When Microsoft Copilot first arrived at the end of 2023, it came in a blur of excitement, confusion and prompting guides. It was hyper, demoed and trialled at lightning speed. At first, many of us were wary. How do we actually use this thing? Is it a helpful assistant or a silent observer, absorbing our knowledge before it steals our jobs?
Fast-forward 18 months, and the story is much clearer, Copilot has cemented itself as our productivity assistant. A digital colleague helping us cut through repetitive tasks, draft emails, surface data, summarise meetings, and write Excel formulas without needing an ‘Excel for Dummies’ crash course.
Copilot usage across Microsoft 265 is now in the millions, with Microsoft reporting that organisations using Copilot have seen a productivity boost of us to 29% in day-to-day tasks and a 70% improvement in time saved on email composition. Adoption has moved beyond pilot programmes as many companies now consider Copilot to be critical infrastructure for knowledge workers.
More importantly, we’ve moved past the early mysticism of AI. It hasn’t (yet) taken our jobs. Instead, it’s making our jobs better and helping us get things done faster, with higher quality and less friction. And for most users, that’s exactly what they needed to help alleviate the admin burden.
But this is only the beginning.
The next wave – Agentic AI
The next wave of AI in the workplace is already here in the form of agentic AI. Microsoft has been quietly laying the foundations for this evolution, and it’s now coming to the forefront.
If Copilot is the assistant sitting beside you, Agentic AI is the team working in the background. Agents are not here to help you write a better paragraph or summarise a call. It’s less about helping you finish a task and more about taking ownership of business processes, automating and streamlining them from start to finish.
Until now, AI has largely supported individual productivity. But Agentic AI is designed to support business operations at scale, demonstrating a powerful shift in thinking, helping drive real business value through professional reinvention and reengineering.
Copilot vs agents – what’s the difference?
Think of Copilot as your personal assistant. Now imagine dozens of agents operating across your business, handling invoices, HR onboarding, customer support tickets, compliance checks, and more. These agents will live inside the Microsoft 265 ecosystem and operate via the same Copilot interface.
1. Copilot = personal productivity
- Every employee gets a Copilot.
- One-to-one relationship.
- Supports in-context work: drafting, summarising, replying, reformatting and more.
- Enhances how you work.
2. Agents = process intelligence
- Every organisation has multiple agents.
- One-to-many relationship.
- Works across apps and systems to automate entire workflows.
- Operates on behalf of teams or departments.
Why it matters
Organisations run on processes. Some are well-defined, others are sprawling and inconsistent. All of them take time, require coordination, and depend on people moving data between systems. Until now, digital transformation has meant integrating systems and automating bits and pieces. Agentic AI offers the chance to rethink the whole thing. It isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about unlocking new value.
Imagine an agent that:
- Onboards a new starter by automatically generating accounts, scheduling training, and assigning permissions.
- Monitors a project timeline and nudges stakeholders when risks are detected.
- Reviews customer emails, identifies intent, and triggers fulfilment or escalations.
- Validates documents against policy rules and flags anomalies.
You can immediately see the value in addressing these types of processes with agents.
Organisations are already testing these capabilities with partners through tools like Microsoft Copilot Studio, where businesses can build custom agents that connect to their Microsoft 265 data and even pull in information from external systems using prebuilt connectors.
Agents can be governed, monitored and deployed just like any enterprise solution because they’re integrated with Microsoft’s Copilot Control System. This is a critical step to enable AI to scale in business with appropriate checks and balances in place.
A quiet revolution
Whilst it’s still early days, the signs are clear that Agentic AI is going to be the next major shift in workplace productivity. Just as we’ve grown comfortable with AI writing our emails and summarising meetings, we’re moving quickly towards AI running parts of the business.
But where do we begin?
1. Embed Copilot in your organisation
- Deploy Copilot with a clear, structured adoption plan.
- Upskill and empower your people to understand and leverage it’s potentioal.
- Align usage with organisational goals and focus on removing productivity blockers.
2. Identify manual, repetitive and rules-based processes
- Think onboarding, approvals, scheduling, finance ops and other day-to-day workflows.
- If it’s a repeatable, step-by-step process, there’s a strong case for an agent.
3. Start small
- Look for quick wins to build familiarity and early success.
- Focus on where agents can make a tangible difference in your organisation demonstrating ROI.
- Build low-risk agents to experiment, learn and redefine.
4. Involve IT and Compliance early
- Agents require the same governance as any core system.
- Establish clear policies, controls and monitoring from the outset.
5. Don’t chase perfection
- AI adoption is iterative and evolves over time.
- Start small, learn quickly and build confidence as you grow.
The Copilot journey has shown us that AI doesn’t have to be scary. When it’s embedded in familiar tools focused on helping, not replacing, people, adoption follows naturally.
Agentic AI will follow the same path, but with even greater potential to transform how organisations function. We’ll soon see businesses with dozens of agents supporting everything from employee engagement to supply chain efficiency.
So, if Copilot is helping you get through your inbox faster, then get ready to redesign what work looks like for your business.
