Microsoft Copilot Agent Mode transforms Office apps into AI-powered productivity collaborator

Microsoft launches "vibe working" in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Microsoft is rolling out a new Agent Mode inside Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint this week. Previously described by Microsoft as "vibe working," the Agent Mode is a more powerful version of the Copilot experience in Office that Microsoft has been trying to sell to businesses. "When we first shipped Copilot, foundation models were not powerful enough to use Copilot to command the applications," admits Sumit Chauhan, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Office Product Group. "This meant Copilot was a passive partner in documents: it could answer questions but missed the mark when it was asked to take action on the canvas directly." The new Agent Mode is designed to better follow commands and edits in documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. "Over the past year, models have made meaningful leaps in instruction following, reasoning, and overall quality, and are now better at handling multi-step edits reliably without losing your intent," says Chauhan. You'll be able to watch the Copilot AI agent work in real time, thanks to a sidebar that shows every step Copilot is taking on a document. In Excel it can make changes directly in a workbook, adding formulas or tables. Agent Mode in PowerPoint can also update existing decks with fresh information and keep the template styling that businesses use. Microsoft is rolling out these new Copilot features as the default experience for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers, and they're also available with Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans.

Microsoft adds uninvited AI co-author to Word docs

Also rolls out agentic Copilot in Excel and PowerPoint, letting 21st century Clippy lend a... hand Microsoft is giving Copilot the power to stop suggesting edits and start making them. The company this week pushed its "agentic" Copilot features into general availability across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, turning the assistant from a sidebar prompt into something that edits documents, tweaks spreadsheets, and builds slides in place "Copilot can now take actions on your behalf across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint," Redmond said, pitching the update as a move toward software that doesn't just respond, but gets on with the job. The feature is on by default, but must be activated by users through a very prominent prompt on the right side. As always, you can turn off Copilot completely by following the instructions on this page. In practice, it's the next step in a strategy that has already seen the AI assistant threaded through Windows, GitHub, and just about every product Microsoft can get its hands on. That approach hasn't exactly been universally loved. Critics - including folks over at Mozilla - have taken aim at what looks a lot like forced integration, arguing that Microsoft is less about "adding features" and more about quietly making Copilot unavoidable. The shift to agentic behavior only adds fuel to that argument. Suggesting a better sentence is one thing, but taking a more active role in rewriting documents or restructuring spreadsheets is another, even if Microsoft frames it as working alongside the user rather than acting independently. Trust is already a sore spot, as recent scrutiny of Copilot's terms has highlighted that the AI may be unreliable and shouldn't be depended upon on for important decisions, even as it is being pushed deeper into everyday workflows. At the same time, admins have found themselves dealing with features turning up unannounced, as automatic deployments pushed Copilot further into enterprise environments, whether they were ready or not. Microsoft says that it has learned from that pushback. The company is emphasizing visibility and control, with users able to review changes and keep a handle on what Copilot is doing. It can also show what it's working on during multi-step edits, rather than leaving users guessing. Redmond added that the "new default experience is already proving more useful in real work..." based on early customer feedback, though whether that feedback reflects the average Register reader is another question. For Microsoft, the move makes sense. If Copilot is going to justify its place - and its price tag - it needs to do more than sit in a sidebar. ®

Microsoft's Copilot just became the productivity collaborator it was promised to be

* Copilot is now agentic by default in Microsoft 365 -- it performs in-app actions, not just chat. * Users report big gains: Excel +67% engagement and +65% satisfaction; Word and PowerPoint stats also rose. * Rollout begins today for Copilot, Premium, Personal, and Family plans; features are still WIP but they're improving tasks. The world of AI is moving at an incredible rate. The chatbots that OpenAI popularised a few years ago are now regarded as old news; pretty much every major company has an LLM you can talk to. Now, the focus is moving toward what's called "agentic AI," where you hand a task to a digital assistant, and it'll do what you say. It goes above simply talking back to you; instead, these agents will perform in-app actions for you as a person would. AI companies are working to make the next best agentic experience, and Microsoft is no different. The company has announced that Copilot is becoming an agent that can do the heavy lifting for you, and it'll become the default experience across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Microsoft wants Copilot to run like OpenClaw, autonomously managing your inbox around the clock It's claws out time for big AI companies. Posts By Simon Batt Copilot for Microsoft 365 can now perform agentic functions by default No need to enable anything fancy As announced on the Microsoft blog, Copilot is becoming an agent by default. This means it won't just hang out in a chatbox beside your Word document; you can actually tell it to perform actions, and it'll carry them out. It'll have access to the tools within Microsoft 365 to get the job done, too; if done properly, it should allow people to simply tell Copilot what they want to achieve and watch as the AI works away. Microsoft shared a little table which shows that people are generally happier with this new agent-based Copilot than the more chatbot-focused one: Application Change in Engagement (tries/user per week) Change in new user retention (% increase) Change in Satisfaction (thumbs up rate) Word +52% +11% +21% Excel +67% +50% +65% PowerPoint +11% +36% +25% If you'd like to give it a go yourself, Microsoft says that Copilot should arrive on your system starting today if you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot, Premium, Personal, or Family plan. And while it's still a work-in-progress, it'll hopefully make creating Excel functions a lot easier than doing them by hand. Microsoft 365 Copilot's new wave of features has been announced, with some nice productivity-boosting tools Claude is coming with, too. Posts By Simon Batt

Microsoft Copilot can now do actual work inside your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files

Microsoft is rolling out a useful feature for Office users this week. The company has introduced Agent Mode inside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, a more powerful version of the Copilot experience that Microsoft calls "vibe working." This is now the default experience for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers. It is also available on Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans. What's Agent Mode in Microsoft Copilot, and how is it different? Until now, Copilot within Office apps has been largely a passive assistant. It could answer questions, but struggled to take direct action inside your documents. Recommended Videos Sumit Chauhan, President of the Office Product Group at Microsoft, acknowledged this gap. She noted that when Copilot first launched, the underlying AI models simply weren't capable enough to command the applications directly. Models have shown significant improvement in instruction following and multi-step reasoning over the past year. Agent Mode is built on those improvements and can now execute complex edits without losing your original intent. What can Copilot Agent Mode actually do in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint? Quite a lot, actually. A sidebar shows you every step Copilot is taking in real time, so you're never left guessing what it changed. In Word, it can draft, rewrite, restructure, and adjust tone. In Excel, it makes changes directly inside your workbook, adding formulas, tables, and visuals to turn raw data into actionable insights. In PowerPoint, it can update existing decks with fresh information while respecting your company's template styling. In fact, early data from Microsoft shows engagement in Excel jumped 67%, satisfaction rose 65%, and new user retention increased 50%. Microsoft says deeper editing for complex workflows and more transparency around changes are next on the roadmap. The company has been making several Copilot-related moves lately, from launching smarter research tools in Copilot Cowork to cleaning up its presence in Windows 11 apps and doubling down on its positioning as a serious productivity tool.