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Ned Friend

Ned Friend

Ned Friend is a Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft, leading Copilot Agent Builder.

Sep 23, 2026

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[gentle music] You're probably used to working with Copilot across Microsoft three sixty-five for everyday tasks, but did you know that you can create your own specialist agents in minutes to provide informed, authoritative answers and produce consistent, standardized content for specific business scenarios? Think about the work you do every day.
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Maybe it's reviewing content for compliance, creating customer or internal-focused communications, or answering work-related policy questions.
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While Copilot can help with these tasks using broadly available information, Agent Builder, on the other hand, which is included in Copilot, lets you build and use agents with a specific purpose grounded in trusted organizational knowledge.
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Think of it as the difference between hiring a general contractor to remodel your home and bringing in a licensed electrician to design an electrical plan to rewire the house.
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Both skill sets are valuable, but the specialist brings focused expertise, follows established standards, and is trusted for a specific type of work.
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Similarly, a specialist agent can be created to serve a specific purpose and configured to provide custom expert answers by only using the information sources you choose to ground them with.

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