Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) on Thursday unveiled a suite of agentic AI tools aimed at automating the kind of retail tasks that usually eat up hours of human attention—think merchandising, marketing, store operations, and order fulfillment. The pitch is simple: help merchants work faster and stay more relevant to shoppers by letting AI handle the tedious stuff.
These new capabilities essentially drop intelligent automation on top of retail workflows that were previously scattered and clunky, giving teams more context and speed when they need it most.
The headline feature is Copilot Checkout, which lets customers complete purchases right inside Copilot without getting bounced to a retailer's website. It's live now in the U.S. on Copilot.com, and it's powered by partnerships with PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL), Shopify Inc. (SHOP), and Stripe. Shopify merchants will be automatically enrolled after an opt-out window, so this could scale quickly.
AI That Actually Does Things
Microsoft also introduced Brand Agents for Shopify merchants and a customizable shopping agent template in Copilot Studio. These agents are designed to answer product questions, guide discovery, and serve up personalized recommendations. Kappahl Group is already testing the tools to improve conversion rates and cut down on product returns.
In public preview, there's a catalog enrichment agent template that pulls product data from images and enriches it with insights, automating onboarding and categorization tasks that normally require manual work.
Another preview tool, the store operations agent, is built to help staff move faster by answering inventory and policy questions on the fly and recommending priorities based on signals like sales trends and foot traffic.