Blog Post

Microsoft Mechanics Blog
8 MIN READ

New agents and Copilot Chat for frontline staff

Zachary-Cavanell's avatar
Zachary-Cavanell
Bronze Contributor
Apr 10, 2025

Stay productive and connected with AI-powered experiences for frontline workers using Android and iOS devices to quickly sign in, manage tasks, find information, and collaborate with team members.

Stay productive and connected with AI-powered experiences for frontline workers using Android and iOS devices to quickly sign in, manage tasks, find information, and collaborate with team members. Easily access essential resources, check inventory, and get instant answers from Copilot Chat and AI agents that you can build in SharePoint and Microsoft Copilot Studio. Microsoft 365’s latest device experiences take frontline productivity and customer interactions to the next level — from improving customer interactions to managing worksites. 

Avery Salumbides, Microsoft 365 Frontline Product Manager, demonstrates key updates across Microsoft Teams, Copilot, and AI agents on mobile, plus essential admin setup considerations to equip your frontline.

Secure, fast sign-in.

Less downtime and more time helping customers. See Microsoft 365’s latest AI-powered device experiences for frontline workers.

Manage tasks without leaving Teams.

Prioritize, track, and complete tasks in one seamless experience with Microsoft 365 Frontline. Get started.

Answer customer questions with AI-powered Copilot Chat.

Access policies and store info without searching through files. Check out Microsoft 365 Frontline.

Watch our video here.

QUICK LINKS: 

00:00 — Microsoft 365 AI-powered and Android and iPhone experiences

00:30 — Demo- Frontline worker experience 

01:07 — Streamlined Task Management in Teams and using your own apps

02:34 — Use AI with Copilot Chat and agents to access information 

05:13 — Connect with peers and translate conversations in Microsoft Teams 

06:17 — Shift management & scheduling — even with nearby locations 

06:48 — How to get it running in Microsoft 365 admin center 

08:05 — Information access and setting up QR + PIN in Microsoft Entra 

09:20 — Wrap up

Link References 

Get started at https://aka.ms/M365Frontline

Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics? 

As Microsoft’s official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft. 

Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social: 


Video Transcript:

-Frontline workers play a crucial role in every industry. Whether they’re interacting with customers or managing a work site, they need to be able to get things done efficiently and effectively. And today, I’ll show you Microsoft 365’s latest AI-powered and device experiences, which are designed to take frontline worker productivity and customer interactions to the next level. Followed by an overview of the key admin considerations for setup. 

-Let me start by making this real, by walking you through the experience from the perspective of a store associate in a bike shop. I’m on a shared device. In this case, a phone. And with Microsoft Teams open, the first thing I’ll show you is how we’re making the sign in experience a lot simpler. To sign in, I can quickly scan the QR code on my employee badge using the camera. Now, I’ve never signed into this specific device before, but by entering my unique PIN, I’m almost instantly securely signed in to my account with information personalized to me all on my dashboard, and I’m ready to kick off my shift. Right from the start, it’s a tailored experience, with quick access to the information I need. 

-So, let’s start my shift. From the same dashboard, I’ll open up my assigned tasks. These are listed in order of priority, so it’s easy to see what requires my attention first. If I need more information, I can just click on a task to see more details. Let’s take a closer look at this recall notice on the Thunderbolt 300 eBike. I can view an internal note, highlighting the urgency of this task. And as I scroll down, I can even access related files from the manufacturer, like this Thunderbolt Recall Notice PDF, which has all the specifics. Now that I’m up to speed, I can view a checklist of actions that summarizes the steps to help customers with the recall. And because the list is interactive, I can work down it and check off items as I complete them. 

-Once I’m finished, I can request approval from the person supervising this task. In this case, my manager. So, I’ll add Adele. And once I submit, she’ll get the request. Then, moving back to the main view, I can move on to my next high-priority task, Floor Walk. This task is linked to an internal custom app that guides me through the steps to prepare our store for opening. What I just showed for the Floor Walk was created using Power Apps, but you can integrate with any web-based tasking solution to complete tasks without needing to leave the Teams app. 

-Next, let’s take things a step further by showing how AI makes essential information more accessible while I’m working. Where, even if I’m new to the job, whenever I’m stopped to answer customer questions, I can easily reach the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat experience right from Teams and get help with my responses. For example, today, I need help answering a question that we get a lot, whether the store is open on a specific public holiday, in this case, July 4th. So, I’ll enter that question and submit. And Copilot responds that the store will open with limited hours, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM on July 4th for the U.S. Independence Day holiday. It’s a secure way of finding public information available deep within our website. And the Copilot Chat experience is included with Microsoft 365 Frontline. 

