After a successful Early Access Program, we are also excited to announce that Microsoft Copilot Studio autonomous agents are now in preview. Copilot Studio enables more customers and users to build powerful autonomous agents for a multitude of use cases. We’re also introducing major updates to Power Platform to enhance developer capabilities. Finally, we’re sharing streamlined management of security and governance for Microsoft Power Platform, including your agents.

Over the past year, we’ve witnessed how reimagining business processes with Copilot and agents has revolutionized what we build, including intelligent apps and AI agents. Additionally, enhancing efficiency through automation and AI has fundamentally changed how we build, unlocking even more rapid low-code development.

Supercharge business processes with agents: Change what we build

For years, Microsoft Power Platform’s AI-infused low-code capabilities have empowered organizations to create and deploy applications with ease. Now, with Copilot as the new UI for AI, any organization can build powerful agents that augment their workforce and execute business processes right inside Copilot Studio—without any coding. Autonomous agents can work independently, detecting events like an email arriving, and use generative AI to trigger a series of actions. By automating complex tasks, these agents can orchestrate workflows and work unprompted alongside or on behalf of users or entire teams.

Autonomous agents now in preview

Since its debut at Microsoft Ignite 2023, Copilot Studio has transformed how businesses apply AI to common conversational workflows. By enabling users to create custom agents with advanced AI integration, we’re empowering organizations to streamline customer engagement, employee experience, and partner relationships.

And the introduction of autonomous agents (preview) is a game-changer. Agents built in Copilot Studio can now operate independently, dynamically planning and learning from processes, adapting to changing conditions, and making decisions without the need for constant human intervention. These autonomous agents can be triggered by data changes, events, and other background tasks—and not just through chat.

We’re also announcing agent library (preview) so users can get a head start by choosing agents based on commonly used scenarios and autonomous triggers (preview), allowing agents to automatically respond to signals across your business and initiate tasks. These advancements make it easy to automate complex tasks and processes.

Agent builder in Microsoft Power Apps now in preview

We’re also announcing the preview of agent builder in Power Apps, enabling organizations to rapidly transition into the AI-first era. By using existing knowledge, logic, and actions already built into the apps they create, makers can develop agents to handle tasks autonomously, eliminating repetitive processes, redefining individual productivity, and improving overall business efficiency.

Stories and benefits from the Copilot Studio autonomous agent Early Access Program

Autonomous agents are expanding the boundaries of what’s possible, enabling the creation of innovative applications and solutions that drive significant business outcomes:

• Accenture, a leading global professional services company that specializes in IT services and management consulting, has created agents to simplify complex operations and boost customer satisfaction.

“Accenture joined Microsoft Copilot Studio’s Early Access Program on autonomous agents and tapped into our deep industry and functional expertise to swiftly create high-impact, agent-driven use cases that drive workforce efficiency and enhance customer experiences. We developed nine powerful agents for Business Operations and Industry, positioned to increase operational efficiency by 40%, raise customer satisfaction scores by 10% to 20%, and lower costs by 15%. The simplicity of Copilot Studio’s agentic platform, ease of use, and configurability played a critical role in our success.”

—Rich Holsman, Senior Managing Director of Global Data and AI, Accenture

• Pets at Home, a leading pet care business in the United Kingdom, has used Copilot Studio to create autonomous agents for specific business workflows. One agent that was created for the profit protection team enabled more efficient case compilation for human review, potentially saving seven figures annually.

“We’re using AI to do the time-consuming work so our colleagues can use all resource and expertise to make decisions quickly based on large amounts of data. It’s truly helped empower colleagues through both the level of information at their fingertips, and in time spent on more nuanced and insightful work. The agent solution allows the profit protection team to more effectively assess cases for potential profit loss and dedicate more of their time to skilled analysis, rather than simply information gathering.”

—William Hewish, Chief Information Officer, Pets at Home

Enhance efficiency with AI in low-code: Change how we build

Microsoft Power Platform has always been focused on enabling rapid development of solutions. With Copilot, that is truer than ever. It is increasingly possible to use natural language, images, and documents to develop applications, automations, and more. This will unlock faster development and make Microsoft Power Platform increasingly accessible.

Plan designer in Power Apps now in preview

The new plan designer in Power Apps (preview) is a game-changer, integrating AI-powered assistance directly into the app creation process. Makers can now simply describe their business challenges and provide context like process diagrams, data models, or even screenshots of legacy applications. From there, Copilot will draft user roles and requirements, which can then be refined or modified with AI assistance. Copilot offers real-time suggestions and automation within a single conversational interface, leading makers from problem definition to solution architecture.

Unlock endless possibilities with deeper Microsoft Azure integration

By integrating Copilot Studio with Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Portal, users can bring their own models, prompts, and knowledge, ensuring a smooth and efficient connection with Azure services—without the need for extensive coding.

Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go with your Azure subscription

As accessing Azure AI capabilities in Copilot Studio becomes more common, flexible pricing has become essential. On December 1, 2024, Microsoft will introduce an option to buy Copilot Studio messages with pay-as-you-go consumptive billing through existing Azure subscriptions. This pricing option empowers developers to harness the full potential of Azure AI, while providing the flexibility needed to scale and adapt to changing demands.

Empower administrators with streamlined governance and security

In 2022, we transformed governance with managed environments, empowering tens of millions of citizen developers around the world.

Now, we’re taking it further with managed security and managed operations. These new features bring advanced threat protection, proactive alerts, and seamless disaster recovery to Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Integrated directly into the reimagined Power Platform admin center, these capabilities ensure your business applications are secure, scalable, and always performing at their best.

Embrace the future of AI-first development

The integration of Copilot and autonomous agents is further revolutionizing development in Microsoft Power Platform. These advancements are not just about automating processes; they are reshaping the landscape of digital innovation. Microsoft Power Platform enables organizations to become AI-first companies—innovating faster, making smarter decisions, and delivering greater value to their customers.

Explore Microsoft Power Platform blogs and sessions for Microsoft Ignite 2024

Copilot Studio introduces autonomous agents, agent library:

• Blog: Learn more about this update
• Breakout: What’s new with Copilot Studio and agents
• Breakout: Extending M365 Copilot with Copilot agents: Best practices
• Breakout: Reinventing business processes with autonomous agents 

Copilot Studio and Azure AI announce new tools for developers:

• Blog: Learn more about this update
• Keynote: Microsoft Ignite Keynote
• Breakout: Better together: Copilot Studio and Azure AI
• Breakout: Developers guide to building your own agents

Copilot Studio enhances platform with new updates:

• Blog: Learn more about this update
• Breakout: What’s new with Copilot Studio and agents
• Breakout: Get the most of your enterprise knowledge with Copilot Studio
• Breakout: Get started with best-in-class Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio
• Breakout: Ground Microsoft 365 Copilot in your business knowledge

New capabilities in Power Apps help leverage AI for business productivity:

• Blog: Learn more about this update
• General session: Unlock the value of Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio
• Breakout: The Future of Power Platform: Intelligent Apps
• Breakout: Building intelligent applications with AI and Power Apps
• Breakout: Unlock Productivity with AI in Power Apps
• Breakout: Deep Dive: Create, monitor and optimize enterprise apps with Power Apps
• Theater: Building complete solutions with Copilot and Power Apps

