Now, we\u2019ve consolidated learnings from those programs into Agent Launchpad, an accessible, multifaceted six\u2011module curriculum. Our instructional program is designed to develop our employees\u2019 agentic AI skills, empowering them to take advantage of existing agents in their day-to-day work and build their knowledge and confidence to create new agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why we built Agent Launchpad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Companies that fail to grasp the growing role of AI and agents in the workplace risk falling behind teams and organizations that are already redesigning their work around hybrid human-agent teams. We created Agent Launchpad to acknowledge this shift, demonstrate the power of agents, and show how they can be integrated into everyone\u2019s daily work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike basic assistants that only respond to direct prompts, agents can plan, carry out actions, monitor progress, and iterate until they meet a goal. They can perform tasks like drafting content, analyzing data, automating workflows, scheduling meetings, triggering processes, and coordinating across multiple apps and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThink of an agent as like hiring a really intelligent, enthusiastic university graduate. They may not have deep business experience yet, but they bring a high level of intelligence, energy, and scalability to the tasks you give them.\u201d<\/p>\nKevin Wooldridge, senior director of business programs, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n At a higher level, agents can act as proactive collaborators, taking on routine tasks so human workers can focus on higher\u2011value thinking. Employees who aren\u2019t engineers can create agentic tools, which becomes a cultural differentiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThink of an agent as like hiring a really intelligent, enthusiastic university graduate,\u201d says Kevin Wooldridge, a senior director of business programs in Microsoft Digital. \u201cThey may not have deep business experience yet, but they bring a high level of intelligence, energy, and scalability to the tasks you give them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding how agents work is the new baseline for staying competitive. It\u2019s the defining trait of the emerging Frontier Firm<\/a>: A human\u2011led, agent\u2011operated organization designed for the AI era. Workers become agent bosses<\/em> who define outcomes, while autonomous agents plan, reason, and run the workflows to deliver them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Integrating agents into existing workflows and processes can feel overwhelming. Our Agent Launchpad curriculum can help our employees get the most out of the technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur employees told us they didn\u2019t want someone lecturing over slides. They wanted peer\u2011to\u2011peer learning, storytelling, showcases, and hands\u2011on experiences.\u201d<\/p>\nTom Heath, senior business program manager, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To build our curriculum, our team incorporated input from a variety of stakeholders across Microsoft representing a range of backgrounds and technical expertise. They also included feedback from the Copilot Champs Community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur employees told us they didn\u2019t want someone lecturing over slides,\u201d says Tom Heath, a senior business program manager in Microsoft Digital. \u201cThey wanted peer\u2011to\u2011peer learning, storytelling, showcases, and hands\u2011on experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Baked into our Agent Launchpad program are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople were being bombarded with information about agents, many of which were already live,\u201d says Stephan Kerametlian, a senior director of business program management in Microsoft Digital. \u201cLaunchpad became a way to bring clarity and help them discover what already exists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our curriculum explains how to get the most out of available agents, like our Employee Self-Service Agent<\/a>. It also supports employees who want to build their own agents, whether by using Agent Builder for no\u2011code development or utilizing Copilot Studio for light coding (otherwise known as pro\u2011coding).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLaunchpad covers that full end\u2011to\u2011end journey at a time when information feels scattered and overwhelming,\u201d Kerametlian says. \u201cIt gives people a structured, guided, modular path from the fundamentals all the way to developing agents, if that aligns with their skills and needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the broad range of skills and goals that our employees bring to the learning process, our six-module curriculum format was designed around two different tracks: The Explorer path and the Builder path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe talk about \u2018buffet\u2011style learning\u2019 a lot at Microsoft, and that applies here\u2014but with AI and agents, many people don\u2019t even know what they need. That\u2019s why we built two learning paths.\u201d<\/p>\nCadie Kneip, senior business program manager, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Participants can sign up for live sessions or, if they prefer a self-guided approach, they can move through our modules on their own schedule. Learners have the option to earn participation badges by finishing modules, completing paths, or achieving other milestones within the curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe talk about \u2018buffet\u2011style learning\u2019 a lot at Microsoft, and that applies here\u2014but with AI and agents, many people don\u2019t even know what they need,\u201d says Cadie Kneip, a senior business program manager in Microsoft Digital. \u201cThat\u2019s why we built two learning paths. We don\u2019t believe everyone needs to be a builder, but everyone benefits from using agents to do their best work. Our goal is high\u2011quality agents and great usage experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each path aligns with specific parts of our curriculum:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an enterprise-level company, Microsoft employs people with a wide variety of skills and backgrounds. That\u2019s part of why Agent Launchpad works: People can choose their own agentic adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLaunchpad provides a centralized starting point, with clear signposting to other assets and a sense of community. It lets us scale across the company and meet people where they are,\u201d Wooldridge says. \u201cIf someone is deeply technical, there\u2019s a path for them. If someone isn\u2019t technical but wants to understand the hype and experiment, there\u2019s a path for them too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While our Agent Launchpad curriculum includes detailed technical guidance for using and building agents, it\u2019s also vital to emphasize the Frontier Firm mindset that employees need as we collectively approach a new era of AI-based work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen our core team was designing what Agent Launchpad would look like, we wanted to make sure we weren\u2019t just tackling the technology, but also the mindset and behavioral changes that come with it.