Microsoft has launched a new suite of AI agents within Teams, including the Facilitator, Channel, and Community agents, designed to enhance collaboration by managing meetings, organizing content, and supporting community interactions.

The Facilitator agent, now generally available, can participate in Teams meetings to create agendas, take notes, track decisions, assign follow-ups, and even re-arrange agendas based on participant input, seamlessly integrating with the Project Manager agent for task management.

This AI-driven collaboration ecosystem also introduces a redesigned Workflows tool for automations and a new feature for generating audio meeting recaps, both currently in preview, as part of Microsoft's broader strategy to embed AI assistants across its products.

Microsoft emphasizes an agent-centric workplace, aiming to automate workflows and reshape collaboration, even amid regulatory challenges like the recent EU antitrust settlement that required unbundling Teams from Microsoft 365.

Developers can now access the Teams AI Library for JavaScript and C# to build custom intelligent agents, with a preview of a GitHub app that translates conversations into code and pull requests.

SharePoint's Knowledge Agent helps organize, tag, and summarize project files, providing authoritative answers with citations, while community agents support community managers by reviewing interactions and drafting responses.

Community agents within Viva Engage assist community admins and answer user questions, functioning similarly to other AI agents to facilitate knowledge sharing.

Despite regulatory hurdles, including the EU settlement that imposed strict sales obligations, Microsoft’s AI push is seen as a strategic move to foster fair competition and innovation in workplace collaboration.

Users can easily access these AI tools via mobile, enabling spontaneous interactions during meetings or hallway chats with a single tap, thus boosting productivity.

These AI agents support a wide range of collaboration tasks, including summarizing conversations, drafting plans, scheduling, and coordinating within channels, meetings, and communities, all while maintaining enterprise security.

During product launches like 'Project Pluto,' these agents assist at every stage, from planning and meetings to execution, ensuring smooth workflows and active AI support.

The Community Agent enhances knowledge sharing by reviewing past interactions, drafting responses, and offering options for auto-posting or review, aiming to keep community discussions active and accurate.

These AI features are currently rolling out to Microsoft 365 Copilot users, expanding AI integration across Microsoft 365 apps, with the Facilitator for Teams meetings now generally available.