- Microsoft reveals Autopilots, its next generation of AI agents
- Autopilots will work in the background and perform tasks on your behalf.
- Microsoft Scout is the first autopilot to link to your Microsoft 365 apps
Microsoft has announced the launch of Autopilots, a new form of AI agents that can run autonomously in the background, allowing you to focus on the tasks that really matter.
Speaking at Microsoft Build 2026, CEO Satya Nadella introduced Scout, the company’s first Autopilot, similar to the OpenClaw offering, built into Copilot and Microsoft 365.
Autopilots will run in the background, learning how you work and operate, with the ability to take action without prompting and perform tasks independently.
Microsoft Explorer
“You can think of Autopilots as enterprise-grade Claws: they are autonomous, long-lived agents with full enterprise compliance that run on your tenant,” Nadella said.
“They’re a whole new way to reduce work and get you back to doing what you love.”
Users can customize autopilots however they want, including names and speaking styles, as well as full control over their context and memory. They will also be able to set specific permissions and policies for autopilots to follow as well, ensuring they don’t do anything they shouldn’t.
“Today we’re introducing a new category of agents called autopilots,” Microsoft said in a blog post announcing the news. “Autopilots are always-on agents that work autonomously, with their own identity, and act on your behalf.”
Scout will be able to take on a wide number of tasks, including keeping an eye on your Outlook inbox and Teams messages, alerting you to calendar information or specific emails, to monitoring anything that might need your attention, such as helping you prepare for meetings and tasks.
“Scout works where you work… that’s the future of what we think, of the Copilot ecosystem itself,” Nadella added.
Frontier users can try Scout now (Nadella said he was already using it himself) and Microsoft is set to build out the platform in the coming months, adding more agents and also the ability for users to create their own autopilots.
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