By Aditya Soni

Oct 21 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) will allow

customers to build autonomous artificial intelligence agents

starting in November, the software giant said on Monday, in its

latest move to tap the booming technology.

The company is positioning autonomous agents - programs

which require little human intervention unlike chatbots - as

"apps for an AI-driven world," capable of handling client

inquiries, identifying sales leads and managing inventory.

Other big technology firms such as Salesforce ( CRM ) have

also touted the potential of such agents, tools that some

analysts say could provide companies with an easier path to

monetizing the billions of dollars they are pouring into AI.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) said its customers can use Copilot Studio - an

application that requires little knowledge of computer code - to

create autonomous agents in public preview from November. It is

using several AI models developed in-house and by OpenAI for the

agents.

The company is also introducing ten ready-for-use agents

that can help with routine tasks ranging from managing supply

chain to expense tracking and client communications.

In one demo, McKinsey & Co, which had early access to the

tools, created an agent that can manage client inquires by

checking interaction history, identifying the consultant for the

task and scheduling a follow-up meeting.

"The idea is that Copilot (the company's chatbot) is the

user interface for AI," Charles Lamanna, corporate vice

president of business and industry Copilot at Microsoft ( MSFT ), told

Reuters.

"Every employee will have a Copilot, their personalized AI

agent, and then they will use that Copilot to interface and

interact with the sea of AI agents that will be out there."

Tech giants are facing investor pressure to show returns on

their significant AI investments. Microsoft's ( MSFT ) shares fell 2.8%

in the September quarter, underperforming the S&P 500,

but remain more than 10% higher for the year.

Some concerns have risen in recent months about the pace of

Copilot adoption, with research firm Gartner saying in August

its survey of 152 IT organizations showed that the vast majority

had not progressed their Copilot initiatives past the pilot

stage.

(Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)