Upgrade your development pipeline quality 

Power CAT Tools feature suite is designed to streamline your development workflow with capabilities that automate essential tasks and provide insightful guidance based on real-world best practices. Read on to learn about the tools in this powerful suite of features.

Code Review Tool 

Code Review Tool automatically reviews your code to help to ensure adherence to best practices and standards, helping you identify and rectify potential issues early in the development process. 

Code Review Tool automatically reviews code to identify potential issues early in the development process, providing actionable insights and recommendations for optimization and improvement. It meticulously scans the codebase of various platform component types (canvas apps, cloud flows, bots, and more), highlighting areas that require attention and offering a standardized checklist of best practices curated by solution architects in Microsoft.  

This helps developers maintain high standards in their code, reducing the likelihood of errors and enhancing overall performance.

Learn more about code review.

AI-generated solution documentation 

Using AI, solution documentation automates the generation of basic documentation details, significantly reducing the manual effort required. This AI-powered approach helps to ensure that documents are created efficiently and accurately, minimizing human errors and removes the burden of generating basic documentation details, allowing users to focus on more strategic activities and enhancing productivity and efficiency. Simply choose or upload an unmanaged solution, choose the desired document sections, and export to word for quick and easy documentation. 

Read more about AI solution documentation.

Risk assessment 

The Risk assessment feature evaluates potential risks in solutions exposed by security roles and provides actionable mitigation strategies. This proactive approach helps makers and admins address risks collaboratively before and after deployment into production with real business data, helping to ensure the stability and security of their solutions and the system. 

It’s imperative to establish a robust framework for managing security threat tolerance and reducing vulnerability surface area. Whether you’re using Microsoft Dataverse or any other data store, this principle remains crucial. Setting a standard for identifying risks appropriate for your business data’s context is a critical first step. Organizations should define clear guidelines and baseline policies that can systematically evaluate and address potential security threats. This proactive approach helps to ensure that all custom roles are assessed against predefined criteria, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. Continuous monitoring and updating security configurations to adapt to evolving threats is essential for maintaining a strong security posture. 

The Risk assessment tool offers a comprehensive suite of capabilities designed to enhance security and compliance specific to the Dataverse security model and Microsoft Power Platform solutions. This tool is particularly beneficial for both makers and administrators, as it provides automated scanning and compliance checks for custom security roles within Dataverse. By continuously monitoring and evaluating security roles, the tool helps identify potential weaknesses and helps to ensure that roles meet baseline access levels, which can be customized to reflect an organization’s specific security requirements.  

It flags noncompliant roles that do not meet baseline policies defined by administrators, preventing deployment of solutions with noncompliant roles and allowing app owners to take corrective action promptly. Detailed insights into the privileges and clear instructions help app owners understand the potential risks and take appropriate actions to mitigate them to achieve compliance. 

For administrators, the tool offers a unified view of security settings across different environments, making it easier to manage and monitor security roles. It also supports the evaluation of roles against configurable baseline risk ratings, helping administrators enforce compliance and maintain governance throughout the development lifecycle. 

Get more information on Risk assessment.

API playground 

The API Playground, offering a Postman-like experience, allows developers to test and explore APIs seamlessly. This tool is a pre-authenticated software testing environment that helps makers quickly and conveniently interact with Dataverse web API. By eliminating the need for extensive setup or authentication processes, it simplifies the process of integrating and debugging APIs. 

Learn more information on API playground.

Plugin monitor 

The tool provides a convenient, modern interface to easily monitor and analyze plugin performance and behavior, providing insights into efficiency and helping plugin developers optimize their plugins for better performance. Use tracing to troubleshoot low-code and pro-code plug-ins. Tracing helps makers by recording run-time information as an aid in diagnosing the cause of failures, or for general validation of certain states during development. 

Learn more about plugin monitor.

Empowering makers with Power CAT Tools solutions

The Power CAT Tools solution is a distinctive community offering provided by the Microsoft Power CAT team, designed to elevate your development experience beyond what the native platform offers. Built on the low-code platform itself, this open-source repository helps to ensure transparency and offers unique insights into development best practices that are not available natively. The tools suite helps build robust and efficient solutions by making it easier for makers to adhere to best practices. 

