Copilot Tasks: What is agentic AI feature Microsoft CEO Mustafa Suleyman says ‘it talks less and does more’

Microsoft has unveiled a AI capability called Copilot Tasks, an AI agent that the company says can perform tasks like scheduling appointments to generating study plans on users’ behalf while they works on other things. The feature is currently available to a limited group of testers through a research preview, with a public waitlist open on Microsoft's website.Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft’s AI unit says that AI is new way to get things done. We've been working on a whole new way to get things done: Copilot Tasks. AI that talks less and does more, no complicated setup or coding skills required. Just ask for what you need and Copilot will take it from there, like:- Turn a syllabus into a complete study plan, with practice tests created and focus time blocked before each exam- Track new apartment rental listings nearby every Friday and book showings- Every evening, surface urgent emails with draft replies ready to send, and automatically unsubscribe from promotional mails I never openWe’ve opened it up as a Research Preview to a small group of testers.According to Microsoft, unlike a conventional chatbot that responds to prompts and leaves the rest to the user, Copilot Tasks is designed to take action. Users can describe what they need in simple language, and the system handles the rest. Whether it is a one-time job or a recurring schedule, it runs in the background using Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and delivers a summary once the task is complete.Microsoft has outlined several examples of what Copilot Tasks is capable of. It can take a course syllabus and turn it into a full study plan, complete with practice tests and focus time blocked out ahead of each exam. According to the company, the AI agency can even monitor nearby apartment listings every week and book viewings automatically. One of the problems it can solve is surface urgent emails each evening with draft replies ready to send, and unsubscribe from promotional emails the users never open. Most importantly, the company says that the system will ask for permission before taking actions that carry more significant consequences, such as sending messages or processing payments.Copilot Tasks is Microsoft's clearest entry yet into the Agentic AI race where companies like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have already been developing tools capable of browsing the web and completing multi-step tasks with minimal human input.