Quickly, your coworkers in Microsoft Groups may not all be human. Scout, an always-on AI agent introduced at Microsoft’s Build developer conference on Tuesday, can undergo your work messages, calendar, and electronic mail inbox to automate duties, reschedule assembly conflicts, and draft professional-sounding responses.
Microsoft roughly constructed an enterprise agent on high of OpenClaw, the AI instrument that riveted San Francisco’s early adopters in the beginning of 2026. Scout is designed particularly to be an assistant for workplace of us, who can ship instructions straight in Groups as if the agent was a carbon-based coworker.
Scout is a part of Microsoft’s bigger, agent-first transformation, automating how information staff use software and inserting AI assistants into every day workplace interactions. “Your organization basically hires your assistant,” says Omar Shahine, the newly appointed company vp of Microsoft Scout. “The entire level of getting a private assistant is that they are working whenever you’re not working.” So, whilst you’re munching on some Doritos and gossiping subsequent to the workplace merchandising machine, Scout is busy blockading calendar time for subsequent Tuesday’s all-hands assembly and producing speaking factors based mostly on current messages.
Microsoft is launching this function with a small group of consumers, with the hope of increasing entry quickly. Along with the Groups integration, Microsoft can be testing a desktop app for Scout. This app is rolling out right now to subscribers who’ve opted for “frontier” function entry, and it at the moment requires customers additionally to have an lively GitHub Copilot subscription.
If customers inform Scout their targets and preferences, the bot can proactively assign duties. For instance, Shahine instructed Scout at all times to guard dinnertime with the household, so each time a gathering was proposed on his calendar throughout that point, the agent would flag it and mechanically recommend rescheduling choices to your colleagues.
Courtesy of Microsoft
With entry to your electronic mail and messages, the AI agent can try duties tailor-made to your workload. Shahine requested Scout to comb by all his knowledge and make a continuously up to date record of each time somebody makes a promise to him in addition to each time he makes a dedication to another person. Then, Scout can ship reminders to you about open tickets and draft follow-up plans.
Anybody who experiments with Scout ought to count on some tough edges as Microsoft iterates on this agent. Shahine says his Scout—nicknamed Sebastian—despatched an electronic mail the opposite day. “It was only one massive run-on sentence, no formatting.” It’s vital to discover a stability of what duties you are feeling comfy automating away and what must occur below your direct supervision.
Shahine nonetheless sees Scout as finally being a boon to all information staff, particularly those that aren’t as technical and wouldn’t really feel comfy working an agent by the terminal. “Internally our gross sales group might be the biggest and quickest rising group that is utilizing this,” he says.
