Charles Lamanna of Microsoft: AI Agents and Copilots ‘Completely Change’ How We Work
Welcome to this exclusive interview with Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President, Business & Industry Copilot at Microsoft. Lamanna tells Bob Evans, founder, Cloud Wars, how AI completely changes the way we work, Copilots and agents interacting with each other and with people, how proliferating agents impact enterprise applications.
Highlights
Understanding Copilots and Agents (01:02)
Lamanna defines copilots as personal AI assistants that understand how individuals work and communicate. Agents are designed to automate tasks or job responsibilities, focusing on efficiency and completion. He provides examples of copilots helping with documents and emails, and agents handling tasks like expense reports. “The mindset we have is you want a copilot for everyone at work and then you want every team at work to be supported by a group of agents.”
Orchestration and Agent Communication (02:45)
Agents will work together, similar to microservices, with an agent directory to manage interactions. Copilots are seen as the medium for agent-to-person communication, organizing and prioritizing messages. “Just like how in a back-end system you may have services that call into one another to get a job done, agents are going to call into one another to get a job done as well.”
Impact on Business Applications (05:58)
Lamanna explains that agents will significantly reduce data entry and workflows in business applications and business applications (a point recently raised by CEO Satya Nadella) will become like mainframes, running in the background and providing data. He recommends that companies focus on adopting a mindset of using copilots and agents instead of relying solely on business applications. “One thing that comes out very clearly is the amount of spending that is going to happen on business applications is probably flat or declining and instead being replaced and moved over to these AI platforms and AI capabilities. And that’s why you see companies like Salesforce being super nervous.”
Business Value and Transformation (08:02)
Lamanna positions the business value of AI transformation as greater than previous technology shifts. Companies will be driven to adopt AI quickly to stay competitive, with urgency coming from top management. “This is going to completely change how we work because the business value is so large. Revenue growth, cost reduction, individual employee productivity…so that is going to be a forcing function for every company to go through this transformation.”
Balancing Business Transformation and AI Adoption (11:11)
Lamanna advises applying AI to existing business goals and metrics. “If you’re a retailer and you’re all about shrinking costs to be more competitive because the consumer can make lots of choices, go focus on applying AI to shrinkg cost.” If you run a high-end hotel, the focus could be on applying AI to transform guest experience.
Urgency and Adoption of Agents (13:18)
Agents are being adopted rapidly and it will be important for customers to leverage both copilots and agents. Many Fortune 500 companies are already rolling out copilots, and a significant number of organizations have used Copilot Studio to create agents.
Expect to see a mix of pre-built agents, lightweight agents built using managed platforms, and sophisticated agents built with code. Pre-built agents will handle common tasks like meetings and translation, while companies will build many agents for specific business processes. The mix will result in millions of agents, similar to the number of spreadsheets or documents in use. “It’ll be that pervasive in how we work,” he says.
Industry-Specific Agents (17:41)
There will be standard agents for common tasks, domain-specific agents for industries like insurance or healthcare, and company-specific agents for unique business processes. Microsoft will offer a mix of pre-built and custom agents, with a focus on managing and governing them at scale. Microsoft is well-positioned to support this transformation with its comprehensive AI solutions.
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