Get started with Power CAT Tools today 

To get started with Power CAT Tools, simply download and install the app from the Microsoft AppSource. Configure your development environment to integrate with Power CAT Tools, explore the various features, and begin using the toolkit to enhance your development projects. 

Go to the GitHub repository to get started, or quickly install from AppSource.  

We hope you find Power CAT Tools valuable in your development journey. Thank you for your continued support and contributions. Happy building! 

The post Elevate your Microsoft Power Platform development experience with Power CAT Tools  appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Key areas of focus include expanding AI capabilities and agents to automate routine tasks, provide actionable insights, and improve decision-making at every level. This wave introduces enhancements to user experiences, enabling more intuitive workflows, smarter resource management, and greater collaboration. Businesses can benefit from intelligent tools that optimize operations, improve customer engagement, and support strategic growth initiatives.

In addition to productivity and efficiency, this release prioritizes security, governance, and extensibility, helping to ensure businesses can scale confidently while maintaining compliance and control. With these advancements, organizations can take advantage of the full power of AI and agents to transform their operations and deliver exceptional value to their customers. Watch a summary of the release highlights for 2025 release wave 1.

Highlights from Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales brings the power of AI to help sellers meet their targets while boosting seller productivity. Copilot and agents enhance performance and simplify tasks, to help grow your pipeline, sharpen strategies, and accelerate deals. A reimagined user experience ensures sellers never miss the best move. Automated research, ongoing follow-ups, and prioritized tasks provide continuous guidance, allowing you to focus on the right actions to drive success and grow your business. Watch this video to discover the new and enhanced features included in this release wave.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service will enable agentic capabilities for case and knowledge management, as well as AI-driven routing, while extending Copilot capabilities for customer service representative and supervisor experiences, with a focus on productivity improvements. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Customer Service can benefit your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center will transform service experiences with new features to deliver effortless self-service, accelerate assisted service, and drive efficiency. The 2025 release wave 1 introduces Copilot and agent capabilities to automate intent determination for evergreen self-service and autonomous knowledge management.  Additional key features include multi-modal support in customer intent agent, enhanced unified routing features, and new workforce and quality management capabilities.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service introduces Copilot-first experiences that enhance service operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences in 2025 release wave 1. Key features include automated inspection generation from templates, actionable insights for schedulers, quick access to vital information for frontline workers and managers, plus seamless integrations with Microsoft Teams and Outlook.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance capabilities are designed with a copilot-first experience, delivering enhanced automation and agentic capabilities. This release focuses on simplifying complex tax management and regulatory compliance, automating account reconciliations with agents, improving bank reconciliation processes, and adding intelligence to planning, along with extensibility and data refresh updates for business performance analytics. Discover how the latest enhancements to Finance can benefit your business in this video.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management advances autonomy by integrating intelligence, automation, and analytics to improve productivity and organizational adaptability. This update enhances operational efficiency by automating supplier communications, improving demand planning accuracy with cell-level explainability and generative insights, and taking advantage of AI in manufacturing to align production data with actual processes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations is focused on enhancing usability, performance, and scalability in key areas such as project planning, contract management, invoicing, time and expense entry, and core transaction processing. The spotlight is on AI-assisted core functionality improvements in what-if analysis, proposal generation, time and expense and approvals. This release will introduce a mobile app for time management and deliver scale improvements to support larger projects and handle higher invoice volumes.