\u201d<\/p>\nAlexandra Jones, director of business programs, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In the near future, a human\u2011led, agent\u2011operated organization built for the AI era\u2014one in which humans define the outcomes they want, but agents decide how to achieve them\u2014will become the new norm. The first module in our curriculum is designed to make sure that concept lands with learners, and it could be the most important part of the training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen our core team was designing what Agent Launchpad would look like, we wanted to make sure we weren\u2019t just tackling the technology, but also the mindset and behavioral changes that come with it,\u201d says Alexandra Jones, a director of business programs in Microsoft Digital. \u201cThat\u2019s why we decided to cover the concept of the Frontier Firm\u2014why people\u2019s mindsets need to shift, and how we can address common concerns about AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the pace of innovation in the AI landscape, our Agent Launchpad program needed to be resilient, flexible, and minimally dependent on product documentation that might soon be outdated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s challenging to anticipate people\u2019s needs in such a fast\u2011moving environment,\u201d Wooldridge says. \u201cWe\u2019re only slightly ahead of our employees on this journey ourselves, so we\u2019re learning what\u2019s valuable at the same time they are. That means we\u2019re constantly recreating or updating content\u2014it\u2019s a hamster wheel of creation, delivery, revision, and more delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pace of change is an ongoing challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of this is part of our evolution. Our first immersive learning experience was Camp Copilot. We learned from that and evolved it into Copilot Expo. Now we\u2019ve iterated again and built Agent Launchpad. It\u2019s essentially version 3.0\u2014the best of what we learned from the earlier programs, retooled around agents.\u201d<\/p>\nStephan Kerametlian, senior director of business program management, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n New agents ship constantly. The tools evolve every day, and the technology moves at lightning speed. Keeping Agent Launchpad current remains a priority, and our curriculum is continuously adapting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of this is part of our evolution,\u201d Kerametlian says. \u201cOur first immersive learning experience was Camp Copilot. We learned from that and evolved it into Copilot Expo. Now we\u2019ve iterated again and built Agent Launchpad. It\u2019s essentially version 3.0\u2014the best of what we learned from the earlier programs, retooled around agents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employees are seeing the value of our curriculum, as strong usage data indicates broad interest in the program. In addition to online engagement with our coursework, thousands of our employees have attended in-person sessions. It\u2019s a level of participation that helps drive the goals of both agentic adoption and the Frontier Firm mindset at Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with employees reporting high satisfaction along with a demonstrable uplift in weekly active agent usage across Microsoft. Many thoughtful recommendations have been captured and turned into insights that will inform our next phase of Agent Launchpad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLaunchpad unexpectedly became extremely popular\u2014it was supposed to be our pilot, and we didn\u2019t promote it heavily,\u201d Kneip says. \u201cBecause of that huge engagement, we want to find more ways to lean into rewards and celebrate people who submit their work, so people feel recognized and come back to learn with us again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key takeaways<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Here are some things to keep in mind as you develop your own training programs around the new agentic way of working:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Try it out<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Check out a comprehensive webinar series that can help you unlock the full potential of our AI agents.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Related links<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n As AI continues to evolve and its applications across business workflows expand, it can be difficult for employees to stay on top of the latest developments. One of the most exciting shifts underway is our move toward AI agents, which are systems capable of taking autonomous action to accomplish tasks and achieve goals using models, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":23118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_hide_featured_on_single":false,"_show_featured_caption_on_single":true,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882,1],"tags":[864,199,868,852,827],"coauthors":[893],"class_list":["post-23116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-strategy","category-microsoft-digital","tag-agent","tag-ai","tag-ai-deployment-and-adoption","tag-it-and-business-operations","tag-microsoft-365-copilot","m-blog-post"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/uploads\/prod\/2026\/04\/Kevin-Wooldridge.png\")
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How Agent Launchpad enables agent adoption<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Built for flexibility: Our Agent Launchpad curriculum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Frontier Firm mindset: A new way to think about work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Agentic AI: A shifting landscape<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Driving interest: Enthusiastic responses to Agent Launchpad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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