Hi my name is Shervin Shafi and I'm a Co -Pilot
Principal Technical Specialist at Microsoft.
Today I'll be building a simple yet highly effective
AI agent for human resources. Something that
every company can custom make and use for themselves.
I'll be using Microsoft 365 Co -Pilot and going
over the process step by step. Welcome to Collaboration
Simplified. Before we jump into the build, let's
do a little bit of housekeeping. And by the way,
you can fast forward to any section of this video
as I've set up chapters. So here's some common
questions. First of all, why even use a copilot
agent for your human resources questions when
you can just point them to your SharePoint site,
or maybe you've set up a wiki. And there's several
reasons for this. Number one, with agents, you
can just use natural language. And so it's a
lot easier to type out your question and just
have a two -way conversation. Number two, GenAI
uses a much better searching mechanism. So chances
are you're going to get much better results than
putting traditional keyword searches into an
HR website. And number three, it's very easy
to access this agent once we set it up. You can
access it from inside Microsoft Teams, from m365copilot
.com or from the m365 copilot application. And
once you set it up, it's very easy to maintain
and it's very easy to share across your entire
company or just to selected users. Now, the second
question is, what can this agent actually do?
What it's going to do is search across the knowledge
source that we give it, which is basically a
SharePoint site that has a document repository
where we've fed it different documents about
benefits and vacation and training, all HR related
documentation. And it's going to essentially
be able to answer first level human resources
types of questions. So fairly simple, but still.
Highly effective. The third question is, what
can't it do? Which is actually an opportunity
for us to empower this and make it even better
in the future. What it doesn't do is connect
to other data sources. So for example, if you
expect it to tell you how much vacation time
you have left and then book those six days that
you have left for an upcoming vacation, it doesn't
do that. But it probably can and something we
can do in the future. the other thing is that
this is not an autonomous agent so you might
have heard about autonomous agents which are
basically running in the background and they
wake up when a certain trigger happens and they
take action so it doesn't do that it's not an
autonomous agent it's more of a retrieval agent
but it can if you guys are interested let me
know essentially what we can do is set it up
so that if you have some training that is due
in two weeks and you haven't started it'll just
wake up notice that you haven't taken the training
and it'll notify you or maybe you have a performance
review that's due in two days and you haven't
even started it it can tap into that system notice
that you haven't started and then send you a
message so it doesn't do that but those are things
that we can probably work on and make it autonomous
now if we did want to make it autonomous we would
be using different tools like copilot studio
that has a different licensing mechanism so just
a heads up on that the last question is what
is actually required for us to build this i mentioned
that i'm going to be using microsoft 365 copilot
and specifically the agent builder to create
this human resources copilot agent but Microsoft
just announced Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat that
is available at no additional cost to anyone
that has an Entra ID account. And that actually
has an agent mechanism with a pay -as -you -go
model so that if you do build and use agents,
you basically pay per usage. So that's actually
a very inexpensive way to start building agents
and using it. without getting the full m365 co
-pilot license i'll put a link in the description
so you can find out more about co -pilot chat
with all that let's jump into the actual build
one thing i'd like to ask is if you are finding
value in this video so far please give the video
a like it really does help the channel and i
typically have these conversations just with
my customers but i'm so happy to be sharing all
of this with you on YouTube. Now I think the
first thing I'd like you to do is open up a browser
and let's go to adoption .microsoft .com. This
is a fantastic website and I'll point out where
you need to go. So scroll down a little bit and
you'll see a section here says Microsoft 365
Copilot. Let's select that and then here right
in the center it says New copilot chat and agent
resources perfect. We're gonna click on explore
the kit scroll down and Here it says new copilot
chat and agent overview guide select that and
Then finally here is the copilot chat and agent
overview guide And I believe, by the way, this
is pretty incredible that Microsoft makes this
publicly available because you'll see what it
is in just a second. I'm going to select it and
it'll basically download this overview guide
that when you open the file, you'll see this
41 slide PowerPoint deck all about agents. Again,
pretty awesome. So thank you, Microsoft, for
doing that. We're going to only look at maybe
a few of these slides. but make sure you take
some time to review it in detail yourself there's
a lot to learn here talks about the low code
options for creating agents and we're actually
going to be using the one on the left the copilot
studio agent builder compared to sharepoint and
copilot studio so you can learn about the different
ways of making copilot agents and also provides
some examples of agent templates in copilot chat
so these already exist if you have copilot The
Microsoft 365 Copilot, you'll see these. I'll
show it to you later on. And also examples of
agents that can be created in Copilot Chat. So
it turns out that this onboarding buddy is actually
the agent that we're going to be building for
human resources. And you'll see why in just one
second. And then the last slide in this section
that I'll show you is that it talks about...
