Custom Engine Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot

on
Agents in BizChat has been available for some time already, but now there is an upcoming update to Agents. The introduction of “ custom engine agents ” in Microsoft 365 Copilot! These specialized agents can be built on any large language model (LLM), toolchain, or orchestration tool, tailored specifically for your domain or tenant workflows. Initially supported in Microsoft Teams, this feature will soon be available in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat ( BizChat ).   The introduction of Custom engine agents enables your organization to create customized experiences using your own AI systems and orchestrators. You can design unique prompts, connect to any LLM, and integrate these custom agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot. After the rollout, users will be able to access these agents, provided they are enabled and deployed in the Microsoft 365 admin center under the Copilot tab.   You can read more about the feature on this page . Eligible users can create agents using Micros...

A couple of favorite picks from the Admin Center in August

on

Features in Teams are being rolled out at a really high speed these days, and I am a little behind on sharing my thoughts on them. So here is my summary of what I think are some of the important updates coming soon.

Microsoft Lists in Teams:
The release of Microsoft lists is going to be available on many platforms, and also Teams. The feature will be available by default for all users, channels and teams, unless policies are in place to restrict access. A user will have a mix of lists, both personal and related to different channels and teams. I recommend you share this link with your organization, to prepare for what will be coming in September and October: Get started with Microsoft Lists

New calling and meeting experience:
One of the biggest changes this summer, was the preview release of new calling and meeting experience. This will probably be a default setting (according to earlier posts), but if you want to experience some of the new great features you need to turn them on yourself.

Click on your avatar, and select "settings". Within the settings, you will have to check the box next to "Turn on new meeting experience (New meetings and calls will open in separate windows. Requires restarting Teams.)" and restart Teams.

After you've done this, multiple things will be available:

  • All new calls and meetings will pop out in a separate window, so you can easily access meeting notes or other relevant information in the regular Teams window without minimizing the call.
  • Large gallery view (up to 49 streams, available for selection once 10 participants have joined with video)
  • Together mode. A new mode where you get to see everyone as if they were seated in an auditorium.
  • Meeting controls are moved away from the middle of the video feed to a separate bar at the top.
Read more about these features and more at the TechCommunity These features should already be available in most tenants.

Speaker attribution in Live Captions:
Live caption is getting an improvement that will help identify who said what during a meeting. Rolling out by the end of August, this feature will list the speaker's name in front of the captions printed on screen.