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Legal and regulatory considerations- Organizations need to evaluate potential specific legal and regulatory obligations when using any AI services and solutions, which may not be appropriate for use in every industry or scenario. Additionally, AI services or solutions are not designed for and may not be used in ways prohibited in applicable terms of service and relevant codes of conduct.
Some or all of this functionality is available as part of a preview release. The content and the functionality are subject to change.
Important
This feature uses services such as Bing and Azure Maps that transmit data—such as store location, latitude/longitude, and country/region code—outside your compliance boundary to obtain events, holidays, and weather information used to generate recommendations.
Your use of Bing is governed by the Microsoft Services Agreement and the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Noncommercial use limitations don't apply to products available for a fee through Microsoft volume license.
The Data Protection Addendum doesn't apply to your use of Bing within Microsoft Generative AI Services Previews.
Store Operations Agent improves productivity for retail frontline workers and enhances the in-store customer experience. A single conversational interface lets associates complete tasks and support customers without switching between multiple applications. Through the interface, associates can quickly find procedures, create and update incidents and tasks, and make product, order, and inventory inquiries. The agent helps retailers deliver information faster, enables customers to self-serve for common questions, and increases employee satisfaction by supporting knowledge growth and agility.
Retailers can deliver information to employees faster and support customers at scale using generative AI. The Store Operations Agent synthesizes external and internal data to deliver operational recommendations that improve store readiness and the customer experience.
Autonomous external signal monitoring
The agent continuously tracks external factors such as:
- Weather conditions (temperature, rain, storms)
- Local events (sports matches, concerts, festivals)
- Public holidays and seasonal trends
Integration with internal systems
The agent:
- Connects to Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (Dynamics 365 F&O) and other enterprise systems using Copilot Studio connectors.
- Accesses product catalogs, category mappings, inventory levels, and historical sales data to build store-specific context.
Intelligent insights & recommendations
The agent:
- Combines unstructured external data (events, weather, holidays) with structured internal data (product catalogs, category data, inventory).
- Uses AI-driven reasoning to predict how external factors influence customer demand and shopping behavior.
Actionable recommendations for store managers
The agent can provide recommendations such as:
- Inventory adjustments—for example, increase stock of sports drinks before a local football match.
- Staffing adjustments—for example, schedule extra cashiers during a festival weekend.
- Staffing adjustments—for example, schedule extra cashiers during a festival weekend.
- Promotional campaigns—for example, create bundle offers for event-related products.
The Store Operations Agent continuously ingests external signals and internal system data, applies AI models to detect demand signals and anomalies, and surfaces prioritized, actionable recommendations to store managers and operations teams.
Use Q&A capability
Help retail frontline workers find answers to questions about policies and procedures. Sample prompts include: "What is our return policy?", "What is the current order status?", and "Help me initiate a return."
Help retail frontline workers create and manage incidents in the store. Sample prompts include: "Report a spill in aisle 5," "Log a broken shelf in the electronics section," and "Update the status of the ongoing power outage incident."
Share specific insights and initiate actions tied to other systems and processes. Sample prompts include: "What is the current inventory for monitors?", "Help me track an order", and "Help me initiate a return."
Sample prompts to get started
After the setup is complete, use the following sample prompts to explore Store Operations capabilities.
Important
Recommendations are either trigger-based or initiated by the user through a prompt.
- Generate staffing recommendations for StoreID-001 (for staffing recommendations)
- Generate recommendations for my store (for event impact recommendations)
Note
Replace placeholder values in the sample prompts (such as store IDs, product names, order numbers, and incident numbers) with actual values from your data. The tables are based on demo or sample data.
Store information
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Get store details | - Get me store info - What is my store information? - Show me store details for StoreID-001 |
Staffing recommendations
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Generate recommendations | - Generate staffing recommendations for StoreID-001 - Create staffing recommendations for my store - Trigger staffing recommendations |
| View recommendations | - Show staffing recommendations for store StoreID-001 - What are the latest staffing recommendations? - Display staffing recommendations |
| Staffing planning | - What's the staffing plan for today? - How many staff do I need on Saturday? |
Event impact recommendations
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Generate recommendations | - Generate recommendations for my store - Create recommendations for store StoreID-001 - Trigger recommendation generation |
| View recommendations | - Show me recommendations for my store - What are today's recommendations? - Display recommendation report |
Recommendation Q&A
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Ask about staffing | - Why do I need more staff on Tuesday? - How does weather affect staffing? - Explain the staffing recommendations |
| Ask local demand | - Why are these products recommended? - Explain the category recommendations |
| Understand factors | - What factors influenced the recommendations? - Tell me about the weather impact? - Are there any holidays coming up? |
Note
Q&A supports multi-turn conversations, allowing you to ask follow-up questions about recommendations.
Incident management (ServiceNow)
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| View incidents | - Get my incidents - Show my incidents - List my open incidents |
| Create incidents | - Create an incident - Report a new issue |
| Update incidents | - Update incident INC1234567 |
Note
ServiceNow integration must be configured for incident management capabilities.
Product inventory
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Check inventory | - Check inventory - Check inventory for cashmere sweater - Get inventory for leather boots size 8 |
Note
Product inventory checks require Finance & Operations integration to be configured.
Order details
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Track orders | - Get order details for order 12345 - Check order status - Show order history for customer abc@email.com |
| Order lookup | - Order details by order ID - Get order information for customer account 67890 |
Note
Order tracking requires Finance & Operations integration to be configured.
SharePoint capability
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| SharePoint capability | - What are the latest retail trends? - Tell me about the store? |
Note
SharePoint capability checks require the Conversational Boosting topic to be configured.
Demo data management
| Capability | Sample Prompts |
|---|---|
| Upload demo data | - Upload demo data - Load sample data for testing - Set up demo environment |
| Cleanup demo data | - Cleanup demo data - Remove demo data - Reset demo environment |
Note
Demo data records are marked with a _demo suffix. Use cleanup prompts before importing production data.
Limitations
AI-generated content can contain errors. Verify outputs for accuracy and appropriateness. Review the Supplemental Terms.