On September 28th, according to a report from the IT community, in the latest episode of the Sources Podcast program, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed the uses of Cowork and Excel intelligent agents in their daily work.

Nadella stated that he would use these models to track the documents of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) and analyze spreadsheets, with a particular focus on the ability of the Excel entity to simulate causal reasoning. He would also use this software to continuously evaluate Microsoft's return on investment ( ROIC ).

Nadella also mentioned that Microsoft's existing AI system has made two important advancements. The first is the ability to conduct very in-depth analysis of existing models.

Nadella gave an example, stating that he can use the Cowork platform to generate complex operational models such as supply chain optimization spreadsheets. However, he mentioned that the truly important new capability of agents lies in their ability to continue using this data to perform even more complex tasks.

"I won't just accept the results given by the model without further thought; I will also manipulate them, ask follow-up questions, and continue to reason based on those results. As a result, we now even have what I call the Excel internal loop, which is the Excel intelligence, and it is very powerful," said Nadella.

Nadella also mentioned that the data center team recently sent over a complex spreadsheet, which he then analyzed directly using Microsoft’s Excel intelligence agent.

"I opened the spreadsheet, found a cell, and then had the Excel intelligence agent check the formulas used by that person in that cell, and then generated 5 worksheets containing different scenarios for me," he said.

Nadella stated that this ability to perform analysis through reasoning can even be called 'causal reasoning,' and it is also the first advancement that excites him the most. For businesses, such capabilities can be directly applied to work processes to further create value.

The second advancement is to integrate the corporate environment with the global environment. He gave an example, stating that he deployed a “data runner” in Microsoft Fabric, which is responsible for obtaining all SEC data from cloud services and new types of cloud service providers, then importing the data into semantic models for analysis by programming agents.

Nadella stated that the agent would then organize the results into a dashboard, enabling the continuous aggregation of every SEC file published externally with all its own internal analyses, allowing for real-time viewing of ROIC at various levels.