all the steps involved in building agents and
co -pilot chat so there's there are eight steps
we'll be going over all these steps together
in the rest of this video but this is a great
overview of really what's involved now if i go
back and select this onboarding buddy there's
additional details into how to actually build
this onboarding buddy And if you look here on
the description, it says an onboarding buddy
agent is dedicated to ensuring new hires of a
seamless and welcoming start. Additionally, it
lists mandatory training courses and guides new
hires through the HR process. So this is perfect
and exactly what we want to build for our human
resources agent. And it also gives you all these
sections like this is what you put in inside
the agent builder in terms of the description.
here's an example of a name that you can use
there's a section that says what do you want
to emphasize and what do you want avoided so
we'll basically be copying and pasting from this
slide and building our hr agent now there are
other examples like resume reviewer or contract
review or research assistant So I definitely
encourage you to review all of this. And if you're
interested in building these other types of agents,
all you got to do is just follow the process
that we do in this video. And then you can build
these other types of agents as well. So this
is the foundation of what we're going to be doing.
Next, if you come out of the presentation and
go back to your browser, what we're going to
do is open up another tab and go to m365copilot
.com. If you've already logged in, then when
you go to this site, it'll take you to the M365
co -pilot. And you'll see here that basically
there's the work and the web tab and we're good
to go. On the right hand side here, you'll see
create an agent, which we're going to do in just
a second. One of the keys about agents is that
it needs to have a knowledge source. And so for
this human resources agent that we're building,
we want to make sure that we have everything
in our SharePoint site. So on the left hand side
here, we're going to select SharePoint. And this
opens up our SharePoint site where we have different
sites that we can go to for human resources,
communication and so on. now when we go to the
human resources sharepoint site you can see that
there's information on compensation and career
and benefits mentors and volunteers and retirees
and all kinds of typical human resources information
by the way let me click on this compensation
tab because i'm just kind of curious I think
there was a discrepancy on my last paycheck let
me look at my pay stub here just kidding this
is not my pay stub information but you can see
this is a typical human resources website right
now on the right hand side here there's this
little wheel icon and if we select that there
is a section called site contents we're going
to select that this is an admin view by the way
it shows you the document structure of your SharePoint
site and so here we have documents and templates
and if I select documents you'll see that basically
I uploaded a variety of different documents like
401k information holiday and sick and vacation
learning and development medical and dental and
our performance review process in here so basically
what I did was I went to word and using copilot
i had to create some kind of fictitious information
about 401k just so we can use it in this environment
and then i uploaded it to this sharepoint site
so this is the document repository that we're
going to be using for the agent and you know
what's also interesting is inside sharepoint
you can create an agent and this was actually
listed on that slide in terms of a low code way
of creating agents i'll just show you really
quickly here that if you just select that it
says the agent's ready you can select open and
then on the right hand side here you can start
interacting with this agent that's using the
documents here so we're not going to build the
agent using this mechanism but just as a heads
up this is a super easy way of creating agents
as well now We have all our documents in SharePoint.
We're good to go. We're going to go back to Copilot
and on the right hand side we're going to finally
select create an agent. And right here you'll
see that you can either configure the agent or
you can describe it. Describing it is a much
more natural language way of going about it.
And we're just gonna basically copy and paste
the information from that slide deck in here
so we can build it. And you can see from a template
perspective, the career prompt writing was in
that slide. It also shows up here. So let's go
to the slide. And for our onboarding buddy, which
is for our HR agent, here's the description.
I'm just gonna grab this. I'm gonna copy it.
Then I'm gonna go back to our website here and
basically just paste it in here. So you can see.
it says you're an onboarding agent for our new
hires and this is the foundation of our hr agent
so i'm going to go ahead and just send it and
you can see that copilot is thinking about what
we just wrote it and it's going to follow up
with the next steps great the agent is now set
up to assist with new hires with the onboarding
process let's give the agent a name how about
the onboarding buddy it's a great name and again
we can follow the slide we can come up with our
own name so let's say hr miracle worker just
come up with your own name right and then we'll
send it let's see what the next prompt is by
the way did you just notice on the right hand
side here all these auto prompts got generated
which is fantastic we can change it later on
if we want now it says The agent's name has been
updated. Now let's refine instructions. What
should be emphasized or avoided? Very typical
question, which we have a response for, which
is right here, emphasized or avoided, right?
So we're going to go ahead and just grab this.
And again, you can make it any way you want.
And we're going to paste it. So be clear and
concise and avoid long answers where possible.
Refer primarily to the knowledge. Actually, i
wanted to be clear and i wanted to provide lots
of details in the reply i think that just gives
people more comfort that it's a longer reply
maybe they can understand a little bit better
okay and we're gonna send it the next part is
the instructions have been updated And it also
directs them to an HR manager. So we can do that
or not. You can take it out. And it says, how
do you want the agent to talk? For example, should
it be formal, casual, or friendly? Let's go back
to our slide here. And it says friendly and professional.
So I'm just going to grab this, copy it, and
put it back in here. But funny as well. Let's
see if we can. Get it to be a little bit funny.