New AI and governance features in Microsoft Power Automate:

• Blog: Learn more about this news
• Breakout: Unlock innovation with practical strategies in Power Automate
• Breakout: Revolutionize the way you work with Power Automate and AI 
• Breakout: Automate email, doc, and image processing with GPT in Power Automate

Power Platform Admin Center simplifies security and governance experience:

• Blog: Learn more about this news
• Breakout: Enterprise Scale: The Future of Power Platform Governance
• Theater: Leveraging rich visibility to secure AI driven business applications
• Theater: Getting the most out of the new Power Platform Admin Center

The post Redefine development: AI-first innovation with agents and Microsoft Copilot in Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your journey, this event is designed to inspire, educate, and connect developers, IT professionals, business users, and like-minded tech enthusiasts who share enthusiasm for digital transformation. Microsoft is the proud lead sponsor of the third annual Power Platform Community Conference: a three-day, in-person, action-packed community event taking place at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, from September 18 through September 20, 2024. At PPCC, get ready to:

• Take advantage of the latest cutting-edge advancements in technology with generative AI and Microsoft Copilot.
• Gain skills and learn best practices to help your team stay ahead of the newest developments.
• Connect with like-minded individuals who share your interest.
• Have direct access to experts who can answer your questions for your business scenarios.

The event kicks off with pre-conference workshops on September 16 and September 17, followed by the main event from September 18 through September 20. Additionally, there will be a day of post-conference workshops on September 21.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to be part of the Microsoft Power Platform revolution. Register now and join us for an event that will inspire, educate, and empower you to achieve more.

Thriving together: The Microsoft Power Platform community experience

Prepare to immerse yourself in the dynamic world of low-code/no-code. This group of problem-solvers, developers, and analysts is united by a common goal: to unlock the full potential of Microsoft Power Platform. By exchanging ideas, best practices, and building on each other’s work, this vibrant community breaks down barriers and elevates the platform to new heights. The Microsoft Power Platform community paves the way for a future of seamless integration, automation, and data-driven decision-making, enriching the lives of businesses and individuals alike.

This year, PPCC will continue to feature the latest and greatest in generative AI and Copilot with several sessions showcasing how these cutting-edge technologies are transforming Microsoft Power Platform and the business landscape. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from Microsoft’s senior thought leaders, product experts, and engineers who are driving these innovations.

Building on the success of previous events such as the European Power Platform Conference, DynamicsCon, TechCon365, and Global Power Platform Bootcamp, this year’s conference may be our best yet.

Networking is a key component of the PPCC experience. The conference provides numerous opportunities for attendees to connect with their peers, share ideas, and learn from each other. Whether it’s during sessions, workshops, or social events, there are plenty of chances to build relationships and expand your professional network.

In addition to the educational and networking opportunities, the conference also offers a chance to hear real-world customer stories and shared insights from industry leaders. These stories provide valuable perspectives on how Microsoft Power Platform is being used to drive digital transformation and achieve business success.

Be sure to follow the Microsoft Power Platform Community LinkedIn for more announcements, exciting executive speaker lineup updates, and continued Microsoft Power Platform Product Weeks coverage.

What’s new and next for Microsoft Business Apps

This year, we’re thrilled to present an exceptional lineup of keynote speakers who are leading the industry. Dive into 150 interactive sessions covering a diverse range of topics, many of which are led by Microsoft’s senior thought leaders and product experts.

On day one of the conference, you’ll gain valuable insights from Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President, Business and Industry Copilot, as he discusses how generative AI and Copilot are transforming software engineering. Jeff Teper, President of Microsoft Collaborative Apps and Platforms, will explore the future of collaboration and productivity. Kim Manis, Vice President of Product for Microsoft Fabric and Power BI, will highlight the latest advancements in data analytics and visualization.

Participate in 20 hands-on technical workshops designed to provide practical knowledge that’s immediately applicable to your work. These workshops cater to all skill levels, from beginner to advanced.

Learn about the newest features and capabilities of Microsoft Power Automate from Sangya Singh, Vice President, Power Platform Intelligent Automations. Discover how Microsoft Dataverse drives data-driven decision-making with insights from Nirav Shah, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Dataverse. Ryan Cunningham, Vice President, Power Platform Intelligent Applications, will showcase the transformative potential of Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Pages. Kim Manis will provide comprehensive coverage of Microsoft Power BI. Ilya Grebnov, Vice President and Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Business and Industry Copilot, will discuss the architectural innovations behind Microsoft Power Platform, and Omar Aftab, Vice President, Conversational AI, will introduce the latest in Microsoft Copilot Studio. These sessions are crafted to equip you with the knowledge and skills to stay ahead of the curve, whether you’re looking to deepen your expertise or explore new areas.

PPCC 2024 will also feature an array of breakout sessions and other engaging activities hosted by Microsoft product teams, the Microsoft Power Customer Advisory Team (CAT), Power BI CAT, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs), super users, and experts from around the globe.

Join the fun at the Power Platform Community Conference

The Power Platform Community Conference is not just an event; it’s an experience that brings together a diverse group of individuals who are passionate about digital transformation. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from some of the best in the industry, network with like-minded individuals, and gain practical knowledge that can be applied to their work.

This conference is a must-attend event for anyone who is passionate about digital transformation and wants to stay ahead of the curve. With a packed agenda, a stellar lineup of speakers, and a vibrant community of attendees, this year’s conference promises to be an unforgettable experience. So, don’t miss out—register now and join us in Las Vegas for the 2024 Power Platform Community Conference.

Register for the event and make your MGM Grand Hotel reservation today.

Power Platform conference

Join like-minded tech peers who share enthusiasm for digital transformation.

Register for the event

The post Showcasing AI innovation at the third annual Power Platform Community Conference appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

And it couldn’t come at a better time, because technology has a talent problem. There’s just not enough high-tech talent in the pipeline to help organizations develop and maintain the complex software solutions they need to stay competitive.¹

Microsoft Power Platform

Embrace the benefits of AI and low-code with Microsoft Power Platform.

Learn how

And the work is indeed complex. Developers need to solve challenges around user interface design, storage requirements, security, compliance, and scalability in their work, and finding the right talent to meet challenges is difficult.

The problem is compounded with the amount of work that needs to get done. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) have to manage growing app backlogs and pushed-back schedules for the development of the apps they know they need, and a general lack of resources for talent and software makes the outlook for new custom apps unclear. 

With more development work to be done than there are developers to do it, many CIOs and CTOs are looking to AI and low-code solutions to transform their application development approach and strategy.

AI and low-code are helping in three ways:

1. Increasing developer productivity
2. Automating repetitive tasks
3. Boosting the skills and abilities of non-developers who can now make meaningful contributions to development

Let’s look at those benefits in detail. 

Increasing developer productivity while remaining compliant and secure

The first thing that low-code can do for a team of developers is enable it to work more quickly with no tradeoff in attention to compliance and security.

