Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how Microsoft is integrating AI agents with business applications to transform productivity, based on a conversation with Corporate VP Bryan Goode at AI Agent & Copilot Summit.
Highlights
00:14 — Things are moving fast in the world of agents. I wanted to talk about an interesting conversation I had with a Microsoft executive about how Microsoft is putting agents and applications together, how customers should think about that, and also the pace at which agents are going to surge into the mainstream.
01:04 — Last week, at AI Agent & Copilot Summit in San Diego, I spoke with Microsoft VP Bryan Goode. (You can see the whole video interview with Bryan here later on Cloud Wars.) Bryan said first, to be very intentional with the Copilots. Instead of just saying, “Oh, you know, we’ll try it in IT support or some part of HR,” he said, pick and choose your places.
02:21 — He said be constantly measuring how effective these things have been and also keeping an eye on the behavior of the people around it. You know, what’s made them comfortable? What’s made them uncomfortable? How do you move that forward? He said, “If you’re not in the cloud, you can think about agents all you want—it’s not going to happen.”
03:28 — The seamless interaction with Dynamics 365 has caused some confusion among customers. What Bryan said — and what Microsoft believes — is applications will still play an important part as systems of record, but the front end and primary activity that people use will be less about forms-over-data enterprise applications, and more so with agents.
04:05 — He said there’s a very smooth interplay between agents and Dynamics 365. He said that in the areas where there is a very rapid uptake, that’s where they’re seeing the biggest gains in productivity, the acceleration of operations, just people being able to do things they weren’t able to do before.