-Now, maybe I want to ask a question that requires information from internal documentation beyond the web. From within Copilot Chat, I can see AI agents created by my organization, which can access information on our organization’s intranet or SharePoint. I’ll pull up our Fabrikam Q&A assistant. This time, I want to answer a customer question about returning an item. So, I’ll ask my agent about Fabrikam’s return policy for a custom Adventure Works bike seat purchased 23 days ago. So, I’ll submit my prompt. This is a pretty complex return question, so you’ll see my agent is combing through internal documents. In this case, it’s able to generate an answer based on relevant information it has retrieved from our official return policy hosted on our internal SharePoint site. It translates complicated policy language into an easy-to-understand response, so I can share with the customer that they can return the seat for a full refund as long as it’s unused within 30 days. 

-Now, maybe I have another question that requires access to information stored in systems of record, like my inventory or CRM systems. Let’s say another customer likes one of the eBikes on the floor but wants to know if it’s available in black. Using our Inventory Agent, we can check how many of these eBikes are available in black across all Fabrikam locations. And it looks like there are a few available. Notice how even though I specified the color black, because semantic search is built into Copilot, the agent was able to connect the dots presenting options for bikes available in carbon or matte black in the Bellevue, Tacoma, and Everett stores. And this information was directly sourced from our Dynamics 365 store inventory system using Actions, more on that in a second. 

-So far, I’ve been focused on independently solving my information needs, but I also need to easily connect with my colleagues when I need help, and this is where Microsoft Teams really shines. Using group chats, I just need to @ mention a tag group of people, like I’m doing here, with @sales to bring up all sales associates on shift. In this case, Emily and Grady. Right now, I need help with a load out for a customer, so it’s important that I only ask the people present and on shift. I’ll write my message. And since the customer is waiting, I’ll also tag this as urgent. Pretty quickly, you’ll see that Grady is here and ready to help, letting me know that he’s on the way to the loading dock. 

-There’s also built in real-time translation in more than 100 spoken languages, which is great when there are different languages spoken on the team. From my team chat, I can easily translate chat replies in line, and you’ll notice that it’s auto-detected the language. This lets me communicate knowing that everyone on my team will understand my messages in their native. or preferred language. And before I wrap up for the day, another thing that I can do directly for Microsoft Teams is manage my shifts. In this case, I want to pick up an extra shift next week, and I can even view available shifts in nearby locations. I’ll volunteer for this shift in the Everett store next week, and this will be requested in the system for manager approval. So, from the start to the end of my shift, everything I needed, finding the right info, connecting with my team, and managing my shifts and tasks, was right at my fingertips. And with that, let’s switch gears to what’s needed to get many of these experiences up and running from an IT perspective. 

-First, as prerequisites, your frontline team needs to be assigned the right services in Microsoft 365. Again, what we showed earlier with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat does not require an additional Copilot license. Next, for Copilot controls in your mobile and web apps to be discoverable, you’ll start in the Copilot Control System Settings tab and pin Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. This makes Copilot discoverable within Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Copilot apps and web experiences for mobile, PC, and Mac. The recommended setting is the top one to pin Copilot Chat to the navigation bar. Then, for the agents to appear in Copilot Chat, as I showed before, you can keep the default for all users, or pinpoint the exact groups or individuals to make the agents discoverable so that they can easily access the agents you build. 

-Since agents used within the included Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat follow pay-as-you-go billing, there is an option for no upfront commitment and you only pay based on what you use. And you can set that up from right here. With that, let’s move on to information access. With Copilot Chat, you have control over what information is surfaced to frontline users. That’s because the agents you build can only retrieve information that the user has permission to view. For example, here’s our shared store policies and document site. In site settings, under Site permissions, you’ll see that store staff only has visitor rights, allowing read-only discovery and consumption of content in this document library. Only site members and owners can upload or edit information here. 

-And for the agent I showed with access to the inventory system in Dynamics 365, this can also be controlled by the IT team. Using data policies in the Power Platform admin center, you can configure, block, or allow connections to more than 1,300 common services that your agent authors will use. Finally, I demonstrated the easy sign-in experience using a QR code with PIN to securely authenticate into shared devices and manage mobile apps. This can be configured as an authentication method in Microsoft Entra, as you’re seeing here. Where you can enable this, as well as define the users and group scoped for this method. 

-All the capabilities I’ve shown you here today with Microsoft 365 Frontline are available now. To find out more, check out aka.ms/M365Frontline. Keep watching Microsoft Mechanics for the latest updates, and thanks for watching.

 

Updated Apr 02, 2025
Version 1.0
No CommentsBe the first to comment