Introduced AI Agents into M365 Copilot Notebooks to boost productivity
TIMELINE
2 months
TEAM
2 Designers
1 Product Manager
TOOLS
Figma, Figjam
ROLE
UX Design
AI Interaction Design
OVERVIEW
TL;DR
CHALLENGE
Need a seamless way to interact with AI Agents within existing workflows to improve productivity within Notebooks
APPROACH
Conducted competitive benchmarking, analyzed existing Copilot experiences, customer interviews, collaborated with PMs, and prototyped solutions
SOLUTION
Incorporated AI Agent interactions directly via Copilot Notebooks to help users transition between agent conversations
IMPACT
Conducted 15+ PM interviews in 4 weeks, synthesizing insights into actionable ideas
Explored 5 design solutions and prototyped for further feedback
Earned 100% positive feedback and approval from leadership
CONTEXT
Understanding the Ecosystem
MICROSOFT COPILOT
An AI assistant built into Microsoft 365 that helps users create, analyze, summarize, and complete tasks using natural language.
COPILOT NOTEBOOKS
A focused workspace in Microsoft Copilot where users can bring together relevant files, notes, and sources to organize information and work with AI on a specific topic or project.
Problem Statement
Notebooks are limited to Copilot chats and do not extend to agents, preventing users from bringing agent interactions into their projects and creating gaps in cross-surface continuity.
This leads to inability to save, reference, or build on past agent interactions alongside their project context.
Create a new notebook.
Add files, Copilot pages, and other types of references.
Get focused answers based only on the references added to notebook.
Ask Copilot questions about the content in your notebook.
GOAL
Enable easy knowledge continuity through a richer, more connected workspace in M365 Copilot Notebooks.
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
Discovering user insights
Microsoft's partner companies, including Cohere, S&P Global, LSEG, and others, have their own agents integrated into Copilot, which is built on Microsoft 365 foundational models. However, these companies experience challenges with the Copilot agent due to limitations in interacting with agents within Notebooks.
London Stock Exchange
S&P Global
Autodesk
LexisNexis
Cohere
WHAT'S UP CUSTOMERS?
15 Stakeholder
Interviews
With any project, I start with questions.
Where do customers see the biggest gaps in the current experience?
What would make them want to bring an agent chat into a Notebook?
What is the difference between Copilot chats and agent chats from a user perspective?
We needed explorations and ideas quick. We had to move fast. I got creative with a limited research budget - let's interview the partner company PMs from next door about their B2B needs?
Internal research > No research.
