Microsoft has revealed Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2, a series of new generative AI-based office productivity tools which are equipped with autonomous and semi-autonomous AI agents and AI content editing features. The latest features in Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 are Copilot Pages, new AI functions within Office and Copilot Agents .
Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Copilot Pages Enhancements
Copilot Pages is dubbed by Microsoft as a “dynamic canvas” that displays all editable and shareable files within Business Chat. As an AI-driven work field, Copilot acts as an organizer of all work. Copilot Pages takes AI-generated content and enables users to edit, add to it and share it with others. Team members can collaboratively work in Pages. During the virtual Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 event on Monday, Microsoft also revealed that Copilot in Excel is available generally. The feature allows users to work with data that hasn’t been formatted as a table and work with text and numerical data. Microsoft also introduced Copilot agents- AI assistants that automate and execute business processes while working with and for humans. In Copilot studio – a low code tool that allows enterprises to create custom Copilots -users can now build Copilot agents with Agent Builder. Customers can also create a Copilot agent in Business Chat (BizChat) or SharePoint. BizChat is a central hub that brings users’ data into workflows. Copilot now operates on OpenAI’s GPT-4o large language model. The tech-giant plans to add the new OpenAI o1 model in the coming future. Also Read: OpenAI Releases o1-Series AI Models, Better At Reasoning “Copilot is becoming this new enterprise orchestration layer,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the virtual event. “Yesterday’s bespoke interactions with siloed business applications will just simply become Copilot agents.” 
Microsoft said 400 million people use Copilot presently and that the daily number of users is doubling quarter-over-quarter, which the fastest adoption rate in the Microsoft 365 suite. The new features and capabilities coming in Copilot Wave 2 are:
- Copilot Pages- bridge between the browser version of Copilot search and an online canvas.
- Copilot in Excel, including XLOOKUP and PivotTables.
- Copilot in Excel with Python coding.
- Narrative builder in PowerPoint-creates first drafts of presentations from prompts.
- Brand manager in PowerPoint that allows Copilot work within brand templates.
- Copilot in Teams- allows access to meeting chats in addition to audio.
- “Prioritize my inbox” with Copilot in Outlook.
- Enhancements to Copilot in Word- enables AI to pull information from external files and place a floating prompt box in the Word document.
- Copilot in OneDrive to field queries about documents and compare files.
- Copilot agents- created in either Microsoft Business Chat or SharePoint- which can be connected to various business processes and automatically perform tasks.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Availability
Copilot Pages will be available later in September, including for users of the free Microsoft Copilot who sign in with a Microsoft Entra account. Copilot in Excel with Python is in public preview. Copilot in Teams is available now. Both the “Prioritize my inbox” feature with Copilot in Outlook and Copilot in OneDrive will be launched by the end of September. An agent builder will be available in Business Chat over the coming weeks, with agents and the agent builder slated for debut in SharePoint in preview by early October. Microsoft will widen its AI offerings in 365 Copilot Wave 2 all through the fall.
