M365 Copilot is your UI for AI

When we watch keynotes from Satya Nadella , Jared Spataro or many other Microsofties we always hear the slogan UI for AI. But what does it really mean?

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What is UI for AI?

Start with the basics. UI for AI is your user interface (UI) for artificial intelligence (AI). Well, I guess that's not really news to you, right? ??

If we think about our daily work, we somehow need AI in every situation. Maybe not yet, but Microsoft's vision is clear.

We are the Copilot-Company -Satya Nadella

once said. This means that Copilot will be integrated into every single product. Starting with Microsoft 365, but also Dynamics, PowerPlatform, Fabric, and even Windows. But when we think about a world full of agents and different Copilots, we need one place where it all comes together: M365 Copilot - and that's your UI for AI.

M365 Copilot is your UI for AI

Needless to say, M365 Copilot is integrated with all your Office applications. And it all comes together with your BizChat.

Copilot Studio helps you to extend your cases

M365 Copilot is a Software as a Service, it works well in the context programmed by Microsoft. It acts as a general assistant for your daily work. It can access all your data and combine the power of LLMs with your Microsoft related data sources.

BUT of course not every single data source is in the Microsoft environment. There are many other sources like Jira, ServiceNow, SAP, etc. and wouldn't it be great if you could access them through M365 Copilot (your UI for AI)?

Well, here comes Copilot Studio, which allows you to build agents using a low-code approach. But if you'd like to have a high/pro code approach that also works for agents.

Of course, low code is not always the right approach, but let's discuss that another time.

?? Checkout the video from Nadine Nyffenegger and myself where we talked about UI for AI. Nadine is Area Business Group Leader for Business Application at Microsoft Switzerland.

A world full of agents!

When we think about agents, we have a great power to create solutions for your business needs and therefore add value. Let's think about the specific tasks from an HR perspective. We want to give our employees access to specific documents in a curtain type of communication. If an employee asks about expense guidelines, we as HR want to make sure that only the "official" documents provide the answers.

And here we can create agents that act in a curtain way, that are trained based on specific documents and you can also give additional guidelines how to deliver the answers (e.g. which tone).

Let's integrate your 3rd party systems ??

Another great aspect of UI for AI and especially with agents is the ability to connect to your third party systems. Especially when we talk about business needs, there is so often a need to integrate your third party system (e.g. ServiceNow, Jira, SAP, ... you name it...).

And this is where it all comes together - and this is why I love the term "UI for AI". Let's imagine you are able to use AI with integration to your core systems and everything is connected in one place (M365 Copilot). And you are able to access it from your tools (e.g. in Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) and even more, you can not only access it, but also have agents that act in a specific way ??.

Also, if we see what's coming with autonomous agents, but again -> Let's cover this another time. ??

?? If you want to take a closer look at the current state of agents, feel free to watch the Copilot Your Day episode about agents. ??

UI for AI will be a gamechanger

Once you have the UI for AI term in mind and use it your AI transformation, it will be a great approach to use for your business needs and therefore also for your M365 Copilot.

I am a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in M365 Copilot and Viva. CopilotYourDay is a weekly LinkedIn newsletter that shares best practices and the latest and greatest information around Copilot.

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