29
Hi everyone,
Did you know Microsoft has specialized agents designed for specific tasks? One of the most powerful is the Researcher agent, built to help you find, summarize, and synthesize information across the web and your files. Think of it as your personal research assistant, capable of turning scattered data into structured insights in minutes. You can learn more about the Researcher agent in this short video from Microsoft.
If you already have a Microsoft license, you can start exploring Researcher today. If not, good news: licenses will be assigned in October, so you’ll be able to test it soon.
To give you a taste of what’s possible, I want to spotlight a recent win from Jess Biron, Business Development Executive on our Member Engagement team. Jess’s task was creating tailored IT prospecting plans for each of the members in our High Priority Member initiative (~140 higher education institutions), each one requiring deep research, stakeholder mapping, and strategic alignment with E&I contracts.
Before Researcher, this process took Jess more than 20 hours per institution, and Jess had to squeeze that work into fragmented time slots across the week. But with knowledge of Researcher agent’s capabilities, a well-crafted prompt and a spreadsheet of business partner references, Jess used Researcher to generate a complete, customized plan for her to review in just 20 minutes. It was a massive time savings and a momentous leap forward in how we support our members.
Want to see how Jess structured the prompt?
Let’s keep learning, experimenting, and sharing.
Best,
Doug
Awesome!