As described in a recent white paper on generative AI disruption in software from McKinsey, putting AI and low-code into the hands of developers can improve productivity by as much as 45%, something which can lower code development costs considerably.

At Microsoft, we’ve observed the effectiveness ourselves. In a review of the first 126,000 organizations using Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps, developers say using Copilot makes them faster (80%) and more satisfied with their work (65%). What’s more, the developers using Copilot have a 60% higher success rate than the developers who don’t.

But it’s not all about speed. Low-code solutions don’t just accelerate development—they ensure support of standards for security and compliance, so all the newfound speed doesn’t compromise safety. And low-code makes developers into better developers, too. It amplifies existing talent and experience to help developers identify roadblocks, find solutions, and dream up new innovations.

Visit the Microsoft Power Platform website to learn more.

Automating repetitive coding tasks   

AI-powered development tools excel at automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks that drain the fun out of development work. A routine chore like debugging code can make a developer do the same find-and-fix tasks repeatedly. And development work is filled with necessary but repetitive tasks.

With AI and low-code, writing boilerplate code, debugging, conducting routine software maintenance, performing code reviews, and managing deployments can be done by an AI assistant, allowing the developer to work on the interesting, creative challenges that drive business impact.

We’ve seen this ourselves at Microsoft. In a recent survey—quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness—96% of respondents say AI increases their speed with repetitive tasks. They also say using AI makes them happier. Between 60% and75% of surveyed users said using the tool makes them feel less frustrated when coding and free to focus on more satisfying work.

Boosting the skills and abilities of non-developers

With AI and low-code, organizations can bring non-developers into the development process so they can help create apps and innovate alongside their developer colleagues. Democratizing development enhances an organization’s agility and flexibility.

Business users won’t need extensive coding expertise because AI and low-code let them contribute through natural language inputs, like “create a sales report dashboard” or “automate customer follow-up emails”. Additionally, business users can learn to build their applications faster than ever with the ability to query in-product assistants that can help them build in real time.

By equipping citizen developers with intuitive, low-code tools, they can autonomously create applications that address immediate business needs, such as a mobile app for onsite invoice submissions. This not only reduces the burden of manual tasks but also ensures more accurate data collection and enhances the efficiency of frontline workers. Meanwhile, professional developers can dedicate their expertise to more complex, strategic projects that propel the organization forward. This symbiotic relationship between low-code and traditional development practices fosters an environment where technical agility and innovation thrive, ultimately propelling the organization’s technical velocity to new heights.

When the AI and low-code development tools that an organization uses allow for simplified cross-platform integration as Microsoft Power Platform does, they can break down barriers and ensure business users receive the right oversight and collaborative inputs from colleagues’ developer and IT teams.

Next steps for CIOs and CTOs

If you want to fully embrace the benefits of AI and low-code by incorporating a solution into your tech stack at scale, consider a strategic plan that addresses the following:

• Identify high-impact use cases to begin testing. Determine what type of solutions would benefit your organization most: Do you need web or mobile apps for employees or customers? A website with customizable content management, styling, and data access requirements? Or perhaps custom AI agents that handle specific tasks? Once you’ve identified the best pilot project, implement the solution to deliver quick wins and demonstrate the value of AI and low-code. Document successes and share them to build momentum within your organization.

• Manage risks by ensuring data security and regulatory compliance. It’s important to choose an enterprise solution like Microsoft Power Platform that includes governance, management, and monitoring capabilities. With your solution in place, you can then establish a governance framework to maintain control, such as setting up regular review meetings to ensure compliance and having your IT department or risk management team conduct periodic risk assessments.

• Build a low-code center of excellence. With governance in place and some development wins under your belt, think about upskilling your workforce. Offer tailored programs to upskill both developers and non-developers, promoting continuous learning and cross-functional collaboration, such as hosting workshops and interactive training sessions, where your low-code users and developers can work together. The Microsoft Power Platform Adoption website has workbooks, best practices, and training materials to support organizations with this endeavor.

By following these steps, you can effectively integrate AI and low-code solutions like Microsoft Power Platform, bridging the development gap and driving innovation in your organization.

Visit the Microsoft Power Platform website to learn more.

Source:

¹ Forbes, Research: quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness, March 6, 2023

The post Fast track development with AI and low-code appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

Customers are already achieving innovation and efficiency with Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot. Cineplex, a prominent media and entertainment company in Canada, has revolutionized its operations by leveraging Microsoft Power Platform products to drive automation across various departments, from finance to guest services, saving the company over 30,000 hours annually.   

Create custom copilots with new agent capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio

With Microsoft Copilot Studio, we’re introducing new agent capabilities that enable copilots to orchestrate tasks and functions. Developers provide their copilot with a defined task, equip it with the necessary knowledge and actions, and then Copilot Studio orchestrates dynamic workflows and acts behind the scenes to seamlessly integrate them to automate the task. These capabilities in Copilot Studio are available for customers in limited private preview. It’s early days, and we look forward to learning alongside our customers before wider availability later this year.  

Consider the customer success function, which involves many repetitive tasks. A copilot can help new customers navigate through an onboarding experience, offer training and relevant resource guides, seek feedback that can shape future enhancements, and respond promptly when a customer flags a concern.

These new capabilities allow you to delegate authority to your copilot to automate long-running business processes, reason over actions and user input, leverage memory, learn based on user feedback, record exception requests, and ask for help when it encounters unfamiliar situations. Now, your copilot can recall past conversations to add relevant context and deliver new levels of personalization to experiences that revolutionize how your work gets done. And your copilot follows tight guardrails so you always stay in control.

Whether you’re building using natural language, starting from a template, or using topics to define and control copilot responses, these advancements—together with our commitment to security and responsible AI—mean that Copilot Studio provides an optimal approach for you to build and manage your own custom copilots. 

New Copilot connectors make it easy for developers to integrate and innovate

In addition, Copilot Studio is introducing Copilot connectors to simplify how developers connect their business and collaboration data to their copilots. Copilot connectors include more than 1,400 Microsoft Power Platform connectors, Microsoft Graph connectors, and Power Query connectors—with Microsoft Fabric integrations coming soon. This makes it possible for copilots to use various data sources, including public websites, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Dataverse tables, Microsoft Fabric OneLake, and Microsoft Graph, as well as leading third-party apps. IT teams will soon be able to curate and manage available Copilot connectors to ensure their developers are using a trusted catalog.

New capabilities coming soon to Copilot Studio will also allow developers to publish their copilots as Copilot extensions. These extensions expand the actions that Microsoft Copilot can take on the user’s behalf, customize grounding knowledge with relevant business data, and enable hand-off to other copilots.

Introducing AI flows in Power Automate

We’re also bringing enhancements to Power Automate by delivering new AI-powered automation tools. With AI flows, automation shifts from rules-based to AI-based automation that is adaptive and outcome-based. And with the new AI recorder, desktop flows are getting smarter and more intuitive too. Just show and tell—with your voice—and AI recorder will automate for you.  