Finance and operations cross-app capabilities will continue enabling AI and autonomous enterprise resource planning (ERP) with capabilities that support ERP application suite in Dynamics 365, including Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, Human Resources, and Project Operations. We’re infusing agent experiences across applications, including chat, embedded AI, and intelligent process automation, and enabling extensibility for agent scenarios along with enterprise-grade security and compliance at scale.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources enhances intelligence, automation, and analytics across the hire-to-separate process to boost productivity and enable business agility. We’re advancing recruiting with AI-driven assessments and integrations with external job boards, including LinkedIn. Additionally, we’re improving benefits and people management experiences for employees and HR business partners through AI-first solutions and automation. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce advances in-store experience by providing a mobile-first point-of-sale that reduces store hardware footprint and boosts sales conversion. The improvements to the payment connector allow modern payments methods, further reducing hardware requirements and offering more purchasing options for customers. Additionally, omni-channel unified pricing enables retailers to establish more intricate pricing structures, helping them remain competitive.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces intelligent AI agents to enhance efficiency and automation for small or medium sized businesses (SMBs). These agents seamlessly integrate to execute complex tasks, generate reports, automate processes, and optimize order creation using natural language processing. This release focuses on manufacturing, sustainability, and electronic document capabilities, along with enhanced Shopify and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service integrations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data powers Copilot and agents with the latest customer insights, enabling your teams to take advantage of this data directly within their daily workflow. Enriched with the latest marketing behavioral interactions and streamlined data ingestion, your business can access up-to-date customer profiles without delays to build each experience upon the last.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys brings the power of AI to engage your customers on new channels so you can create new scenarios and business opportunities. Thanks to advanced journey capabilities, you can optimize interactions with your customers, helping to ensure that each touchpoint is meaningful and impactful. The new forms and event management features not only streamline the lead generation process but also help ensure that high-quality leads are captured and nurtured effectively.

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft Power Apps changes how software solutions are built with the plan designer where makers can provide a business problem, and a set of agents helps them build a Microsoft Power Platform software. Apps created using Power Apps are intelligent, powered by a set of extensible agents that support most common tasks like exploring, entering, and summarizing data. Makers can automate common tasks by creating agents from existing apps and deploying them to take care of work autonomously. With integrated ability for users to understand and monitor agent actions, and easy ability to resolve issues when agents hit roadblocks, Power Apps is accelerating the shift to intelligent AI-driven solutions at scale. Watch this video to discover the exciting features launching in this release wave.

Microsoft Power Pages enables businesses to build secure, data-driven portals effortlessly. Recent updates include AI-driven features like Web Agents for multi-platform engagement (email, Teams, WhatsApp), AI-assisted form filling for improved productivity, dynamic list visualizations for better insights, and enhanced governance policies to strengthen security and streamline site deployments.

Microsoft Power Automate is transforming how enterprises automate complex business processes through new human-in-the-loop experiences, including advanced approvals and AI native capabilities, such as generative actions and intelligent document processing. A comprehensive suite of governance, observability, and security controls coming to the automation center and Microsoft Power Platform admin center help to manage complex automations at scale. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Power Automate in this wave.

Microsoft Copilot Studio brings new autonomous agent capabilities; extension of Microsoft 365 Copilot with Custom Agents; new capabilities for the Copilot Studio embedded builder in Microsoft Copilot including support for actions, new enterprise knowledge sources, and the ability to upgrade a declarative agent to Copilot Studio custom agent to access additional capabilities and new conversational channels for custom agents including WhatsApp and SharePoint. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Copilot Studio can benefit your business.

AI Builder in Copilot Studio brings the power of advanced automation to routine processes like email handling, document processing, and image management, helping businesses run smarter and more efficiently. AI Builder has multi-modal content processing capability, which allows businesses to handle various data types—including text, document, and images—within a single natural language instruction. Enhanced Prompt builder tools empower makers to customize AI actions with diverse inputs, expanded data sources from Microsoft Dataverse, and support for generating multiple content types, including documents.

Dataverse is continuing to extend maker experiences by enriching app and agent building capabilities across the platform. Dataverse can seamlessly connect all your data together with an ever-expanding set of external data sources. And with your data together, Dataverse can convert your enterprise data into knowledge, which you can use to customize and extend agents that are built in Microsoft Copilot Studio and the agent builder experience in Microsoft 365 Copilot. These investments are aimed at grounding AI-driven experiences with enterprise knowledge across Microsoft Power Platform.

Microsoft Power Platform Administration and Governance continues to provide enhanced tools and insights for admins to get the most from Microsoft Power Platform. In this wave. We’re focusing on security, easing adoption and governance of Copilot and agents, and helping enterprises boost the adoption of Microsoft Power Platform at enterprise scale with a modernized admin center experience and a new admin connector for automating admin tasks.

Highlights from Role-based Copilot offerings

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales continues to drive innovation with advanced generative AI capabilities designed specifically for sales-focused roles. In this release, we’re enhancing our assistive features by surfacing further CRM platform insights and recommendations to the sales team across the Microsoft 365 product suite. We’re also streamlining SalesChat™ experiences and driving new agent workflows to put organizations in control of automation experiences and notifications.

