The rise of agentic AI - Microsoft Copilot Studio Tutorial

- [Instructor] Agentic AI has become a key area of development today as it has the potential to transform how we work, collaborate, and learn. To understand that, let's first look at the evolution of AI. From a technology standpoint, artificial intelligence or AI has been around for decades. Early AI solutions were built on rules like a collection of if then conditions. Developers tried to capture how domain experts make decisions and convert their steps into code. This approach remained mainstream for a long period of time. However, it had limited capabilities and applications. A major breakthrough in AI began in the late 1990s with the development of machine learning. Instead of relying on hand coded rules, it can learn from data and improve over time, especially a subset of machine learning called deep learning, powered by artificial neural networks accelerated AI applications. The widespread adoption of AI was triggered by the introduction of generative AI and its applications like ChatGPT. These AI models can generate text, write code, create images, and produce audio and video. People can interact with AI using natural language and get instant responses to their questions. Now, we are seeing the rise of Agentic AI. It can act like an expert to complete complex tasks, work autonomously with minimal human intervention, and continuously improve through learning. From a business perspective, AI has played an increasingly important role. For a long time, AI applications were used as tools for specific tasks like a data classification, patent detection, and the image recognition. With the maturity of generative AI and large language models, AI assistance have become the mainstream. For example, the general purpose assistance like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and the specialized ones like a Microsoft 365 Copilot, Security Copilot, and a Copilot in Azure. People can use a natural language to work with these AI companions to ask questions, generate content, and improve productivity. The AI industry is evolving very fast. Now we are embracing an advanced form of AI called Agents. AI agents go beyond simply answering questions. They can act autonomously to plan, decide, and complete multi-step tasks. More and more enterprises are now creating their custom AI agents to meet their specific business needs. What does the rise of Agentic AI mean to business? Fundamentally, it means business transformation. A business is built upon various processes, for example, product development, sales, and customer support. Traditionally, people are the main actors in running these business processes. With the fast advancement of AI, agents are taking more significant roles in these workflows. The trend is that people are collaborating with agents across many AI-powered processes. Many enterprises are building AI agents to transform their existing business processes in functions like help desk, human resources, marketing, sales, finance, development, management, and security. In this course, we'll use the help desk function to show how to quickly build an AI agent for your business.