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Microsoft has unveiled AI-powered agents for Office, saying such tools will be to knowledge workers what AI coding tools are to software engineers.
In other words, welcome to “vibe working”.
In a blog post, Sumit Chauhan, Corporate Vice President for Office Product Group at Microsoft, compared the new agentic AI tools to vibe coding, the idea that AI is so good at writing apps that someone with little skills could have an idea, write a prompt, and let AI do the software engineering.
In short, you need never again stare at a blank document wondering how to start.
“In the same way vibe coding has transformed software development, the latest reasoning models in Copilot unlock agentic productivity for Office artifacts,” said Chauhan. “Get started with a simple prompt and then work iteratively with Copilot — steering it as it orchestrates multi-step tasks to deliver high-quality Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.”
She added: “It’s the new pattern of work for human-agent collaboration.”
Vibe working is enabled by two Microsoft products: Agent Mode in Excel and Word, which brings agentic AI directly to those Office apps; and Office Agent, which creates PowerPoints and Word documents directly from the Copilot chat.
Essentially, it means you can now use an AI agent in Office apps, and also use Office apps — or basic aspects of them — in the AI chatbot.
Agent Mode helps bridge the gap between skilled users and those just getting to grips with Excel, Chauhan said, adding that “the full power of Excel is available only to expert users. Agent Mode changes that.” Sorry Excel power users, you’re not special any longer.
Powered by OpenAI’s latest reasoning models, the aim is for Agent Mode to open up access to more advanced capabilities. Give the Copilot agent a prompt — Microsoft suggests everything from financial reports for a shop, to analysing sales data and producing a chart, and even producing a personal household budget — and it will decide which formulas to use, make new sheets where necessary, and create data visualisations such as charts.
“Copilot shares a full summary of insights gathered and validation steps taken so you can continue to iterate with Copilot on the output,” Chauhan noted.
In Word, Chauhan said Agent Mode “turns document creation into vibe writing, an interactive, conversational experience.” So long, writer’s block, hello chatting with bots.
Give Copilot a prompt — Microsoft suggests updating a monthly report, cleaning up an existing document, and summarising a data set like recent customer feedback — and the AI agent will draft content, suggest edits, and ask “clarifying” questions to guide the results.
“Copilot makes suggestions to keep the process flowing, so writing feels more like a dialogue than a task,” Chauhan said. “You focus on intent; Copilot brings it to life with Word’s native styles and polished formatting.” In short, all documents will start to look and read the same.
Agent Mode in Copilot for Excel and for Word remain previews and are available for anyone signed up to the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers, as well as Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers. So far, it’s web-only, but a desktop version is on the way. Head here to try out the Excel tool, and click here for the Word version. Microsoft said Agent Mode for PowerPoint was coming soon.
But why harsh your vibes by even opening an app? Office Agent in Copilot — which uses Anthropic’s models, rather than OpenAI — enables PowerPoints and Word docs to be created directly in the chatbot.
“PowerPoint is one of the most used tools for creating presentations, but over the last two years, AI has often fallen short when creating slides,” Chauhan admitted. “Office Agent changes that. Office Agent creates tasteful, well-structured PowerPoint decks and well-researched Word documents.” (That said, it’s unclear who is the arbiter of taste when it comes to slide decks.)
To use it, give the Office Agent in Copilot chat a prompt, asking it to create a deck or document. The bot will first clarify what you need — asking about focus, target audience, length, and so on — before hitting the web for “deep” research. Then, it will pull that together into a presentation, which can be subsequently revised or tweaked with Office Agent, or passed off to the full PowerPoint app.
Office Agent is now available in the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers based in the US, again on the web only and so far only in English. Microsoft promised expanded access soon. Find out how to get started here.
