned: 'We found that many people spend a significant amount of time and money on repetitive tasks. These are usually tasks and processes that they wish they didn't have to do repeatedly. Automating these tasks can bring in high returns.'

It is worth mentioning that users can easily create autonomous agents in Copilot Studio through low-code or no-code instructions. Users only need to set the agent's goals, such as organizing email requests, and the agent will automatically complete the tasks. Users can use natural language (without the need for coding) to tell the autonomous agent how to handle emails, such as extracting information from emails and how to deal with missing data. Users can also attach different files and documents to explain how to handle customer data and then let the agent start working.

Microsoft is collaborating with OpenAI to enable software to generate text and images by itself and think like a human. Starting from early 2023, Microsoft's AI features prompted by simple instructions will allow you to tell the computer what you want, and then it will help you create it. A prominent example is Copilot, which is already being used in Word, Outlook, and other products.

微软下一步就是打造“代理”，这些工具可以在没有人插手的情况下完成一些固定的任务。它们用生成式AI的推理能力，结合现有的数据库和软件来工作。$ServiceNow (NOW.US)$,$Workday (WDAY.US)$,$HubSpot (HUBS.US)$and $SAP SE (SAP.US)$ These software companies are now emphasizing the development of such AI agents.

In addition, $Salesforce (CRM.US)$ As the leader in customer management software, Salesforce also introduced a similar tool at the recent Dreamforce conference, stating that its agent can independently handle customer service tasks. Salesforce's Agentforce tool will officially launch later this month, with an initial pricing of about $2 per conversation. However, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently criticized Microsoft's product for not performing well, stating that the delivery of its Copilot was disappointing.

However, microsoft has not disclosed the pricing for its proprietary agents, and Copilot Studio, a custom agent building tool, is included in the $30 per user per month Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Investors are focused on the effectiveness of AI, and microsoft is actively launching AI proprietary agents.

As the earnings season kicks off, Wall Street is closely watching the AI spending and profit growth of technology companies. Microsoft and its competitors need to demonstrate their ability to continuously attract more customers to use AI services to address investor pressure. Microsoft's move aims to actively seek new ways to profit, better compete with rivals like Salesforce, and leverage its collaboration with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to gain AI investment returns.

Previously, microsoft's Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood stated in the quarterly report released on July 30th, Eastern Time, that the company has spent $19 billion on capital expenditures (including finance leases), with a major portion used for AI and cloud-related needs. In the 2024 fiscal year, microsoft's capital expenditures reached $55.7 billion, a significant increase from $31.9 billion in 2023 and $29.2 billion in 2022.

Microsoft's Copilot platform serves approximately 2.1 million business users per month, and microsoft hopes to further increase this number. This platform is crucial for improving work efficiency, and microsoft aims to generate revenue from companies that improve overall employee efficiency using this software. In the fourth quarter, microsoft's cloud computing service (including AI) revenue was $36.8 billion, accounting for most of the total revenue of $64.7 billion, a 21% year-on-year growth.

However, microsoft is not the only commercial software provider looking to profit from the AI boom. $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ / $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ Salesforce is also actively competing for market share, with Google continuously adding new features to its Google Workspace platform Gemini, while Salesforce has introduced its own AI product and Einstein Copilot.

Editor / jayden