The newest wave of “desktop automation” tools look genuinely useful – and materially different from the assistants we’ve gotten used to. Tools like Claude Cowork and agentic browsers such as Perplexity Comet and ChatGPT Atlas don’t just answer questions; they can take actions across your files, tabs, and workflows. That shift changes the risk profile, fast.
Category: AI Agents
How I Cut Drafting RFP Responses from Hours and Days to Minutes with Multi-Agent Orchestration
Responding to RFPs used to feel like running a marathon (it’s just as painful as being on the RFP assessment team) – days of effort, multiple people, and thousands in costs. Recently, I asked myself: Could AI make this easier? What started as an experiment (we are always experimenting with the edge of this technology) with Microsoft’s Agent Framework on a local setup evolved into a multi-agent orchestration system that drafts RFP responses in under 15 minutes.
When Prompts Feel Like Programming Blindfolded
After more than a year, on and off, building agents across LangFlow, Microsoft Agent Framework, and Copilot Studio – from PoCs to my own real-world deployments – one theme keeps nagging at me: prompt debugging feels like a black box adventure.
In traditional software development, you can step through the code, trace errors, and monitor state changes with powerful tools. But with natural language programming? You’re trusting your instructions to a probabilistic model whose reasoning you rarely get to see.
And that changes everything.
Could Microsoft’s Researcher Agent Signal the End of My Copilot Studio M365 Research Agents?
In the ever changing world of enterprise GenAI, the new Researcher Agent functionality in Microsoft 365 Copilot started me questioning whether I should retire my own Copilot Studio developed M365 Research Agent. So, I tested it and really only found one minor flaw (that I couldn’t select sub-folders from SharePoint sites).
RFP Automation and Local AI: What Microsoft’s New Agent Framework (MAF) Means for Business
I’ve been experimenting with Microsoft’s new Agent Framework (MAF) – but instead of connecting to cloud systems, I’ve been running it entirely offline on an Amazon EC2, private cloud, instance. My goal was to see whether this new, unified framework could function offline, be used with offline LLM’s and process PDFs (of RFPs in this case), extract questions, and even draft answers – all without leaving a secure, private environment.
It worked remarkably well. But what’s even more interesting is what this means for organizations on multiple fronts: the ability to run sophisticated Agent workflows locally, maintain full control of data, and start automating complex knowledge tasks such as RFP responses, compliance checks, or policy reviews.
From Cells to Chat – Excel Agent vs. M365 Analyst Agent (Same Boston Crime Stats, Two Very Different Conversations)
Last week I explored the Boston Crime Statistics dataset (~260,000 rows) using Excel Agent Mode, which lives within Excel. This week I revisited the same dataset with the same question using Microsoft’s M365 Analyst Agent – it is a completely different experience.
Both tools analyze data and generate insights, but they differ in how you interact with them and how they talk, and show their work. One keeps you grounded in the familiar grid of Excel; the other lifts you into a conversational workspace (real Conversational Data Analytics) that feels more like working with a colleague than a formula bar.
From Formulas to Conversations: How Excel’s Agent Mode Will Redefine Data Analytics
It used to be great to find others that ‘spoke Excel’ – understood the intricacies of the various lookup formulas or when to use index…match. I have spent some time working with Excel Labs Agent Mode and the ‘old’ Excel world is about to change dramatically.
Excel Agent Mode has arrived as part of Microsoft’s Frontier preview program, and after testing it myself to create survey data for my training courses, I can see this isn’t just another incremental update (spreadsheet link included in Further Reading section below). It might make those ribbon menus obsolete.
2025 Was Supposed to Be the Year of Agents – Is 2026 the Turning Point?
Back in 2024 (it seems so long ago now) I wrote about Agents (links below) and cautioned about how early we were in their evolution. Now, almost a year later we seem to be in a completely different place – brought back to my mind to revisit by the recent announcements from:
– Langflow – releasing v1.6
– Microsoft – consolidating AutoGen and Semantic Kernel into the Microsoft Agent Framework
– OpenAI – releasing AgentKit
Not All Copilot Studio Agents Are Equal: How to Get the Best SharePoint Answers
Imagine giving two employees the same task, but one has all the right tools and the other doesn’t. You’d get very different results. I experienced the same with Microsoft’s Copilot Studio agents – and learned that how you build your AI assistant makes a huge difference in what answers you get from SharePoint.
Agent Flows in Microsoft Copilot Studio: Big Potential, But Handle with Care
As the adoption of Generative AI grows inside the enterprise, automation is entering a new phase, one that blends decision-making, integration, and user interaction in real time. Enter Agent Flows from Microsoft Copilot Studio.