IDC’s 2024 AI opportunity study: Top five AI trends to watch

Microsoft Ignite is our annual event that spotlights the updates and creations that enable customers, partners and developers to unleash the full potential of Microsoft’s technology and change the way we approach work.

This year, we are announcing about 80 new products and features, including new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot, additions to the Copilot + AI stack and new Copilot+ devices offerings. Underpinning each of these innovations is our commitment to security. Since launching our Secure Future Initiative (SFI) one year ago, we have made security the No. 1 job of every employee at Microsoft, dedicated 34,000 engineers to this focus and, at Ignite, we will announce innovations that are rooted in our SFI principles: secure by design, secure by default and secure operations.

More than 200,000 people have registered to join us for this year’s Ignite, with more than 14,000 attendees at our in-person events in Chicago. Attendees can choose from more than 800 sessions, demos and expert-led labs from Microsoft and our partners. Most of the Ignite content will be available on demand for those who can’t attend the live event.

Copilot momentum

Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work, and we have seen the momentum grow as more organizations are moving to Copilot and deploying it to great success. All up, nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot.

That echoes an industry trend: A recent IDC study showed that generative AI is on the rise, with 75% adoption among companies surveyed in 2024. In addition, for every $1 invested, companies are realizing a return of $3.70, and leaders are saying they are realizing as much as a $10 return, according to the study.

The investments that Microsoft has made in Copilot are paying dividends for our customers.

We recently highlighted some of the more than 200 customer stories of accelerated AI Transformation, with Copilot helping many of them spark innovation and transform their organization for the better. Several examples include:

Intelligent power management company Eaton leveraged Microsoft 365 Copilot to help streamline and automate operations, improve data access, centralize knowledge and empower teams to focus on higher-value tasks. One immediate challenge addressed through Copilot focused on the manual, time-consuming documentation process in Eaton’s Finance operations. Copilot helped Eaton document over 9,000 standard operating procedures (SOPs), resulting in an 83% time savings for each SOP.

Consulting firm McKinsey & Company is creating an agent to speed up the client onboarding process. The pilot showed lead time could be reduced by 90% and administrative work reduced by 30%. The agent automates complex processes, such as identifying the right expert capabilities and staffing teams and acts as a single place where colleagues can ask questions and request follow-ups. By streamlining tasks and reducing manual inputs, this agent could potentially save consultants many hours, allowing them to spend more time with clients.

Boosting productivity with Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft is continuing to supercharge productivity with new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot designed to help simplify the workday.

Copilot Actions, now in private preview, enable anyone to automate everyday tasks with simple, fill-in-the-blank prompts, whether it’s getting a daily summary of meeting actions in Microsoft Teams, compiling weekly reports or getting an email upon return from vacation that summarizes missed meetings, chats and emails.

Anyone can easily set up Actions right in their Microsoft 365 app, allowing users to focus on more impactful work, save time and boost productivity

New agents in Microsoft 365 are designed to help scale individual impact and transform business process. At Ignite we will introduce:

Agents in SharePoint: These natural language AI assistants are grounded on relevant SharePoint sites, files and folders to make it easy to find answers from that content, and to make quicker decisions as a result. Now generally available, every SharePoint site will include an agent tailored to its content. Users can also create customized agents scoped to select SharePoint files, folders or sites with as little as one click.

Interpreter: This agent in Teams helps users overcome language barriers by enabling real-time, speech-to-speech interpretation in meetings. Available in public preview in early 2025, meeting participants will also have the option to have the agent simulate their personal voice.

The Employee Self-Service Agent: An agent available in private preview in Business Chat expedites answers for the most common policy-related questions and simplifies action-taking on key HR and IT-related tasks — like helping employees understand their benefits or request a new laptop. It can be customized in Copilot Studio to meet an organization’s unique needs.

Other agents in public preview take real-time meeting notes in Teams and automate project management from start to finish in Planner.