Today in Power Automate, you can rapidly and easily build cloud and desktop flows. With AI flows, a new type of workflow, available in an early access program, provides an entirely new approach to process automation that uses generative AI to streamline operations and reduce costs. Now, Power Automate can interpret process objectives, generate automation plans, autonomously select actions, and validate outcomes—all while allowing for easy adjustments. Developers can set guardrails to control the boundaries of autonomy for the AI flow, ensuring safe execution. AI flows make it easier to create more resilient and more capable automations.

AI recorder allows developers to develop robotic process automations (RPA) through screen sharing and voice coaching, leveraging multi-modal understanding for comprehensive training. Using AI, the Power Automate recorder captures the user’s desktop process through voice and video, completing UI automation in minutes, instead of days. This combination of visual and voice allows AI recorder to more easily adapt to changes. For example, it can promptly detect UI changes in app interfaces and then any necessary edits can be made using natural language with Copilot. This feature is available in an early access program.

Microsoft Power Platform invests in new capabilities for professional developers

As AI and Copilot dramatically shift how apps are developed, the developer skills become even more critical. From debugging, to security, to troubleshooting, developers will play an even more pivotal part in providing technical expertise and oversight. This will be particularly important as the sheer number of solutions and apps being built skyrockets with Copilot.

Microsoft Power Apps already empowers professional developers to create modern enterprise applications at scale with ease and efficiency―supporting developers to do their best work using a combination of Copilot, code, and low-code. We’re excited to share new enhancements, demonstrating our investment to make sure that Power Apps continues to be a critical tool in any ProDev’s toolkit.

With native Git integration, developers can synchronize their Power Apps environment with Git repositories. And unlike previous application lifecycle management (ALM) tools, Git integration and pipelines in Microsoft Power Platform are readily available and drive consistency in ALM processes and governance across projects. Additionally, the ability to work directly with code in Microsoft Power Apps Studio further increases effectiveness. From within Power Apps Studio, developers can now view and use source code in a readable YAML format, create templates for screens, reuse code, and store files in a code repository. This all contributes to a more efficient app-development process. 

Experience the future of automation and innovation today

As technology advances at a swift pace, the combination of generative AI and low-code is fundamentally changing how developers build solutions. The growing shift from coding to developing with natural language promises to be as transformative as the impact of cloud platforms and open-source software. In this AI era, low-code technology is essential for your developer toolchain and enables you to easily build generative AI-powered applications and copilots.

Try Copilot Studio and Power Automate to start building solutions that drive efficiency and productivity in your organization today. The Power Apps Developer Plan unleashes your imagination to create powerful apps that transform the way you work. Don’t wait―join the revolution and start building with low-code and AI today.

Lastly, we want to invite you to our community conferences this year:

• The European Power Platform Conference (EPPC) will take place in Brussels, Belgium, June 11 through 13, 2024 at SQUARE Brussels Meeting Centre. Register here.
• The Power Platform Community Conference (PPCC) will take place in Las Vegas, United States, September 18 through 20, 2024 at MGM Grand. Register here.

Microsoft Copilot

Copilot already works alongside you; now your copilot will also be able to work for you.

Try a free version

Check out these blogs and sessions at Build

• Blog post: The future of conversational AI with Copilot Studio: Now build copilots that can act like agents 
• Blog post: Revolutionize the way you work with automation and AI 
• Blog post: Power Apps is making it easier for developers to build with Copilot and each other
• Blog post: Power Pages: The new standard in secure, AI-driven web development  
• Blog post: Unlock new levels of productivity with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Copilot Studio  
• Featured breakout: Shaping next-gen development: the future of Copilot in Power Platform 
• Breakout: What’s new with Microsoft Copilot Studio 
• Breakout: Building the apps of the future today with Power Platform and Copilot 
• Breakout: Revolutionize the way you work with automation and AI 
• Breakout: Reimagine Enterprise Website building with Low Code using Power Pages 
• Breakout: Activate enterprise data in AI-enabled business applications   
• Podcast: Visit the WorkLab Podcast to hear Charles Lamanna talk about no-code tools and how business leaders can use them to transform their organization.

The post New ways of development with copilots and Microsoft Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

As organizations expand their Microsoft Power Platform footprint to meet the needs of their users for application modernization and the inclusion of Microsoft Copilot, administrators can utilize premium features such as managed environments to govern at-scale quickly and easily, while increasing visibility and control. However, as more environments are deployed, administrators need a way to streamline governance and ensure consistency. 

One of the reasons why Microsoft Power Platform is becoming more popular and widely adopted in organizations is its ability to enable rapid application development and innovation. Microsoft Power Platform allows users of different skill levels to create and customize apps, workflows, chatbots, and reports that suit their business needs, using low-code or no-code tools. Microsoft Power Platform also integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Teams, as well as with external data sources and services. By using Microsoft Power Platform, organizations can empower their employees to solve problems, automate processes, and improve efficiency, without compromising security or compliance. 

In our effort to increase efficiency and streamline the process of managing Microsoft Power Platform, we’re thrilled to introduce the public preview of Microsoft Power Platform environment groups and rules and the newest capabilities of environment routing.  

Explore more about environment groups and rules in the official documentation. 

Making governance at-scale even easier 

Environment groups empower admins to establish governance policies through customizable rules, ensuring consistency across environments and eliminating chaos. Microsoft Power Platform administrators can create environment groups. These groups serve as holders for related environments. You can use environment groups to organize your environments by department, project, cost center, or any other relevant criteria, offering a systematic way to manage collection of environments in aggregate. 

In each environment group, administrators can uniformly apply six key capabilities of managed environments to all associated environments. These include setting sharing restrictions for canvas apps, utilizing AI to generate app and solution summaries, and enforcing best practices with solution checker—eliminating the need for manual solution checking. This initial suite of rules is just the beginning, with plans to expand in the near future, providing Microsoft Power Platform administrators even greater control over their environment groups.  

By joining a group, an environment automatically follows all of the group’s rules. You don’t need to set it up manually. This makes sure that all environments in the group are aligned with the basic standards from the start. To ensure that each environment in an environment group maintains the configuration settings determined at the environment group level, the administrators of those single environments within the group will not be able to alter those settings and fall out of compliance with any configured rules.  

Why is default environment routing important? 

Thanks to environment groups, these environments come preloaded with essential admin settings, including sharing limits and solution-checker, making adoption a breeze for Microsoft Power Platform admins. Previously, new makers had to figure out which environment to work in. With default environment routing, this decision happens automatically. Default environment routing is a feature that automatically directs new makers to their personal developer environments instead of the default environment. 

Personal developer environments are individual workspaces, similar to Microsoft OneDrive, where makers can confidently build apps and solutions using Microsoft Dataverse without worrying about others accessing their work, assets, and artifacts. Admins no longer need to be concerned about makers accidentally working in the default environment, where their work might conflict with others. 

When combining with environment groups and rules, these environments come preconfigured with environment-level governance settings, including sharing limits and solution checker. This feature helps new makers to avoid confusion and conflicts when working in Microsoft Power Platform and helps admins to manage their environments more easily. 

What are the key points to remember? 

