Review of Microsoft Copilot Agent Mode and Office Agent

Are you ready for AI to become a true partner in your daily work?

In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I explore the release of Microsoft Agent Mode and Office Agent, along with the revolutionary concept of "vibe working" within Microsoft 365 Copilot. This isn't just about automation; it's about AI understanding your intent, orchestrating complex tasks, and even evaluating its own work!

Discover how Agent Mode is transforming productivity in: 

💡 Democratising advanced data analysis and financial modelling in Excel, allowing you to focus on insights, not formulas.

💡 Streamlining document creation with "vibe writing” in Word, turning tedious tasks into an interactive, conversational experience.

Learn how this shift frees up countless hours, enabling you to concentrate on higher-level thinking, creativity, and strategic decision-making. It's about augmenting human intelligence and making expert-level capabilities accessible to everyone.

Tune in now to explore the future of work and how Microsoft Agent Mode and Office Agent are reshaping our interaction with productivity tools. Don't miss out on actionable guidance and inspiration!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:02 What is Vibe Working?
• 1:53 Agent Mode in Excel
• 4:29 Agent Mode in Word
• 5:23 [Ad] Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
• 6:11 (Cont.) Agent Mode in Word
• 8:26 Office Agent in Copilot Chat
• 9:08 How to access Agent Mode and Office Agent
• 10:34 Wrap Up

Transcript

Welcome to the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, with me Dave Roberts.  This is the podcast that talks with tech leaders from across the industry, exploring their insights, sharing their experiences, and offering valuable advice to technology professionals.  The podcast also explores technology innovations and the evolving tech landscape, providing listeners with actionable guidance and inspiration.

In today’s podcast I’m discussing a new development from Microsoft that promises to reshape how we interact with our productivity tools. The new AI solution is called Microsoft Agent Mode, which supports the concept of "vibe working" within Microsoft 365 Copilot.

For years, we've heard about AI as a tool to assist us, to automate repetitive tasks, and to offer suggestions. But what if AI could go beyond assistance and become a true partner, an agent that understands your intent, orchestrates complex tasks, and even evaluates its own work? That's precisely what Microsoft is aiming for with Agent Mode.

Let's start with the term itself. Vibe working, it might sound a bit informal, but it encapsulates a powerful idea. Microsoft describes it as bringing the transformative power of "vibe coding", where developers work iteratively with AI, to the suite of Office applications. Imagine a workflow where you provide a high-level prompt, and Copilot, powered by advanced reasoning models, takes the initiative. It breaks down your request into multi-step tasks, executes them, and delivers high-quality results, all while you guide and refine the process. It's about a more intuitive, conversational, and ultimately more productive collaboration between humans and AI.

This new solution is being introduced through two main components, Agent Mode in Office apps like Excel and Word, and Office Agent in Copilot chat. Let's break down what each of these means for your daily work.

First up, Agent Mode in Excel. For anyone who's ever wrestled with complex spreadsheets, you know Excel is incredibly powerful, but its full potential often remains locked behind a steep learning curve. Agent Mode aims to democratise that power. Microsoft states that Agent Mode delivers AI that can "speak Excel" natively. It's built on the rich features of Excel and leverages OpenAI's latest reasoning models to make advanced modelling accessible to almost everyone. This means that even if you're not a spreadsheet wizard, you can now tap into the sophisticated capabilities that were once the exclusive domain of expert users.

Think about it, instead of spending hours figuring out formulas, pivot tables, or data visualisations, you can simply tell Copilot what you need. The AI doesn't just generate an output; it evaluates results, identifies and fixes issues, and repeats the process until the outcome is verified. This iterative process is crucial because it ensures accuracy and allows for continuous improvement, much like a human expert would refine their work. It's like having an Excel expert sitting right next to you, ready to take on tasks while you provide the strategic direction and focus on the insights rather than the mechanics.

Let me give you a few examples of the kind of prompts you can use, and consider the time and effort these would typically save.

Imagine saying, "Create a financial monthly close report for my business, including a breakdown of product lines and year-over-year growth. Use standard financial formatting and best practices". Agent Mode would then get to work, deciding which formulas to use, generating new sheets, and creating data visualisations, all while providing a summary of insights and validation steps. This isn't just about data entry; it's about generating a comprehensive, auditable report that adheres to best practices, something that would typically require significant financial modelling expertise.

Or perhaps, for personal use, "Create a monthly household budget tracker with categories like Rent, Groceries, Utilities, Entertainment, Transportation, and Savings. Apply conditional formatting and data bars for % Over/Under Budget. And add a summary section showing planned versus actual spending with a donut chart to visualise spending distribution". This shows how Agent Mode can handle both complex business tasks and everyday personal finance needs, making financial management more accessible and visual for everyone.

