HR and IT service delivery are due for a significant upgrade.
HR and IT services have modernized in the last decade with advancements in case management, service desks, knowledge management, employee portals, and chatbots. Now it’s time to take the next step.
In 2025, employees want a single starting point for their queries across workplace services, whether they’re submitting a parental leave request or trying to connect to VPN. HR and IT teams want a way to scale and align their services and reduce ticketing impact. With the power of AI, technology finally matches need.
The Employee Self-Service Agent, available as part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot license and on a consumption billing basis via Copilot Chat for non-licensed users starting June 2025, represents a transformative leap in HR and IT support. By integrating systems like Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, ServiceNow, and Microsoft SharePoint, including agents like Workday Agent and ServiceNow Now Assist, the Employee Self-Service Agent delivers personalized responses and streamlines essential tasks, reducing friction in support resolution and operational overhead.
We’re learning a lot from our customers in private preview and are excited to bring this solution to market soon.
“HR, IT, Finance...Every function has a list of use cases they are hoping to solve for by connecting to an orchestration agent like ESS. Through Copilot, we think we can improve the digital experience for employees holistically across functions.” - Dave Warren, HR Digital Portfolio Manager, Chevron
"We need one single window where employees can get answers from ServiceNow knowledge articles, Workday, and any public website we connect. The Employee Self-Service Agent makes this vision a reality and is helping us scale across our organization and employee base with reduced effort on our part." - Private Preview Customer
Watch our on-demand session now to see a demo, understand our roadmap, and learn from our expert panel:
Delivering trustworthy responses
To deliver trustworthy responses around key issues for employees, HR and IT teams can balance the support of AI and admin controls to:
- Provide AI-driven, personalized responses from various knowledge sources like SharePoint, public websites, internal files, and enterprise third-party systems like Workday, ServiceNow, and SAP SuccessFactors...and designate specific pieces of knowledge as official answers and sources for compliant guardrails.
- Rely on AI to power the right response at the right time...and configure responses to sensitive HR topics, including the option to hand off to the ServiceNow Now Assist live agent or create an HR ticket, as well as compliance language for organizational disclaimers.
Integrating with existing systems
The Employee Self-Service Agent offers knowledge retrieval and task completion scenarios to key HR and IT enterprise systems directly from within the agent and via agent-to-agent handoff, meeting our customers where they’re at and with the systems they’re dedicated to.
- Employees can retrieve knowledge on benefits like PTO or IT policies via Microsoft-built connectors to SAP SuccessFactors and ServiceNow.
- Employees can retrieve personalized answers to questions from authoritative sources like Workday based on employee context (i.e. role type, geographic location, hire date), and update items like phone number and home address via the Microsoft-built Workday connector.
- Employees can create tickets or update tickets via ServiceNow, SAP SuccessFactors, and Dynamics 365.
For a multi-agent experience, the Employee Self-Service Agent can handoff to the Workday Agent for specialized and complex HR workflows like assistance with composing a peer review or updating your goals, powered by Workday insights. This direct integration maintains data governance and offers a truly connected experience through seamless agent-to-agent interoperability, saving the employee time and boosting productivity. Users can simply state their need and let the agents coordinate amongst themselves to handle the rest.
“ The seamless interoperability between Microsoft’s Employee Self Service Agent and the Workday Agent, powered by Workday Illuminate, provides a great connected experience that meets users where they are. As we look to the future, this next level of agentic interoperability will transform workplace productivity.” - Laila Almounaier, VP Product Management, Workday
Employees can also access ServiceNow Now Assist directly from the Employee Self-Service Agent for scenarios like device ordering.
The Employee Self-Service Agent will also enable handoff to the ServiceNow Now Assist live agent.
“With the agent-to-agent integration of Employee Self-Service Agent and Now Assist, organizations can tap into the strength of ServiceNow’s trusted knowledge and workflows across core business functions - IT, HR, Facilities, Procurement etc,” said Sancho Pinto, Vice President, Product Management, Unified Employee Experiences at ServiceNow. “It empowers employees at our joint customers to get answers and complete tasks faster, while freeing up service teams to focus on more strategic work.”
Creating a single starting point for employees at moments that matter
The Employee Self-Service Agent is designed to create a better experience for employees at key moments in the employee lifecycle for both individual contributors and managers.
This includes pre-built workflows that reduce implementation time and support high-value employee and manager use cases.
Employees want to take action on essential HR and IT tasks-in line without navigating multiple tools and workspaces, and in Copilot Studio, admins can customize the Employee Self-Service Agent to their heart’s content, but don’t have to start from scratch, leveraging the robust topic workflow library for common HR and IT scenarios like parental leave, relocation, and reorgs, for both individual contributors and managers. Admins should feel equipped and confident with all the building blocks they need to fit their organization’s unique needs and workflows.
The Employee Self-Service Agent will expand to additional scenarios including benefits, facilities, and skilling in H2 CY2025, but the possibilities are limitless based on each organization’s unique needs and vendor landscape.
Admins have the flexibility to configure the Employee Self-Service Agent as a single vertical agent and expand to encompass additional verticals as their maturity progresses, as well as the ability to configure the name, icon, and description of the agent, and personalize the landing page prompts.
Benefits and what to do now
Built with advanced AI capabilities and experienced directly within the same intuitive Copilot Chat experience your employees use daily, the Employee Self-Service Agent empowers employees to resolve common queries, access organizational resources, and perform routine tasks without requiring manual intervention from HR or IT departments.
- 24/7 Availability: Employees can access support anytime, ensuring uninterrupted workflows directly within Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and newly redesigned Microsoft 365 Copilot App.
- Streamlined Processes: Simplifies procedures like leave requests, payroll queries, and benefits information retrieval.
- Cost Efficiency: Reduces operational overhead by minimizing dependency on service teams, helpdesk or shared services.
- Customizable Solutions: Can be tailored to meet the specific needs of diverse organizations.
With its intuitive interface and robust functionality, the Employee Self-Service Agent is set to redefine how organizations manage employee support.
Here’s what you can do now:
- Watch our on-demand Microsoft Build 2025 session Boost HR and IT Services Delivery with the Employee Self-Service Agent including a panel with Dave Warren, HR Portfolio Manager at Chevron, Laila Almounaier, VP of Product Management at Workday, and Adam Mason, Chief of Strategy at Benifex
- Check out the other Build sessions where we show up:
- Learn how Microsoft is deploying the agent and learning from our employees in this blog post