• Preview feature: Keep in mind that this feature is currently in preview. While it provides early access for feedback, it’s not intended for production use and may change or be discontinued in the future. 
• Managed environments: All developer environments created through environment routing are managed environments as are all environments in a group. These environments require premium licenses for running Microsoft Power Platform assets. 
• Developer plan: Managed environments are not included as an entitlement in the developer plan, which is a free plan for individual developers to learn and build solutions. Learn more about the Microsoft Power Apps developer plan. 

Next steps 

Environment groups and rules streamline management with efficient oversight over multiple environments using a centralized, consistent approach. This ensures uniform standards and configurations across all environments, significantly enhancing developer efficiency by providing ready-made, pre-configured environments that eliminate the need for manual setup. Consequently, this uniform governance simplifies administration and reduces overhead, leading to a more efficient development process. We’re excited to see how organizations continue to develop their Microsoft Power Platform adoption, build centers of excellence, and provide the tools needed for organizations to build modern, enterprise-scale solutions safely and securely.  

We value your feedback and want to hear from you on what features and improvements you would like to see added to environment groups and rules. Throughout 2024, we’ll be enhancing environment groups based on user input. Stay tuned for exciting updates. 

Microsoft Power Platform

Introducing the public preview of Microsoft Power Platform environment groups and rules.

Learn more here

The post Increase efficiency with Microsoft Power Platform governance features  appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

AI and Microsoft Copilot empower non-coders and coders alike

AI is still unfolding its full potential for the world, but its transformational effect on how businesses work is already evident. Copilot is constantly becoming more helpful within the low-code ecosystem of Microsoft Power Platform—new features are being released every month and with Microsoft Build coming up this May, we will be sharing the next wave of Copilot innovation.

We’re thrilled to see the excitement in the community. At the Microsoft Power Platform Conference, we spoke with attendees and gathered their thoughts on how Copilot empowers them as developers, makers, and end-users to elevate their personal work and business operations. Whether it’s facilitating data management and process optimization, streamlining app creation, or achieving superior business outcomes, Copilot is revolutionizing their work and enhancing their overall effectiveness.

Enabling innovation starts with strong security and governance

Microsoft is built on trust. With the introduction of generative AI technology and Copilot to Microsoft Power Platform products, we affirm our dedication to safeguarding data and processes within Microsoft. Our unwavering commitment to data security, privacy, and responsible AI principles inform every facet of our development journey. Customers can confidently trust that their data remains theirs, protected by robust measures at every turn.

Who better understands the crucial role of security and governance within Microsoft Power Platform than those leading its practices within their organizations and actively building apps and automations on our comprehensive low-code platform? While our engineers responsible for building Microsoft Power Platform may possess deeper technical insights, let’s first hear from people in business who are using Microsoft Power Platform: Nishant Kumar (S&P Global), Blake Jones (Chevron), Farzeen Daruwala (Coca Cola Bottling Canada), Mohammed Alkuhlani (Baker Hughes) and Mary Myers (WorldMax). They will share their perspectives on why they trust and feel confident in building with Microsoft Power Platform in the video below.

Traditional code developers and other makers alike find speed, ease, and scale with Microsoft Power Platform

Is this going to be simple enough? Will it scale? And how fast can we get to seeing the real value?

These questions are critical whenever you’re thinking of a new project—whether it’s a brand-new scope or modernization of an existing solution.

Ahmed Salih, Senior Power Platform Solution Architect at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Microsoft MVP shared how easy it was to bring Microsoft Power Platform, and especially Microsoft Dataverse, to his organization with so much security and accessibility right out of the box.

“We have people who are nurses, accountants, students, teachers who actually can go there and create security models in Dataverse. So, as a pro developer, imagine you come there, how efficient you can be.”

Ahmed Salih, Senior Power Platform Solution Architect at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Microsoft MVP

Hear what Ahmed had to say in the video below.

Yes, it’s true that Microsoft Power Platform does see remarkable success with makers who don’t come from a traditional coding background because it’s simpler for them to start building solutions with the visual tools, Microsoft Power Fx language, and the useful features in Microsoft Power Platform that help accelerate the work. But traditional developers get the same advantages, combined with their deep experience and know-how—resulting in an even more powerful combination than “just” a code-first approach can provide.

Discover firsthand accounts from individuals beyond Microsoft MVPs about the simplicity and value they’ve experienced when using Microsoft Power Platform.

We interviewed Michael McCullough (Amtrak) with and Mark Stocks (JE Dunn Construction), and they both attest to the ease of establishing and scaling Microsoft Power Platform practice.

“We went from two apps six years ago to 6,238 apps as of this year. We went from two developers six years ago to 538 developers as of last month.”

Michael McCullough (Amtrak)

In the video below, learn more from them as they talk about their transformation and slashing development time from months to mere days and enabled the creation of intricate business applications.

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The excitement and energy around Copilot, governance, security, and Dataverse is steadily increasing.

In Q3 earnings we shared that more than 230,000 organizations have used AI capabilities in Microsoft Power Platform, which was a strong 80% increase over the previous quarter.¹ Our product teams are dedicated to advancing governance and security for people and organizations using Microsoft Power Platform. Enabling fast and scalable innovation is at the core of the Microsoft Power Platform offering—whether it’s building apps, automating processes, designing and deploying pages, or customizing and creating copilots.

We can’t wait for the next event so we can share new exciting news with our community. If you’re thinking about joining us for Microsoft Build this May, you can register here.

¹ Microsoft Fiscal Year 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call, January 30, 2024

The post The Microsoft Power Platform community is buzzing about Microsoft Copilot, governance, and scale appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

The Microsoft Power Platform comprehensive suite of security capabilities helps organizations to keep their enterprise data safe while leveraging the platform’s AI capabilities. Power Platform security features build on and augment the foundation provided by Microsoft security products and services, so customers get the deepest protection across the breadth of technologies their organization uses.  

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Enhance your data safety with AI

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This month we are announcing several new security features for Power Platform:

• Admins will now have one place to manage Power Platform security at scale using the new Security Hub in the Power Platform admin center.
• New advanced data exfiltration protection features, including the next generation of network isolation and continuous access evaluation of user access rights.
• Microsoft Sentinel for Power Platform integrates Power Platform apps, workflows, and connections into your organization’s security operations to provide a holistic view in the industry leading security information and event management (SIEM) Microsoft Sentinel. 

To help you understand the full security capabilities of Power Platform, we just published a whitepaper focused on enterprise security. This whitepaper shows you how to align Power Platform with your security practices.

Let’s look at these new security capabilities in more detail and explore how they can help secure your Power Platform deployments. 

Achieve the full potential of AI enabled business applications with enhanced security management in the Security Hub

In today’s fast-paced digital transformation environment in the new era of AI, organizations have a hard time understanding how to unlock the power of business data and the flexibility of Power Platform while continuing to meet the ever-evolving security and compliance requirements. Without effective tools for assessing and managing security, administrators may resort to solutions that overly restrict modernization, productivity, and business growth. Security Hub in Power Platform admin center is designed to solve these challenges and more. Administrators will be able to quickly assess the security posture for the tenant, identify and act on the topmost impactful recommendations to improve the posture, use the rich set of high values tools and security capabilities available to gain deep visibility, detect threats effectively, and proactively set policies in place to safeguard from vulnerabilities and risks.  