The key here is that Copilot shares a full summary of insights gathered and validation steps taken, allowing you to continue iterating and refining the output with the AI. This ensures transparency and allows you to maintain control while benefiting from AI's speed and accuracy. It's about augmenting human intelligence, not replacing it.

Next, let's turn our attention to Agent Mode in Word. Billions of Word documents are created every month, and Agent Mode aims to transform this often-tedious process into what Microsoft calls "vibe writing". This is an interactive, conversational experience where you focus on your intent, and Copilot handles the heavy lifting.

Instead of staring at a blank page or struggling with formatting, you can simply tell Copilot what you need. For instance, "summarise recent customer feedback and highlight key trends". Copilot will then draft content, suggest refinements, and even ask clarifying questions along the way. It makes suggestions to keep the process flowing, turning writing into a dialogue rather than a solitary task. Copilot brings your intent to life with Word’s native styles and polished formatting, ensuring professional-looking documents with minimal effort from your side. This means less time spent on the mechanics of writing and more time focusing on the message and its impact.

This deeper interaction leads to faster iteration, better ideas, and a more engaging writing experience. It's about co-creation, where the AI acts as a highly skilled writing assistant, anticipating your needs and streamlining the entire document creation process.

Let's look at some practical applications and the efficiency gains they offer.  First, think of the AI as a master of data integration and synthesis. Imagine you have to update a monthly report. Instead of you manually digging through your inbox for the latest data, finding last month's report to see what’s changed, and then piecing it all together, the AI does it for you. You can just tell it, “Update this report with the numbers from this email and summarise the key differences from last month's version”. It seamlessly connects those different sources of information to deliver a finished, synthesized document. The amount of manual work that saves is just incredible.

Next, it’s also a brilliant editor and formatter. We've all been there, you've written down all the important information, but it's messy. It's not ready to be sent to executives. Well, you can ask the AI to act as your personal editor. You can say things like, “Update the executive summary for clarity, bold all the key findings, and create a bulleted list of next steps”. It takes your raw content and instantly polishes it into a clear, professional, and well-structured document. It handles the tedious formatting, so you can focus purely on the quality of the information itself.

It is also an expert in style and brand compliance. Every company has its own detailed rules, how to capitalise headers, which branding elements to use, how to refer to external partners. These are tedious to apply and very easy to get wrong. With the AI, you can just point it to a brand guidelines document and tell it to 'clean up this document’. It will go through and fix everything with perfect consistency.

And what's really impressive is that it’s not just a blind follower. If it's unsure about something, like which companies count as 'partner', it will actually ask for clarification. It’s not just a tool; it’s an interactive assistant.

So, when you put it all together, you have an assistant that can gather and synthesize information, professionally edit and format your work, and ensure perfect consistency, all while collaborating with you. It’s about automating the tedious work so you can focus on what really matters.

Beyond the individual Office applications, we have Office Agent in Copilot chat. This is where work often begins today, in a chat interface. Powered by Anthropic models, Office Agent allows you to create polished PowerPoint presentations and well-researched Word documents directly from a chat-first experience. Microsoft acknowledges that while AI has been around for a while, creating high-quality, tasteful presentations has been a challenge. Office Agent aims to change that by providing a more sophisticated and context-aware generation process.

This chat-first approach is incredibly powerful for tasks that require extensive research and structured output, transforming what used to be days of work into minutes or hours.

So, how can you get your hands on these transformative tools? Agent Mode in Copilot for Excel and Word are rolling out in the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed customers and Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers. They work on the web versions of Excel and Word, with desktop versions coming soon. For Excel, you'll need to install the Excel Labs add-in and choose Agent Mode. Office Agent is also rolling out in the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers based in the United States, working in Microsoft 365 Copilot on the web in English.  However, I’m sure it won’t be long before the functionality is available in other countries too.

This is truly just the beginning. Microsoft is clearly committed to expanding "vibe working" across more Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences. The vision is clear: to move beyond simple automation and create a truly collaborative environment where AI acts as an intelligent agent, capable of understanding intent, executing complex tasks, and iterating with you to achieve high-quality results.

This shift promises to free up countless hours previously spent on manual tasks, allowing us to focus on higher-level thinking, creativity, and strategic decision-making. It's about making expert-level capabilities accessible to everyone and transforming our daily work into a more engaging, interactive, and productive experience. The implications for productivity, innovation, and job satisfaction are immense.

Well, that is all for today. Thanks for tuning in to the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network.  You can find more insights, show notes, and resources at www.inspiringtechleaders.com

Head over to the social media channels, you can find Inspiring Tech Leaders on X, Instagram, INSPO and TikTok.  Let me know your thoughts on Microsoft Agent Mode and Office Agent.

Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in tech.