10X your business outcomes: how AI agents are redefining operational efficiency

This post is part of our “AI Agents in the Enterprise” series. Explore how IT, business operations, sales, and executive leaders can harness AI agents to transform their organizations. In this post, we showcase how AI agents can drive exponential gains in productivity, cost savings, and customer experience. We wrote this article based on keynote sessions by Microsoft at the European Power Platform Conference 2025.

For years, business leaders have chased incremental gains: 10% more productivity, 5% lower costs, 15% faster delivery. But in today’s AI-first world, those targets are no longer ambitious enough. The real opportunity lies in 10X transformation, radically rethinking how work gets done, how decisions are made, and how value is created. 

At the heart of this shift are AI agents: autonomous digital coworkers that don’t just assist, they act, reason, and collaborate. And thanks to platforms like Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio, these agents are no longer futuristic concepts. They’re here, and they’re already delivering results.

From copilots to agents: a new era of intelligence 

AI copilots have become familiar tools in many organizations. They help summarize documents, suggest responses, and automate simple tasks. But they rely on human prompts. Agents go further. 

As Ryan Cunningham, (Corporate Vice President, Power Platform Intelligent Applications at Microsoft), explained at the European Power Platform Conference, “Agents are not just assistants. They’re autonomous collaborators that can reason, act, and orchestrate complex workflows, without waiting for a human to tell them what to do”. This shift from reactive to proactive intelligence is what enables exponential gains.

What can agents actually do?

As we explored in Part 1, agents can reason, act, and collaborate. Let us remind you of what sets them apart: 

• Autonomy: Agents can initiate actions based on triggers, data changes, or business rules. 

• Reasoning: They can analyze complex inputs, infer meaning, and make decisions. 

• Collaboration: Agents can work together, passing tasks, sharing context, and coordinating outcomes. 

• Customization: They can be tailored to your business logic, data sources, and workflows. 

And they’re not limited to one domain. Agents are already transforming sales, finance, operations, and customer service. Let’s look at how that translates into business value.

Real-world impact: use cases that deliver ROI 

1. Logistics agents for a big beer company  
   A very big beer company uses agents to manage sales orders and trade agreements. Agents extract data from emails, update records, and even generate invoices, freeing up employees to focus on higher-value tasks.
   
   
2. Financial reconciliation
   A major energy company used agents to automate invoice reconciliation; a process that previously took six hours per week. With agents, it now takes one minute.
   
   
3. Customer Support
   Microsoft deployed agents that triage support tickets, suggest solutions, and escalate only when needed. The result: faster resolution and happier customers.

The numbers speak for themselves 

• 5% increase in seller productivity
• 100% improvement in data quality
• 40% acceleration in case resolution
• Thousands of hours saved annually 

These aren’t pilot projects, they’re production deployments across industries, from retail to finance to manufacturing. 

How to Get Started

In Part 1 we explored the ‘Crawl, Walk & Run’ principle. For BDM’s we advise to start small and to scale fast. You don’t need a team of data scientists to begin. Encourage your teams to experiment, then invest in high-impact use cases.

Final thoughts: don’t just automate, transform!

AI agents aren’t just about doing things faster. They’re about doing things differently. They enable new business models, new customer experiences, and new ways of working. So if your organization is still chasing 10% gains, it’s time to ask: what would 10X look like? Because with AI agents, it’s not just dream; it’s a possibility.

Next in the series: Meet your new Sales Development Rep: how AI agents are revolutionizing sales engagement.

Missed the previous one and curious about a deeper technical overview of agent architecture? Read our blogpost From copilots to autonomous agents: How IT can lead the next wave of enterprise automation.