Microsoft Expands Copilot: Agent Mode and Portraits

Microsoft is expanding Copilot with Agent Mode for Excel and Word and an Office Agent in Copilot chat that can autonomously analyze data, run formulas, generate visuals, summarize and edit documents, and create PowerPoint decks as part of a new “vibe working” approach that lets AI perform multistep work while users steer outcomes. Agent Mode can run multistep tasks, evaluate and fix results, and Microsoft says it automatically switches among its latest reasoning models — the company showcased examples using GPT-5 — while Office Agent uses partner models in places (Microsoft previously cited Anthropic models powering parts of Office Agent). Microsoft reported Excel Agent Mode scored 57.2% on the SpreadsheetBench benchmark, outperforming some LLM agents but below human accuracy (71.3%), and it continues to offer a Researcher agent for deep reasoning and transparent explanations. The features are rolling out to Microsoft 365 Copilot Frontier testers and licensed customers, initially web-first with desktop support coming. Microsoft is also testing Copilot 'Portraits' — 40 stylized, real-time avatars built with VASA-1 to give voice chats a face — available to testers (ZDNet reports some Portraits require a $20/month Copilot Pro subscription). A recent Windows 11 update (KB5065789) enhances Copilot-only “Click to Do” on Copilot+ PCs with user-initiated OCR screenshots and contextual AI actions that can run on-device via the NPU to preserve privacy, and Microsoft documents enterprise integration patterns (Copilot Studio with Azure AI Foundry) to host custom agent backends.