Microsoft is reportedly working to transform its 365 Copilot assistant from a tool you interact with into one that works independently on your behalf. It will essentially be an always-on AI agent that monitors users’ inbox, manages their calendar and completes tasks without waiting to be asked.
According to a report by The Information (via The Verge), the company is exploring the integration of OpenClaw-style features into Microsoft 365 Copilot.OpenClaw is an open-source platform that allows users to create AI-powered agents that run locally on a device. In February, ChatGPT maker OpenAI spent billions on hiring Peter Steinberger, the creator of the open-source AI agent OpenClaw.
What Microsoft is building
Omar Shahine, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, confirmed to The Information that the company is “exploring the potential of technologies like OpenClaw in an enterprise context.”
An always-on version of 365 Copilot could, according to sources cited by The Information, continuously monitor a user’s Outlook inbox and calendar and surface a personalised list of suggested tasks each day.Microsoft is also developing role-specific OpenClaw-like agents tailored to particular job functions, including marketing, sales and accounting, each designed with limited permissions that keep them focused on their designated domain and prevent them from accessing unrelated parts of a business’s systems, the report said.
Microsoft reportedly says it is confident it can implement “safer” versions of the tool, though specifics about how those safeguards would work have not been made public. OpenClaw rose in popularity earlier this year, specifically in China. However, it attracted serious security concerns. According to a Bloomberg report, government agencies and state-owned enterprises, including the largest banks, have received notices warning them against installing OpenClaw software on office devices for security reasons. The report said that some of the employees have been instructed to notify superiors if they had already installed related apps. The move, it said is aimed to defuse potential security risks after companies and consumers across China began experimenting with the agentic AI phenomenon.
