Source: Zhithon Finance
Technology giant Microsoft is intensifying its layout of "AI agents"! Microsoft Copilot will be renamed "Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat". This is the second rebranding of this enterprise-oriented assistant application since 2023.
美国科技巨无霸 $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ 正在重新命名其面向企业端的核心聊天机器人产品,加大力度说服企业领导者们使用这家软件制造商所推出的与OpenAI旗下ChatGPT能力最接近的竞争对手。微软于美东时间周三宣布,专注于提升企业经营效率的生成式AI助手Microsoft Copilot将更名为Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat,这是该人工智能助手自2023年以“Bing Chat Enterprise”的身份首次亮相以来的第二次更名,核心目的之一在于推动更多企业用户习惯于“AI代理”,推动“AI代理”加速渗透至全球企业,进而刺激他们额外订阅每月30美元的“Microsoft 365 Copilot”。
This AI chatbot is free for all users who purchase Microsoft's main office software suite, which includes the Office series of software under Microsoft 365. It can integrate data extracted from the web, analyze documents such as PDFs or PPTs, and provide response suggestions for customer service calls, among other features.
However, Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft’s Office AI tools business, stated that compared to other similar Microsoft Copilot products embedded in personal productivity applications like Word and Excel, this generative AI assistant appears to be less significant as the enterprise-focused Microsoft Copilot has relinquished priority to other types of Copilot.
“Most people are unaware that they have this feature, and we haven’t marketed it extensively.” He mentioned in an interview. “We really want to raise its visibility, especially focusing on the business side of Microsoft Copilot.”
The generative AI assistant, whether for personal users or enterprise users under Microsoft Copilot, is accessible via web browsers or smart phone applications but has some limitations. For example, it cannot transcribe Microsoft Teams conference calls nor prioritize unread emails in the inbox. These tasks, along with other interactive tasks involving Microsoft’s ubiquitous workplace applications, require a separate subscription to Microsoft’s subscription-based "Microsoft 365 Copilot" service, for which users must pay an additional $30 per month.
AI agents make a strong debut! The aim is to attract more enterprise customers to subscribe to 'Microsoft 365 Copilot.'
As the technology giant Microsoft strives to push "AI agents" to rapidly penetrate the business end users around the globe, the "ChatGPT moment" belonging to AI agents seems to have arrived. Spataro, responsible for Microsoft's workplace AI tools, stated that Microsoft is comprehensively enhancing the capabilities of Copilot, which is based on a question-and-answer chat window format, including allowing users to access AI agents, which are autonomous AI chatbots set to perform specific tasks (such as accessing customer account details or technical specifications).
If business end users do not subscribe separately to Microsoft's "Microsoft 365 Copilot," Microsoft will charge different fees for such access. For example, requests for custom answers from the foundational large language model of the AI agent will cost 2 cents, while accessing data from Microsoft's major applications, as well as operating Microsoft applications through the AI agent, will cost 30 cents per "message" for AI agent operations.
Therefore, for the services designed for AI agents, Microsoft initially attempts to charge based on the usage of the agents per "message" for business users. This move aims to gradually help enterprise-level users adapt to and rely on AI technology in their work, thus attracting them to subscribe to the full version of the enterprise-level Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription service for $30 per month.
The pricing seems to be lower than that of one of Microsoft's main competitors in the AI agent field, Salesforce, which is promoting its own AI agent product suite, stating that the initial cost for each AI agent conversation is around $2. Additionally, core players in the software field such as ServiceNow, Workday, HubSpot, and SAP SE are also currently emphasizing the global "AI agent wave" that aims to provide more information and represent users in performing software-specific actions or even autonomously completing project code writing.
Spataro mentioned that the new product after Microsoft's rebranding is "an entry point, a cutting-edge AI chatbot model that can be easily accessed without or with minimal investment."
AI agents - The strongest "revenue engine" for software companies in the future.
From the current trajectory of AI technology, the development direction of AI application software focuses on "generative AI application software" (such as ChatGPT, Sora, and Claude launched by Anthropic, which are popular AI applications globally), as well as the AI functionalities shifting from a chat window question-and-answer format to "AI agents that autonomously execute various tedious and complex tasks," such as Salesforce's major AI agent "Agentforce," and the AI agent integrated in "Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat." These two directions not only signify the advancement of AI technology but also represent the main theme of future comprehensive AI innovation. Among them, AI agents are likely to be a major trend in AI applications before 2030, and the emergence of AI agents indicates that AI will begin to evolve from an information assistance tool to a highly intelligent productivity tool starting in 2024.
The urgent demand from enterprises to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs has greatly promoted the widespread application of AI agents recently. AI agents can automate repetitive tasks, perform Big Data analysis and aggregation based on extremely powerful AI models, provide real-time monitoring insight reports, and make suitable decisions in a very short time for extremely complex situations, thereby enhancing operational efficiency. The logic of efficiency improvement is fundamentally similar for individual learning and work efficiency. AI agents can also participate efficiently in large-scale projects across various fields globally, from blueprint planning to implementation, significantly accelerating project progress.
The software giant Salesforce stated in its Earnings Reports that the company aims to soon shift its AI strategy toward an AI application tool at the forefront called "AI agents"; the core purpose of this currently popular AI tool is to complete tasks such as customer support or sales development without human supervision, and it can even participate in large tasks such as software development. This veteran software giant officially launched the software service product focused on AI agents named "Agentforce" in October, with initial pricing of about 2 dollars per AI Agent conversation.
According to the latest forecast report by the research institution MarketsandMarkets, the market size for AI agents is expected to expand significantly from just 5.1 billion USD in 2024 to approximately 47.1 billion USD by 2030, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 44.8% during this period. The institution stated that by using AI agents, businesses can automate a variety of very complex processes and reduce human intervention to avoid frequent human errors. The integration of AI agents with enterprise-level internal automation tools will enable a one-stop AI processing solution from formulating product sales plans to after-sales service, greatly enhancing business operational efficiency.
The research institution also indicated that as AI agents become increasingly capable of understanding and generating human language, they can handle extremely complex and more nuanced situational awareness interactions with users, possessing powerful abilities comparable to the top experts in certain fields. This will lead to broader applications in industries such as customer service, Medical Care, and financial investment advising.
Grand View Research's latest forecast indicates that the global AI agent market size is expected to be only 5.4 billion dollars in 2024, with a projected compound annual growth rate as high as 45.1% from 2024 to 2030, possibly expanding to 50.3 billion dollars by 2030, which means that if future demand surges, a tenfold increase is very likely. The agency pointed out that the exponential increase in one-stop automation demand, continuous advancements in natural language processing technology, and the growing need for personalized customer experiences are the main factors driving this market growth, along with the hope that cloud AI application software development platforms from giants like Amazon and Microsoft will be widely adopted by enterprises and individuals, making enterprise deployment of AI agents easier and more cost-effective.
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