Microsoft Pushes Into Human-Agent Collaboration Era with Latest M365 Copilot Upgrades

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Following the release of its 2025 Work Trend Index report, Microsoft is rolling out new updates to its Microsoft 365 Copilot app. The new agents and features are aimed at ushering in a new era of human-agent collaboration in the workplace. The release includes access to Microsoft’s Researcher and Analyst agents, integration with OpenAI’s GPT-4o image generation tool, a new AI-powered search feature, and the debut of Copilot Notebook.

One of the more recognizable changes to M365 Copilot is its design. Microsoft says it has updated the app to better “adapt to you.” It now features a minimalist interactive canvas that displays all the features you’ll likely need, while also optimizing the space required to help you focus on the job at hand.

As companies further adopt AI and start building hybrid teams of human workers and AI agents, the software they use needs to adapt to this new collaboration model. The latest updates to M365 Copilot brings in two such agents: Researcher and Analyst. These “first-of-its-kind” reasoning bots were initially introduced in March and aim to help users analyze the copious amount of information spread across their workspace. The former provides multi-step research while the latter functions as a virtual data scientist.

Both the Researcher and Analyst agents will be available to those enrolled in Microsoft’s Frontier program and through the company’s new Agent Store, a marketplace to find partners or custom bots.

And speaking of agents, Microsoft is adding new capabilities to its Control System feature to help IT professionals better oversee and measure bot usage.

As for new features coming to M365, first up is an AI-powered enterprise search tool called Copilot Search. It organizes data across the enterprise, providing rich, context-aware answers from first-party and third-party apps, including ServiceNow, Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, and Jira. It bears similarities to other search engines from Atlassian, Dropbox, and Dashworks.

To fuel workplace creativity, Microsoft is introducing a feature called Create, which brings image generation capabilities to M365 Copilot. Using natural language, users can generate, modify, or customize images that match their organization’s brand guidelines for use in marketing, social media, newsletters, videos, and more.

Lastly, it appears there’s a new notebook feature on the scene. Microsoft is launching Copilot Notebooks, a place to consolidate notes, documents, and data to generate AI-powered insights. It can also process Copilot chats, files, meeting notes, and other sources of information. Could this be a replacement for its OneNote app and a challenger to Google’s NotebookLM?

With these updates, Microsoft is positioning M365 Copilot not just as a productivity assistant but as a connective tool to bridge human work with agentic work. As organizations embrace hybrid workforces that blend people and agents, the company’s moves are intended to help navigate this new operational reality.

“With 53 percent of leaders saying output must increase, people need a central hub for easy collaboration with AI,” Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer for AI at work, says in a statement. “We see Copilot as that hub—your window into the world of agents. And new features like Copilot Search, Notebooks, and the Copilot Control system will streamline the process from idea to execution, all in one place. These updates are not just about releasing new features; they embody our report insights and reimagine how humans and AI will collaborate to transform the work landscape.”

Featured Image: The Microsoft 365 Copilot app—designed to enable people and businesses for human-agent collaboration. Image credit: Microsoft