Security Hub is a must-have for any organization looking to achieve their security and compliance goals with minimal effort and resources, while gaining a competitive edge in the market with secure and reliable AI-enabled business applications solutions. 

Security Hub is currently in private preview, you can express interest in joining the preview here. 

Applying Sensitivity Labels with Microsoft Purview Data Map now supports Dataverse

Applying Sensitivity Labels with Purview Data Map enables organizations to identify sensitive data easily and consistently across the data estate, regardless of where it resides or how it is structured. It also reduces the manual effort and human error involved in labeling the data by using predefined rules and policies that match your business and compliance needs. 

Using the public preview, you can now register Dataverse in Purview and apply Sensitivity Labels to columns in your tables. Try the new preview feature by following “Connect to and manage Microsoft Dataverse in Microsoft Purview“. 

Admin activities now visible in Microsoft Purview 

The ability to view Power Platform administrative logs using auditing solutions in Purview has reached general availability. With enhanced auditing capabilities providing insights ranging from environment lifecycle operations to billing activities, you’re able to adhere to compliance requirements and are empowered to act on security threats. To learn more, see the documentation.  

Access audit data using Microsoft Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse and Microsoft Power BI 

Security professionals can now use their own Synapse workspace to access Dataverse audit data to comply with their auditing requirements. Power BI can also be used to create and monitor auditing events. This feature is now generally available and for more information, review the documentation. 

New advanced data exfiltration protection and network isolation 

One of the best ways to protect your data is to limit access. Limiting access too broadly, though, can often prevent valid users and trusted sources from accessing data and can slow innovation. Power Platform is introducing new ways to limit access to data while at the same time allowing the right users and apps secure access. 

Secure connections from Power Platform to Azure Virtual Network resources

Customers frequently use Power Platform resources together with Microsoft Azure applications and services hosted within their enterprise network. The new virtual network support for Power Platform allows this type of integration to be done over a private network instead of the public network. Customers can maximize their existing Azure networking investment to enable advanced network isolation that securely integrates with low-code resources without exposing any of them over the public internet.  

The following are examples of what is possible by enabling virtual network support to a Power Platform environment: 

• Use the private outbound connectivity from Dataverse plug-ins to access external data sources within the virtual network. For example, the plug-in could access an API hosted as an Azure application to integrate the logic into the plug-in processing. 

• Use private outbound connectivity from Power Platform to access Azure services such as Microsoft Azure SQL, Microsoft Azure Storage, Microsoft Azure Key Vault, and others using Power Platform connectors. For example, a Microsoft Power Automate cloud flow could securely retrieve data from an Azure SQL table that supports another enterprise application. 

These examples demonstrate how the Virtual Network integration breaks down the barriers to any Virtual Network resource integrating with any low-code app, automation, or copilot. 

Virtual network support is in public preview now and you can review the documentation for details on how to enable it in your environments. 

Protect your Dataverse data with a firewall 

Many organizations want more control over who is accessing their business data. In public preview now is a new IP firewall feature. The IP firewall helps to protect your organizational data in Dataverse by limiting user access to the data from only allowed IP locations. 

The IP firewall analyzes the IP address of each request in real time. For example, suppose the IP firewall is turned on in your production Dataverse environment and allowed IP addresses are in the ranges associated with your office locations and not any external IP location like a coffee shop. If a user tries to access organizational resources from a coffee shop, Dataverse denies access in real time. Learn more about IP firewall and how to enable it in.

Continuous access evaluation  

In today’s modern workplace, a user’s eligibility for business application access can change at any time. Evaluating eligibility for application access only during authentication would not ensure that critical events like a network change are re-evaluated when they occur.   

In public preview today, Power Platform now supports continuous access evaluation, a feature of Microsoft Entra ID. Dataverse will initially support this near real-time evaluation, and support for other Power Platform services will follow. Continuous access evaluation continuously evaluates user access to resources based on Microsoft Entra ID signals, such as critical events and changes in user location. User access to resources can be revoked/reauthenticated in near real-time if a critical event occurs, such as IP location change. 

You can enable continuous access evaluation to help mitigate insider and data exfiltration threats. For example, an employee can’t authenticate while on the corporate network, export a valid access token, and then replay it from an external location. Organizations can also use this for shutting down a terminated user and other scenarios that require immediate response. 

To learn more about the continuous access preview feature, review the documentation. 

Power Platform Managed Identity support

Power Platform Managed Identity will allow organizations to securely connect to Azure resources that support Managed Identity from Power Platform resources like Dataverse plug-ins, connections, and flows without the need for managing the credentials. Additionally, you can enforce conditional access policies on resources within Power Platform. For example, if an organization wants to enforce an Azure policy that allows the use of Power Platform resources from location, and particular device, the Power Platform resource onboarded on Managed Identity will simply honor it.

We are enabling this experience under private preview starting with Dataverse plug-ins this week and in future we will support other experiences on Managed Identity within Power Platform. You can join the private preview program here. 

Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management support

Use Entra ID Privileged Identity Management to assign admin roles and use Power Platform admin center with the elevated role assignments. For more on this preview feature review the documentation. 

Prevent data exfiltration from Dataverse by controlling apps access

Secure Dataverse environments by allowing only approved apps to access. This is to prevent data exfiltration where employees cannot use apps like Excel or custom apps to download data from a Dataverse environment. This feature is currently in private preview. 

Support for IPv6 starts rolling out 

IPv6 is the latest protocol of network layer of the internet designed to address issues with IPv4, most notably, IPv4 exhaustion. Microsoft will continue to support both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols for Power Platform products and services. 

Customers using IPv6 are requested to ensure their network settings are configured correctly, especially firewall rules to allow IPv6 Service Tags.  Review IPv6 support in Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 for complete details on plans and how to prepare your organization.

Integrating Power Platform into your security operations center 

Organizations are turning to tools like Microsoft Sentinel to provide enterprise overwatch to respond to the increased complexity of detecting, investigating, and mitigating threats. Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information event and management platform that provides intelligent security analytics for enterprises and provides security operations center (SOC) analysts with a single pane of glass for threat detection and incident management across the organization. 

Business applications, including low-code solutions, typically don’t expose enough telemetry to the SIEM platforms for adequate threat protection. We are announcing the public preview of Microsoft Sentinel for Power Platform, a comprehensive security and monitoring solution that helps you protect and defend your Power Platform environments. With the solution, organizations can detect and respond to the following type of threats and suspicious activities: 

• Power Apps execution from unauthorized geographies 
• Suspicious data destruction by Power Apps
• Mass deletion of Power Apps 
• Phishing attacks made possible through Power Apps
• Power Automate flows activity by departing employees 
• Microsoft Power Platform connectors added to the environment 
• Update or removal of Microsoft Power Platform data loss prevention policies 

Microsoft Sentinel support for all Microsoft Business Applications  

We are also opening a private preview of an enhanced solution that extends threat detection protection with Sentinel to Dynamics 365 and Power BI, in addition to Power Platform. Customers in the private preview will be able to monitor and secure the entire business application portfolio from a single pane of glass, with substantial content update, including new data connectors, hunting queries, playbooks, workbooks, and many new threat detections scenarios. Sign up now by joining the Security Connection Program (CCP) and selecting “SIEM & XDR” as the product of interest. 

