Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More<\/em><\/p> Microsoft has built the largest enterprise AI agent ecosystem, and is now extending its lead with powerful new capabilities that position the company ahead in one of enterprise tech\u2019s most exciting segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company announced Tuesday evening two significant additions to its Copilot Studio platform: deep reasoning capabilities that enable agents to tackle complex problems through careful, methodical thinking, and agent flows that combine AI flexibility with deterministic business process automation. Microsoft also unveiled two specialized deep reasoning agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot: Researcher and Analyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have customers with thousands of agents already,\u201d Microsoft\u2019s Corporate Vice President for Business and Industry Copilot Charles Lamanna, told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview on Monday. \u201cYou start to have this kind of agentic workforce where no matter what the job is, you probably have an agent that can help you get it done faster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Researcher agent mirrors capabilities from competitors like OpenAI\u2019s Deep Research and Google\u2019s Deep Research, Microsoft\u2019s Analyst agent represents a more differentiated offering. Designed to function like a personal data scientist, the Analyst agent can process diverse data sources, including Excel files, CSVs, and embedded tables in documents, generating insights through code execution and visualization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is not a base model off the shelf,\u201d Lamanna emphasized. \u201cThis is quite a bit of extensions and tuning and training on top of the core models.\u201d Microsoft has leveraged its deep understanding of Excel workflows and data analysis patterns to create an agent that aligns with how enterprise users actually work with data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Analyst can automatically generate Python code to process uploaded data files, produce visualizations, and deliver business insights without requiring technical expertise from users. This makes it particularly valuable for financial analysis, budget forecasting and operational reporting use cases that typically require extensive data preparation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Microsoft\u2019s deep reasoning capability extends agents\u2019 abilities beyond simple task completion to complex judgment and analytical work. By integrating advanced reasoning models like OpenAI\u2019s o1 and connecting them to enterprise data, these agents can tackle ambiguous business problems more methodically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The system dynamically determines when to invoke deeper reasoning, either implicitly based on task complexity or explicitly when users include prompts like \u201creason over this\u201d or \u201cthink really hard about this.\u201d Behind the scenes, the platform analyzes instructions, evaluates context, and selects appropriate tools based on the task requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This enables scenarios that were previously difficult to automate. For example, one large telecommunications company uses deep reasoning agents to generate complex RFP responses by assembling information from across multiple internal documents and knowledge sources, Lamanna told VentureBeat. Similarly, Thomson Reuters employs these capabilities for due diligence in mergers and acquisition reviews, processing unstructured documents to identify insights, he said. See an example of the agent reasoning at work in the video below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n
<\/div>Microsoft\u2019s distinctive Analyst agent<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Deep reasoning: Bringing critical thinking to enterprise agents<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n