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Service continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities for agents within their flow of work. In this release, we’ll be introducing connectivity with any CRM system and inline email summary and drafting.

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance enhances efficiency for finance professionals by providing insights that aid strategic decision-making and reduce manual tasks. The 2025 release wave 1 focuses on intelligent automation of variance analysis in Excel, access to external data sources, extending functionalities through Copilot Studio, supporting collections calls in Teams, and taking advantage of generative AI to summarize macroeconomic conditions. Visit the release planner to learn more about upcoming features.

Early access period

Starting February 3, 2025, customers and partners can validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These updates include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled in production environments by April 2025. Take advantage of the early access period to test these updates and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Explore the 2025 release wave 1 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page for more information.

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2025 release wave 1 plan, the Microsoft Power Platform 2025 release wave 1 plan, and the Role-based Copilot offerings 2025 release wave 1. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

The post 2025 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Role-based Copilot offerings appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

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 Power Platform Blog.

Catch all the highlights and demos from today’s Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event. In addition to newly-announced features, you’ll learn how companies like Lynk & Co, Lifetime Products, Stoneridge Software, AIS, and Schneider Electric are leveraging these new features to drive transformation.

Copilot and agents are the future of AI for business

2.1 million users engage with Copilot across Microsoft business applications every month, including employees at companies like PayPal, HP, Lumen, and McKinsey & Company. These Copilot experiences can drive new levels of productivity and efficiency while offering high standards of privacy, security, and compliance.

Moving forward, we envision AI-first organizations will comprise people, Copilot, and agents. Copilot is your AI assistant, designed to work for you. With Microsoft Copilot Studio, you can create, manage, and connect agents to Copilot. Organizations will have a network of agents, ranging from simple prompt-and-response systems to fully autonomous entities, that will operate on behalf of individuals, teams, or functions to execute and orchestrate business processes. Copilot serves as the interface for interacting with these agents, which can handle tasks such as accelerating lead generation, processing sales orders, and automating supply chains. At the Business Applications Launch Event, we showcased new features across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform that demonstrate what’s possible with Copilot and agents.

Thrive with customer experience applications

2024 release wave 2 brings exciting new features to Dynamics 365 customer experience apps designed to deliver connected and personalized experiences for both customers and employees. These innovations focus on optimizing customer interactions and streamlining sales processes across your organization.

New capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales include a multilingual bot (supported languages), Copilot-generated prompts, in-line email functionality, and more. These features are set to transform how businesses engage with customers and manage internal processes.

During the launch event, we showcased how Lynk & Co, an innovative car company, is leveraging the multilingual Copilot Studio bot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. By using AI-powered voice recognition and Copilot-generated prompts, they’ve been able to optimize customer wait times and improve case resolution speed. These tools have enabled Lynk & Co to significantly reduce case review times while keeping their sales team in the loop, thanks to seamless data sharing between service and sales teams.

With Copilot’s intelligent automation, sales managers at Lynk & Co can now focus on building customer relationships rather than manually sorting through documents. By streamlining workflows and providing actionable insights, Copilot empowers sales professionals to work more efficiently and drive business growth. These new capabilities—combined with tools like real-time prompts, the Sales Qualification Agent, and account summaries generated by Copilot—offer businesses a modern, intuitive way to stay connected with customers and make smarter decisions faster.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Dynamics 365 Sales.

Defining autonomous enterprise resource planning (ERP) with innovative agents

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP solutions introduce significant enhancements aimed at improving both core functionalities and autonomous capabilities. These updates include the introduction of five autonomous agents for Dynamics 365 designed to streamline processes and boost organizational efficiency. By automating routine tasks, businesses can focus more on strategic decision-making and adapt to the dynamic market landscape.

For Lifetime Products, a leading global producer of outdoor consumer goods, these improvements have substantially enhanced the productivity of their finance team. The Account Reconciliation Agent for Dynamics 365 Finance autonomously identifies discrepancies between subledgers and ledgers, offering actionable recommendations and reducing manual effort. Additionally, automated bank reconciliation now matches transactions and summarizes histories, saving time and improving accuracy. These features have streamlined their month-end close process across multiple legal entities, enhancing both efficiency and compliance.