Keeping your organization’s apps and data secure is a priority. With the addition of these new features Power Platform enhances your ability to meet the requirements for your Power Platform solutions and to create a secure and productive workplace for your users. 

Learn more about Power Platform security

• Power Platform security whitepaper
• Low-Code Security and Governance
• Virtual network support documentation
• Continuous access documentation
• Admin audit logging documentation 
• Access Dataverse audit using Synapse documentation 
• Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management documentation 
• Admin audit logging documentation
• Access Dataverse audit using Synapse documentation 

The post Protect enterprise solutions with new Microsoft Power Platform security features  appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

Today, we are excited to launch a new set of prebuilt AI functions that can be easily added to a low-code solution without having to engineer a custom prompt. These prebuilt functions provide a great starting point to combine the power of LLMs and power of low-code, but they are just scratching the surface of what is possible. We will also cover how Projectum, a Microsoft partner, was able to leverage prompt builder, Microsoft Power Platform no-code prompt engineering interface, to build and incorporate custom, generative AI actions into their low-code project management solution. If you do choose to try out custom prompts, then please check out the newly published AI Builder prompt engineering guide for some great strategies on how to get started.

Start with prebuilt functions to quickly implement generative AI capabilities 

Starting today, prebuilt AI functions can be used to quickly incorporate generative AI into your Microsoft Power Apps solutions or your Microsoft Power Automate flows without having to engineer your own prompt. Then, if needed, makers can utilize the prebuilt prompt template and customize it to their needs in Microsoft Copilot Studio. 

These readily accessible AI functions are designed to facilitate common AI-driven tasks across the platform. Whether it’s summarizing emails or conversations, categorizing complaints or reviews, extracting critical information from extensive text, crafting responses or drafts to specific messages, or discerning the sentiment of product evaluations, AI functions provide quick-start access to generative AI capabilities.

Here are some examples of how you can use these ready-made prebuilt prompts today:

• AI Summarize: Summarize text from an email or document and add the summary to a Microsoft Dataverse table record. Your application end users would benefit from the summary and can quickly evaluate the next steps.
• AI Classify: Quickly classify customer inquiries into your own categories to ensure the inquiry is assigned to the correct team. You could use this from your custom copilot to route the inquiry and reduce customer frustration from being redirected multiple times.
• AI Reply: Help staff move past writer’s block by drafting a reply message. For example, draft a reply to a customer’s review of a product.
• AI Extract: Automate data augmentation by extracting data like phone numbers or names of people from incoming correspondence. This saves time and improves data quality by prepopulating the data.
• AI Sentiment: Build in the ability to your apps or automations to quickly check if text is positive, negative, or neutral. For example, for the staff reviewing customer feedback, you could provide an indicator in the application of the sentiment.

Projectum: Empowering project management with AI-driven insights

Projectum is a leader in strategic portfolio management, delivering solutions that streamline project management and yield superior outcomes. Specializing in portfolio management, resource and capacity demand management, and time registration, Projectum is the go-to partner for businesses aiming to turn strategy into successful execution. With Projectum, organizations enhance project delivery, optimize efficiency, and boost their bottom line. 

Last year, Projectum unlocked new product opportunities with generative AI capabilities in its Power PPM (project portfolio management) product. Using AI Builder’s prompt builder, Projectum allows project managers to create strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, identify project risks, summarize project reports, and generate real-time project status updates—all using natural language. With AI Builder’s custom prompts, Projectum can easily control the generative response, invoke prompts via Power Apps, and ensure governance through integrated monitoring. AI Builder also enables Projectum to ground the generative AI’s responses in enterprise knowledge, thereby delivering accurate and relevant responses to its customers. 

“AI Builder and Copilot in Power Platform products have been transformative for Projectum. Our users can now wield powerful AI capabilities right within our Power PPM solution. The ability to create custom prompts, invoke AI-driven SWOT analysis, and generate new types of insights has elevated our product’s value proposition.

It’s a win-win for us and our customers, and we see AI Builder supporting all three categories of Project Management AI use cases: automation (improving approval flows and data summarization), assistance (draft schedules and risks logs), and augmentation (business case validation)” 

— Peter Charquero Kestenholz, Founder and Head of Innovation & AI at Projectum 

Best practices for combining prompts and low-code: AI Builder prompt engineering guide

Prompts act as the foundational elements for integrating generative AI capabilities within Microsoft Power Platform, embedding seamlessly into its comprehensive suite, including Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio. Facing unlimited possibilities for content generation and data transformation, low-code makers and developers can reference the AI Builder prompt engineering guide for creating efficient and accurate GPT prompts. The following example visualizes a GPT prompt that makers could use to analyze a complaint from a customer on delivery of their order. Makers can incorporate the customer complaint and the shipping policy as input parameters.

Prompts empower makers to develop bespoke AI functions tailored to business needs and binds them as actions to controls in Power Apps. Leveraging Microsoft Power Fx, makers can effortlessly activate these prompts through various user interactions, such as page refreshes or button clicks. The new prompt engineering experience allows the addition of input parameters to prompts, providing a more contextually relevant data input to LLMs at runtime, thereby eliciting more precisely aligned responses from GPT models.

Prompts find significant utility in Copilot Studio, where they can operate as custom AI plugin actions using just natural language. These plugins serve as a powerful method to extend the native capabilities of your copilots, ensuring their responses are finely tuned to meet specific business requirements. Copilots are designed to call upon these custom plugins to fulfill tasks in response to end-user prompts, enabling a custom copilot experience that leverages these uniquely defined plugin actions for relevant user queries.

Furthermore, prompts can play a crucial role in Power Automate, where they simplify the creation of AI-driven actions for intelligent workflow design. By enabling the extraction of data from unstructured sources and transforming it into structured output, prompts enhance the efficiency and intelligence of downstream processing, making them an indispensable tool for building and infusing generative AI capabilities throughout the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem.

How you can get started with prompt builder in AI Builder

• Try prompt builder
• Prompt engineering guide
• Prompts overview documentation
• Learning videos:
  • Overview video
  • GPT prompts with Excel video
• Governance: learn about administrating generative AI features and cross region availability

The post Prompt engineering made easier with AI Builder appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

Extending your Copilot and conversational experience with enterprise data using plugins

Customers have been asking how they can use Copilot to tap into enterprise data, remove data silos, and improve productivity and collaboration. With plugins, customers can ensure their copilots can securely integrate with this most critical line of business data. At Ignite, we are announcing the ability to extend your Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Power Platform plugins and Microsoft Copilot Studio. We’re introducing three ways in which customers can leverage the power of data inside Copilot for Microsoft 365 or their own Microsoft Power Platform copilots.  

1. Using the existing Microsoft Power Platform connector ecosystem of more than 1,100 live connectors, customers and partners can enable their users to access and update data from external systems. Customers can leverage existing certified Microsoft Power Platform connectors as Microsoft Copilot Studio Topics, which in turn can enrich Copilot for Microsoft 365. 