Next, it says, please try out the agent in the
separate chat dialog to the right. Do you have
any other further refinements? Let's just check
the slide deck to see if there's anything else
here. And it basically says, leave the starter
prompts as is. This is the knowledge source.
We're going to go ahead and update that in a
second. And these are the example questions to
ask. So we pretty much got it covered. Let's
go back. And we can try out the agent here on
the right hand side. So we can say, actually,
I'm not going to try it out yet because we haven't
specified the knowledge source, right? So now
what we're going to do is we're going to select
configure. So select configure. And you can see
like in terms of the name, the description, instructions,
all of this stuff got auto populated and it added
some as well. here's a key right it says where
is your knowledge source now in your situation
maybe if you select browse you'll just be able
to grab it from here we'll see if it shows up
our contoso hr perfect actually it's right there
so i'm going to select contoso hr and these are
all my documents right these are all the documents
so let's see if i have to select them individually
which i do so 401k holiday learning medical performance
select it should show up here in a second and
there they are and then everything else will
leave it as is like a actions capabilities starter
prompts you can change if you wanted to let's
like delete one of them and add another starter
problem around 401k info What are my 401k benefits?
And maybe delete another one and say vacation.
How many days do I get vacation? For example,
right? Just be as creative as you want. These
are just the starter prompts. Okay, so with all
of that done, now on the right -hand side, basically,
we're going to create this. And we're going to
select create on the top right. This is creating
your agent. And voila, your agent was successfully
created. Now we can either go to the agent or
we can share this agent. This is pretty key,
right? Because you just built a human resources
agent that you probably want to share maybe with
your whole company. So we're going to click on
change sharing settings. and you can either select
only you or specific users or anyone in the company
so you know set it up however you please i want
to do anyone in the company and here is a really
good reminder it says people in your organization
may not have access to some sharepoint files
or folders for these people your agent will not
use the files when answering the questions to
ensure your agent behaves consistently be sure
to share files and folders with all intended
agent users this just means that the sharepoint
site needs to be set up in a way where wherever
that folder is everyone has access to that folder
and the contents inside so that they also have
access to the agent okay so this is a prerequisites
now with that in mind let's go ahead and save
your agent was shared you can also copy this
as a link to the agent and send it out to people
and we're going to click close And we're going
to click update. And now that everything is done,
we're going to select go to agent. On the right
hand side here is this HR miracle worker that
we set up. Before we didn't have this, right?
But now it just got added as well. And if you,
since it's already selected, you can see these
are the auto prompts. Like what are my 401k benefits,
vacation days, all that stuff that I set up.
in addition to the other auto -generated prompts
are all here. Now let's ask it a question. Let's
just select on what are my 401k benefits and
see what it says. Now, notice that as it was
providing this, we asked it to be very detailed,
right? So this is great. it's following our instructions
it's providing a very detailed response and it's
telling us all about our contribution limits
and the company match and the vesting schedule
and more importantly on the bottom here it provides
you the document that it got this information
from which was in the sharepoint site right the
401k and esp document so if you want additional
information or if you just want to fact check
you can always go ahead and click that document
open it up and we can take a look at it right
and so again i had copilot make these up for
contoso but all that information is here with
respect to the vesting schedule company match
super easy way for people to interact instead
of going and finding the location on the sharepoint
site now let's go ahead and experiment and maybe
ask another question go back to this agent and
you can either select new chat or you can continue
the conversation let's uh let's select new chat
and let's ask about mandatory training this basically
says as part of on your onboarding you'll need
to complete several mandatory training sessions
let's see what it says there's a document that
i have in there regarding training we'll see
what it says it says welcome to contoso you'll
need to complete safety protocol, company policy,
and role -based training. It's all in the document,
again, in the SharePoint site. And when I go
open it up, I can get additional information.
So it's all here and we're good to go. Now back
to the agent, I'm gonna click new chat. And you
don't just have to select from the options that
are pre -configured here, but you can go ahead
and maybe ask a custom question like, can you,
Tell me about my performance review process Let's
see what it says here So it's giving us the detailed
response and basically it's saying Absolutely,
the performance review process can so so designed
to foster a culture of continuous improvement
There's the review criteria. It has percentages
and the stock options and bonuses and all this
good stuff if you do a good job at the company,
right? And again, it just references the document.
Now, as a bonus, I'll show you this technique
for the creator of the agent, right? So if one
day you're like, I want to make some changes
to the agent, what you can do is basically select
create agent over here. and you select my co
-pilot agent up top. You select view all agents
and this is the HR miracle worker. You select
the pen icon there and then now you start to
make changes. If you want the instructions to
be different or the description to be different
or even if you just want to change information
here like the starter prompts, you can go ahead
and do that and select update and then just make
sure that it's being shared with. whoever you
want to share it with. If you enjoyed this video
make sure you give it a thumbs up and consider
subscribing as it really does help the channel.
Thanks for watching and I'll catch you on the
next one.