In parallel, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central updates have improved operations for more than 40,000 customers. The Sales Order Agent enables businesses like Stoneridge Software’s clients to manage sales orders without needing additional staffing, speeding up order processing while maintaining service quality. Interoperability between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service has streamlined service order management, reducing manual data entry and errors. This automation allows technicians to work more efficiently, improving the overall customer experience and ensuring timely service delivery.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Unlock value everywhere with Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio

Microsoft Power Platform offers new capabilities that enhance automation and app development using AI-powered tools. Copilot simplifies workflows, generates apps, and assists with complex processes, enabling businesses to manage tasks more effectively. With new AI-driven features across Microsoft Power Platform you can create solutions across your organization in record time.

At the launch event, we highlighted how Applied Information Sciences (AIS) is improving workforce efficiency in vendor invoice management using AI-enabled features in Microsoft Power Automate. With Copilot, automating processes such as routing and approvals based on predefined rules, AIS can handle a large volume of invoices daily, reducing manual input and increasing productivity. Users can easily update workflows with a few clicks, and the new summary functionality ensures clear tracking and sharing of updates.

AIS’s onboarding process for new consultants supports ongoing training with Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps. “Search with Copilot” allows users to retrieve records using natural language queries, while the AI-enabled paste feature efficiently fills out onboarding forms, reducing manual data entry. Copilot Studio improves IT Helpdesk automation with task assignment and grounding third-party data sources through knowledge management.  This provides analytics for monitoring agent performance and improves accuracy while also enabling a continuous improvement process.

Explore the release plans for Power Apps, Microsoft Power Pages,  Power Automate, and Copilot Studio.  

Bring automation to your business with Copilot

The latest improvements in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Finance focus on enhancing user experience by automating routine tasks and providing actionable insights through autonomous agents. These advanced functionalities allow sales teams, customer service representatives, and finance professionals to offload repetitive activities, enabling them to concentrate on strategic initiatives. As a result, organizations can optimize efficiency and improve overall productivity.

For instance, companies like Lumen and Genpact have experienced significant time savings with Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance capabilities. Lumen reported a 94% reduction in research time for sales data, while Genpact achieved over a 50% decrease in payroll processing time through automated reconciliation. These enhancements demonstrate how Copilot agents are not only improving workflows but also positively impacting the workforce’s efficiency.

Schneider Electric is another example of a company benefiting from these advancements. Its sales team can now effectively prioritize leads with the help of the Lead Intelligence Agent, which analyzes customer interactions and external data to deliver enriched insights. This streamlined approach allows sales representatives to engage with prospects more strategically, ultimately supporting their goal of enhancing efficiency and driving revenue growth.

Explore the release plans for Microsoft Copilot for Finance, Microsoft Copilot for Service, and Microsoft Copilot for Sales.

Business Applications Launch Event

Dive deeper into the new and enhanced AI capabilities included in the 2024 release wave 2.

Learn more

Watch the virtual Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Join us for the on-demand Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to discover the latest enhancements in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot apps. The event features in-depth demos of new autonomous agents and other capabilities designed to optimize your workflows and streamline operations.

Don’t forget to review the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Stay updated on the latest features and upcoming enhancements, and create your personalized release plan using the release planner to ensure you’re equipped with the knowledge needed to maximize these new capabilities.

The post 2024 release wave 2 launches with hundreds of Copilot capabilities appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Explore new opportunities for applying AI to your unique business needs.

Try for free today

An agent is an AI assistant designed to automate and execute business processes, working with you or for you. They can build capacity for every individual, team, and organization—from sales to marketing to customer service, and more—enabling you to scale impact like never before.

Agents come in all shapes and sizes. They help you retrieve information from grounding data and reason over it to summarize or answer questions. More capable agents take actions when asked, replacing repetitive tasks, and the most advanced agents will be autonomous, operating independently to create plans, orchestrate other agents, and learn to know when to escalate to an employee.

With Copilot Studio, you can create and publish agents to all kinds of channels, including Microsoft Teams, your website, or your customer engagement hubs, and we’ve seen great customer momentum with more than 50,000 organizations having used Copilot Studio to date. 

We’re announcing two new capabilities for Copilot Studio:

• First, agents built in Copilot Studio can now be published directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot, surfacing right in the user’s flow of work.
• Second, we’re unveiling a new Copilot Studio experience that empowers users of any skill level to create agents right from within Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat and SharePoint.

