According to the latest update, in a home setting, that can be surprisingly tricky. The biggest challenge with personal AI agents is often figuring out what to do with them.
In a fresh development, take a 24/7 AI agent like Google’s Gemini Spark, which can–on paper–plan meals, manage your calendar, and perform other household tasks.
Industry observers note that (I’m still waiting my turn to give Spark a try.). But while Spark is capable of impressive agentic feats, some early users are finding the agent is hit-or-miss with home-oriented duties like planning summer activities or searching for online coupons.
In a fresh development, always-on personal AI agents do their best work in an office setting, where they can work across dozens of projects, organize large meetings, divvy up tasks, and churn out daily status reports.
In a fresh development, enter Scout, Microsoft’s take on the 24/7 personal AI agent, which (for now, at least) is skipping the household and heading straight to the workplace.
The report highlights that unveiled–fittingly–during Microsoft Build, an annual developer conference, Scout is a “fresh personal agent for work” that’s “specifically always-on” and “autonomous,” according to the publisher.
Industry observers note that based in part on OpenClaw, the viral open-source tool that kicked off the whole “personal AI agent” craze, Scout will tap directly into core services like Teams and Outlook, and “proactively handle things like meeting prep, scheduling conflicts, and routine tasks without asking,” Microsoft says.
The report highlights that scout will be the default Autopilot in the revamped Copilot app. Scout lives within the fresh Copilot “superapp” and will be the first of a series of “Autopilots” or enterprise-level AI agents that can be customized for a variety of business-minded purposes.
As part of the ongoing story, access to Scout will initially be limited to Microsoft’s enterprise Frontier users, yet another signal that Scout is primarily designed as a corporate AI assistant rather than a household helper.
As part of the ongoing story, microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had little else to share about Scout during the Build keynote, with Microsoft later promising to “share more soon as we expand what Scout can do and roll it out more broadly.”.
In a fresh development, the broad strokes of Scout bring to mind another business-minded AI agent that hasn’t been officially unveiled yet.
According to the latest update, anthropic is said to be working on a “proactive agent” called “Orbit,” which connects to tools like Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Google Calendar, Drive, and Figma.
According to the latest update, like Scout, the rumored Orbit agent is aimed at the workplace–and specifically developers, given the chatter about GitHub and Figma connectors.
As part of the ongoing story, his coverage of artificial intelligence interrogates the most recent LLMs, and how they can be used at work and at home to be best prepared for the AI revolution. “AI is going to change our lives sooner than we think,” Ben writes. “Our best way to adapt is by using it every day.” Ben has been a PCWorld author since 2014, and has covered everything from laptops to security cameras before launching PCWorld’s AI beat. Ben's articles have also appeared in PC Magazine, TIME, Wired, CNET, Men's Fitness, Mobile Magazine, and more. Ben holds a master's degree in English literature. Ben has been writing about consumer technology for more than 20 years, and now focuses his reporting on AI as it relates to the basic human experience.