Microsoft is testing autonomous AI agents for 365 Copilot that would run in the background around the clock, completing tasks without waiting for user prompts. Omar Shahine, the company's corporate vice president, confirmed the testing, which was first reported by The Information.
The current 365 Copilot works reactively - you ask, it responds. The version being tested would shift to a proactive model: agents that monitor your email, calendar, and documents and take actions on their own schedule. Think auto-drafted meeting summaries, flagged contract deadlines, or follow-up emails sent without you ever opening the app.
The "OpenClaw-style" label refers to the kind of agentic AI - software that can navigate apps and complete multi-step tasks the way a human would, without someone clicking through each step manually. Microsoft's version appears focused on staying inside the Microsoft 365 environment (Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel) rather than taking over a full desktop.
No timeline or rollout plan has been announced. This remains in testing, and Microsoft hasn't said which subscription tiers would get access. For businesses already paying the 365 Copilot premium - which runs well above standard Microsoft 365 pricing - the pitch is obvious: more done without manual prompting. The risk, as with any autonomous agent, is what happens when the AI acts on incomplete context and the mistake lands in someone else's inbox.