Leveraging Partner Apps to Deliver on the Promise of AI-Led Productivity

The emergence of generative AI is prompting a rethinking of what we expect from productivity software. From improving efficiency to further enhancing employee engagement to unleashing creativity and innovation. As our understanding of the key scenarios and use cases for this technology rapidly evolves, expectations are rising and growing rapidly.

We expect businesses of all sizes to leverage a variety of tools and customizations to meet their specific needs and realize the potential of AI-enhanced productivity, and an ecosystem of options is emerging to meet these challenges. On Monday, September 16, we shared: Update We’re building the capabilities offered by Microsoft 365 Copilot, introducing the Copilot Agent, and announcing a new, streamlined agent builder experience powered by Copilot Studio. This article provides an overview of how Microsoft 365 customers are leveraging partner tools and apps as part of a broader approach to productivity, and how Microsoft is working to provide interoperability for these solutions across key Microsoft 365 surfaces.

Supporting the ecosystem of Gen-AI productivity apps

The market for generative AI productivity solutions has grown exponentially in the number and sophistication of available products over the past few years. Microsoft is committed to providing developers and customers with flexibility and choice when trying and deploying generative AI tools alongside Microsoft 365 applications, and to supporting a robust marketplace where customers can discover and adopt a wide range of third-party solutions to meet their needs. Developers can create customized and integrated experiences across Office, Outlook, and Teams, leveraging a broad range of interoperability options within Microsoft 365 and Office 365 apps and services. The Microsoft Teams Store and Microsoft AppSource help create a vibrant ecosystem where customers get a wide range of solutions and partners get a platform to innovate and grow their businesses. Microsoft Teams alone supports more than 1,400 third-party apps, and monthly usage of third-party apps within Teams has grown more than 10X in the last two years.

Partner Highlights, AI in Office (Word) – Harvey.ai

Harvey, the leading AI-powered professional services platform, has developed an integration with Microsoft Word specifically for legal, tax, and financial services. The new Harvey integration helps users draft, analyze, and research documents using natural language guidance and AI-powered experiences directly in Word.

Partner Highlights, AI in Office (Excel) – Datasnipper

DataSnipper, a generative AI software startup that automates critical tasks for accountants and auditors, has tightly integrated with Microsoft Excel. DataSnipper’s unified product experience streamlines manual steps like data entry and validation for audit and finance teams with intelligent automation directly in Excel.

Partner Highlights, Microsoft 365 Copilot – Moveworks

Moveworks integrates with Microsoft 365 Copilot to make it easier for employees to perform everyday tasks and get the help they need, when and where they need it. By providing a collaborative experience across two GenAI assistants, mutual customers can streamline complex processes and transform user workflows.

Integrate AI apps into Microsoft 365

There are several ways that Microsoft customers can integrate third-party AI tools into Microsoft 365 applications. In some cases, customers and partners can choose to build on or extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with extensions or custom agents using Copilot Studio or Azure AI Studio. Customers can integrate third-party AI applications directly into Microsoft 365 applications, such as Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 apps, through the App Store interface. IT administrators can also find and deploy apps in the Microsoft admin center and Teams admin center.

Add third-party apps to Microsoft 365 in a few simple steps

Users can see all apps available for Teams in the Teams app store in the Teams desktop or web client.

Open a Microsoft 365 app.: In Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 apps, you can access the app store via the app icon in the left navigation rail.

Search Apps: Use the top banner or search bar to find a specific app, or browse categories and popular recommendations to discover new tools. Click on an app to see its description, ratings, and user reviews.

Installation and Fixation: When Add Apps is enabled, users can simply click “Add” to install an app. To pin an app to the left navigation rail in Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 apps for easy, ongoing access, users can right-click the app icon and select “Pin.” Users can then drag and drop pinned apps to reorder them according to their preference.

Manage apps for your organization

The Microsoft 365 admin center and Teams admin center provide a wide range of features and controls to ensure that Microsoft and third-party apps are used according to your organization’s needs and preferences. Key examples of these controls include:

• Copilot Agent Management Apps in the Unified Apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center. Administrators can enable, disable, assign, block, or remove Copilot agents for their organization and manage Copilot features and data privacy.
• Pin third-party apps to your left navigation rail and extend functionality across Outlook by integrating different elements supported by each Microsoft 365 app. teamMicrosoft 365 apps.
• Configure organization-wide app settings to control whether users can install third-party apps and override all other app permission policies.
• Manage your app subscriptions, including activating third-party apps through the third-party publisher portal before assigning them to your users.

Additional interoperability options with Microsoft 365

Microsoft provides additional ways to connect with partners, ISVs, and third-party data sources through Microsoft 365. The Microsoft Commercial Marketplace supports organizations’ needs to purchase innovative vendor solutions while meeting their business needs. Microsoft AppSource Already hosting thousands of apps, millions of end users rely on these tools to improve their workflows and productivity every day. AppSource is best for standalone purchases or Microsoft 365 or Power BI applications, providing developers with efficient distribution and reach, and access to our product catalog. https://appsource.microsoft.com/ Or through in-product experiences in Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform.

For services outside of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Graph connectors enable organizations to index content from on-premises or cloud-based data sources into Microsoft Graph. Microsoft Graph connectors enable third-party content to participate in a variety of Microsoft 365 experiences in Search and Copilot for Microsoft 365 and be used in Microsoft 365 apps while respecting appropriate permissions. User queries for information are always resolved at runtime, so users only see what they have access to. We’re excited to announce that starting September 20, 2024, Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions will receive an index of 50 million items per tenant at no additional cost for data ingested through Microsoft Graph connectors. This change removes the previous index quota entitlement per license and also removes additional costs for additional quotas. Learn more about Microsoft Graph connectors and how to get started. here.

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As the landscape of generative AI continues to evolve, so too does the suite of tools and systems our customers use to leverage this technology in their organizations. For Microsoft, this means not only improving our own applications and capabilities, but also providing trusted, secure, and compliant integration options for third-party tools. Our goal is to ensure that Microsoft 365 remains the best platform for adopting generative AI solutions, whether they are built on Azure Open AI, leveraging Copilot Studio, using Microsoft first-party solutions, or integrating with third-party tools.

We are committed to maintaining and expanding interoperability to ensure that our customers have the freedom to choose the tools that best fit their needs. We recognize that the exact requirements for the future are uncertain, but we aim to adapt and deliver the best solutions based on customer feedback by continuously listening and learning from our customers.