Microsoft launches two research agents ‘Researcher’ and ‘Analyst’ in its AI chatbot app Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft introduces an AI-powered in-depth research tool that is being added to Microsoft 365 Copilot. Researcher and Analyst help users solve problems and can self-check. These are important skills for in-depth research on a specific topic. The research agents will be rolled out from April to customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as part of a new “Frontier” program.
In-depth research
Microsoft certainly hasn’t reinvented the wheel with its new research tool. Other AI chatbots already have a tool for in-depth research, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Now Microsoft is also stepping up with two new research agents: Researcher and Analyst. These agents are powered by reasoning AI models that have the ability to think through problems and self-check.
“They analyze vast amounts of information with secure, compliant access to your work data – your emails, meetings, files, chats and more – and the web to deliver highly educated expertise on demand,” Microsoft said in the announcement.
Researcher and Analyst
“Researcher combines OpenAI’s in-depth research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advanced orchestration and deep search capabilities,” the company said. Additionally, Researcher can use third-party data through connectors to provide more capabilities or expanded insights. It can retrieve data from external sources including Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Confluence.
Analyst is built on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model and is said to be able to perform advanced data analyses. The tool iteratively works through problems and takes steps to refine thinking to provide detailed answers to questions. Furthermore, Analyst is capable of executing the Python programming language.
Researcher and Analyst will be rolled out from April to customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as part of a new “Frontier” program.