Generative AI (genAI) agents can be seen as the next stage in the evolution of conversational AI assistants such as Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. While AI assistants respond directly to a user’s instructions — such as drafting an email or summarizing a document — autonomous AI agents are triggered by events and can perform more complex, multi-step processes on their own.  

For example, a business could configure an AI agent to respond to the arrival of a customer email. At this point, the AI agent can look up the sender’s account details, check for past communications, and then take a range of actions — such as checking inventory or asking the customer for preferences — on its own. 

There are a wide range of potential use cases, according to Microsoft, with the ability to tailor AI agents to a variety of tasks, from employee onboarding to supply chain automation.