Microsoft tests Researcher and Analyst agents in Copilot Tasks

Microsoft appears to be developing a unified “Tasks” feature for Copilot that would consolidate several of its existing agentic capabilities into a single, streamlined interface. Found through analysis of recent Copilot builds, the feature sits in a drop-down menu alongside Projects, another upcoming addition that has recently become functional in internal builds. Tasks would offer two entry points: a freeform “New Task” option and a “Scheduled Task” option supporting one-time, daily, weekly, or monthly execution of prompts.

What makes this particularly interesting is the mode selector, which offers three options: Auto, Researcher, and Analyst. Microsoft already ships Researcher and Analyst as standalone agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, which it made generally available in mid-2025. Researcher leverages OpenAI’s deep research model for multi-step web and work-data investigations, while Analyst uses the o3-mini reasoning model for advanced data analysis with live Python execution.

The new “Auto” mode appears to be a general-purpose agent that can run complex tasks end-to-end, combining browser control capabilities previously available through Copilot Actions with deep research. This consolidation mirrors the agentic direction competitors like OpenAI have taken with ChatGPT, but adds scheduling on top, which could be a meaningful differentiator for productivity-focused users.

The suggested prompts range from generating presentations and summarizing emails to booking hotels and writing formal letters, pointing to broad utility across personal and professional use cases. TestingCatalog tested some of these capabilities and found the output quality for slides and web-based reports to be notably high, representing a substantial upgrade for Copilot subscribers. Within the broader Microsoft ecosystem, Tasks could eventually extend across Windows and Edge, enabling complex automated workflows at the operating system level.

No official release date has been announced, and some elements, such as prompt imagery, still appear unfinished, suggesting the feature remains weeks or more away from a public launch. Microsoft has been steadily pushing Copilot toward autonomous, agent-like behavior throughout 2025 and into 2026, and Tasks appears to be the next logical step in that trajectory, giving subscribers a single place to launch and automate sophisticated AI-driven workflows.