We are extending the capabilities of our more than 50 intelligent supply chain solutions with Microsoft Power Platform, [Microsoft] Fabric, and Copilot. For instance, Accenture’s supplier risk control tower solution builds the digital twin using Dataverse and Fabric to predict delays and offers recommendations to supply chain operators through the copilot for real-time collaboration with suppliers and automated execution to mitigate disruptions. Through the Power of 3 with Microsoft, Accenture, and Avanade, we are able to infuse rich data and intelligence through Copilot into the broader Microsoft 365 and business application ecosystem, thus enhancing decision making and overall productivity for our clients. 

– Kumar Majety, Cloud Supply Chain Solution Lead, Accenture 

2. With prompt builder, customers can build, test, and deploy AI prompts that will instruct copilots to perform specific actions when asked. In addition, prompts can be grounded in business data to customize your prompts with real-time business data. For example, makers can teach Copilot to produce a specific case summary, case classification, or draft an email reply according to their company policy and based on their company’s case history stored in Dataverse.

3. With Power Automate flow plugins, users can expose the tasks they have in Microsoft Planner by asking “What are my planner tasks?” Similarly, users can find the list of approvals assigned to them by asking “List my approvals.”  

Companies, developers, and ISVs can extend their products into Copilot using plugins 

Our partners have expressed their excitement about taking part in the age of AI. Enabling their products and services as plugins across low-code applications allows them to become part of the extensibility opportunity. ISVs can leverage existing Microsoft Power Platform connectors for creating AI plugins or import existing OpenAI plugins to use in public preview.

“We are thrilled to participate with Microsoft in this age of AI and provide value to our joint customers. The introduction of Power Platform connector as a plugin for Microsoft Copilot opens up an entirely new set of ways for our clients to deliver exceptional customer service.” 

– Kumar Krishnasami, Founder and CEO, Desk365 

Accelerate content generation scenarios with AI Builder GPT prompts 

Generative AI and Microsoft Power Platform create a powerful combination to bring to life next-generation workflows.  

To enable more organizations to leverage the power of generative AI, we are excited to announce the general availability of GPT prompts within AI Builder. Prompts are how users can interact with large language models like GPT, instructing the next generation of AI models to perform specific tasks. However, starting from zero can be tough, but by using AI Builder, users can now integrate generative AI prompts within their Power Automate workflows, Power Apps, Dataverse tables, and copilots. To help users get started, a prebuilt library of ready-to-use prompts is available and includes common scenarios like summarization, classification, content extraction, translation, and sentiment analysis. The prompts also comply with Microsoft’s approach to responsible AI. Users can also craft their own prompts, grounded with company data to produce specific outputs that are unique to their business.  

Build apps better and faster with Dataverse and Copilot AI assistance

Copilot in Power Apps is an AI companion that lets low-code makers easily create apps from ideas through natural language or from existing data in Excel and is one of the fastest-growing ways to build enterprise-ready business solutions backed by Dataverse.

The following capabilities are now generally available: 

1. From ‘idea to app’ within a few minutes using natural language

Makers can describe the app that they want to build and have a Dataverse table and app generated through an interactive Copilot AI-assisted experience. Previously, many makers would spend multiple days gathering requirements, building a prototype, getting feedback, testing, and iterating with business users. Now, with Copilot-assisted app creation, makers can prototype an app faster than ever before, and iterate with business users to build the desired business apps.  

2. Import from Excel to build your apps

Makers can use Copilot AI assistance and the power of Dataverse to import data from Excel to create configurable tables in minutes. Makers were previously facing issues when wanting to scale their app from Excel to a wider audience and use cases—from size limitations, concurrent usage challenges, and governance. The process to upgrade from your Excel file to Dataverse was historically lengthy and prone to errors. With two clicks under two minutes, makers can now import their Excel files into Dataverse, and get suggested table schema to build their next Copilot-enabled apps.  

3. Build formula columns in Dataverse

Now generally available, Formula columns are the next generation of columns in Dataverse. Based on Power Fx, they use the similar Excel-like language you use for Power Apps. Makers can also use natural language to generate formulas, now in public preview. Formula columns empower citizen developers to express business logic on top of existing columns and reference columns from other tables, directly in Dataverse.  

Microsoft Dataverse

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Activate Azure data to unlock AI-driven insights with Dataverse Link to Microsoft Fabric 

We are excited to announce the general availability of Link to Fabric, a no-copy, no-ETL (extract, transform, load) direct link between Dataverse and Microsoft Fabric. With the general availability of Microsoft Fabric, low-code makers can derive AI-driven insights across business apps and data sources and drive action.  

If your organization uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Power Platform with Microsoft Power BI, Link to Fabric provides an even simpler data integration option. Your low-code makers can work with their data securely in Fabric without the need to export data or build and maintain data pipelines. 

Low-code makers can Link to Microsoft Fabric from the Analyze menu in the Power Apps maker portal command bar. The system validates configuration and lets you choose a Fabric workspace without leaving the maker portal. When you confirm, the system securely links all your tables into a system-generated Synapse Lakehouse in the Fabric workspace you selected. Your data stays in Dataverse while you can work with all Fabric workloads like SQL, Python, and Power BI without making copies or building pipelines. As data gets updated in Dataverse, changes are reflected in Fabric near real time. 

Activate low-code app development atop your Fabric OneLake with Dataverse virtual tables  

We are also excited to announce the preview of Dataverse virtual tables over Microsoft Fabric, which enables your low-code app builders to connect to data in Microsoft OneLake and build Power Apps, and drive business actions without data copy, no-ETL, or third-party integration tools. Additionally combined with Power Pages, low-code makers can build external-facing websites and drive action from insights with partners, suppliers, and customers.  

Pattern Energy, a developer and operator of utility-scale wind and solar power facilities across the United States, Canada, Japan, and Mexico, is on a mission to accelerate the world’s transition from fossil energy to a sustainable future. Timely and detailed insights on projects in Dynamics 365 are combined with data from the field to keep track of issues and avoid delays in bringing green energy to the grid. Pattern Energy has empowered a team of low-code makers who can get actionable insights across their data sources and act faster within all their business units across the globe. 

“We worked with Microsoft from early stages of the Fabric preview and realized the features were going to be a game changer for us. Exporting data from Dynamics 365 has never been easier. With Power Platform and OneLake, our teams have access to near real-time data, actions, and workflows. Once all these features are made generally available we’re excited to deploy across our organization; giving everyone at Pattern the tools they need to accelerate their ability to make data-driven decisions.”  

– Duncan Gifford, Director, Enterprise and Data Architecture, Pattern Energy 

Learn more

• Learn more about Microsoft Dataverse.
• Extend Copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio.
• Read more about Dataverse Link to Fabric.

The post Accelerate Copilot extensibility and Power Apps creation with Microsoft Dataverse appeared first on Microsoft AI Blogs.

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Drive organization-wide innovation with Copilot in Power Platform

Enable faster development with the new Power Automate flow designer

Streamline governance and security for your makers with automation in Managed Environments

Extending the Power Platform community

What’s next

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