Microsoft has introduced Agent Mode in Word and Excel, a new AI-powered capability designed to transform how users create documents and analyse spreadsheets. Alongside this, a dedicated Office Agent in Copilot chat can now generate Word documents and PowerPoint presentations directly from conversational prompts. Keep reading to find out more about this new announcement.
AI-Powered Productivity in Office 365
Built on OpenAI GPT-5, Agent Mode allows users to turn simple text prompts into fully structured reports, financial analyses, or other complex documents. By interpreting existing content and executing multi-step tasks with validation checks, it ensures higher quality outputs while streamlining workflows.
In testing, Agent Mode for Excel achieved a 57.2% accuracy rate on the Spreadsheet Bench benchmark, a marked improvement over previous AI tools, though still below the 71.3% accuracy typically reached by human experts.
The Concept of ‘Vibe Working’
“Vibe working” is Microsoft’s vision for a new way of interacting with Office tools. Inspired by vibe coding, which allows developers to build apps through conversational prompts, vibe working enables users to create and refine documents, spreadsheets, and presentations simply by chatting with AI.
These capabilities offer clear benefits: they simplify complex tasks, save time, and allow users to produce professional outputs with minimal effort. However, organisations should remain cautious, particularly in areas like finance or legal work, where verifying AI-generated content remains essential.
Office Agent in Copilot Chat
Microsoft’s new Office Agent in Copilot takes a slightly different approach. Powered by Anthropic’s Claude AI, it can also generate Word and PowerPoint files from prompts, researching publicly available data to produce outputs.
Unlike Agent Mode, Office Agent does not perform step-by-step planning or iterative validation, but it represents a significant improvement over earlier OpenAI-based document generation features, which were often inconsistent.
Availability
Currently, Agent Mode is available in the web versions of Word and Excel via the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot customers and Microsoft 365 Personal/Family subscribers. Support for native desktop apps is expected soon. Meanwhile, Office Agent in Copilot is currently available to US-based Microsoft 365 Personal and Family users.
If you’d like to find out more about this announcement or any information about Copilot, contact our team who can help.
