Microsoft claims that the agents “do your work” and will create high-quality Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Vibe coding seems to be the new buzzword among developers. Microsoft wants to extend that experience to all employees and is therefore launching the new Agent Mode in Office applications and Office Agent in Copilot Chat.
Automating with AI
Anyone can write a document, but there are many more advanced features that Word offers. The agent can assist with this, such as drafting content or making changes to existing documents based on user input. Microsoft states that writing in this way feels more like a conversation rather than a task. This results in “faster iteration, better ideas, and a more engaging writing experience,” as noted in the announcement.
In Excel too, the advanced features are “made accessible to virtually everyone.” A user can ask the agent to analyze sales data and present it visually with a list of key insights. Then, it shares the steps it took to achieve the result.
More Accessible than Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot could already perform many of the functions, but the new agent is said to be much more accurate. This is because it has access to the latest reasoning models from OpenAI. In internal tests like SpreadsheetBench, it achieved an accuracy score of 57.2 percent, compared to 18.4 percent for Copilot in Excel.
Office Agent in Copilot Chat
Additionally, there is the Office Agent to create Word documents or PowerPoint presentations directly via Copilot Chat. Excel creation will also be added soon, writes Microsoft. Office Agent conducts research on the web to create the requested document and reveals its ‘chain of thought.’ Once the document is ready, the user can request changes to be made.
Both the Agent Mode in Word and Excel and the Office Agent are available from today for business customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license through the Frontier Early Access program. An Agent Mode for PowerPoint will also be available soon. Individual users with a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription can also use the new tools.