These new features will be rolling out in general availability to all Microsoft 365 Copilot customers over the coming weeks. 

Publish Copilot agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot

Copilot agents enable you to enhance Copilot’s capabilities by connecting to your organization’s knowledge and data sources. When Copilot can draw from valuable data in SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics 365, or your line of business systems, it becomes significantly smarter about your business and its processes. You can also expand Copilot’s capabilities by equipping it with new skills, such as sending emails, updating records, or creating support tickets. And Copilot agents are capable of integrating with your existing line of business systems, enabling them to take action wherever it’s needed.

Users can find agents in a new Copilot agent store in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat, Teams, and the Microsoft 365 app, and they can use these agents by mentioning them (@mention) or by interacting directly with them. IT admins can curate the catalog of agents available in the store from the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Empower users of any skill level to create agents

When it comes to agent creation, we’re excited to introduce a new, lightweight Copilot Studio experience that makes it simple for users of any skill level to build an agent directly within Business Chat and SharePoint. This new experience will roll out in general availability to all customers through October.

With it, you can tell Copilot Studio what you want your agent to do using natural language, and easily choose which knowledge sources you’d like to integrate from across your organization’s data, whether it’s specific documents or entire databases. When you’re ready, the agent can be used by you, shared with a select group, or deployed to an entire organization. Building an agent in SharePoint is even easier and you can create agents in SharePoint with a few clicks, no coding skills required.

You can continue to customize these or any agents in the full Copilot Studio editor, adding more advanced capabilities including autonomy. As we announced at Build 2024, we believe autonomous agents will fundamentally change business processes. We’re actively working with enterprise customers who are building autonomous agents in Copilot Studio as part of our private preview, and we look forward to sharing more later this calendar year about how users can build and use autonomous agents.

Manage agents with centralized controls

We believe organizations that embrace AI will create and use many agents. Copilot Studio provides a trusted environment that delivers confidence through comprehensive policies, access controls, and agent management, all easily managed within the admin center. This includes the ability to control agent creation, sharing, and use, which allows organizations to meet their security, compliance, and governance goals.

Furthermore, the data used to ground agents remains securely within the Microsoft 365 trust boundary, adhering to your organization’s labeling and policy guidelines. When extending your agents through Copilot Studio, your data remains in the Microsoft Azure tenant boundary with security layers to prevent invalid authentication and authorization and data loss prevention (DLP) policies for additional control. And all of this is built on Microsoft’s Responsible AI and Enterprise Data Protection standards.

Ultimately, in a world where AI is rapidly transforming how we work, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio offer new opportunities for applying AI to your unique business needs. By empowering users to create, tailor, and deploy agents of all types, Microsoft is making advanced AI accessible and valuable to everyone.

• Learn more about Microsoft Copilot Studio.
• Learn more about Microsoft Copilot Studio governance. 
• Read the Microsoft 365 blog post about Copilot Wave 2.
• Join us at the Power Platform Community Conference to see how Microsoft is transforming the developer experience. 
• Get in touch with a Microsoft representative today.

The post Unveiling agents built with Microsoft Copilot Studio to supercharge your business appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

In this new era, the true visionaries are those taking advantage of low-code and AI tools to build the solutions that directly affect people’s jobs and lives. The Microsoft Power Platform community keeps showing us the next frontiers of innovation and creativity. These stories from our community below showcase some of the most innovative and inspiring work we’ve seen.

• Minding mining trucks’ massive tires: Donia innovates with low-code at Kal Tire.
• A chatbot for business travel: Daniel builds an AI chatbot for his travel agency.
• From the mailroom to Microsoft MVP: Dian transforms her career with low-code.
• Supporting parents and children with autism: Raghav builds an app with low-code and AI for his son with autism.
• Modeling fashion and new technologies: Yumu goes from the runway to building with low-code.

At the third annual Power Platform Community Conference, we are excited to showcase some of the groundbreaking work emerging from our global community.

Minding mining trucks’ massive tires

Donia Strand is a Senior Business Systems Analyst at Kal Tire in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. As the company’s Microsoft Power Platform manager, her work spans the experience of building her own solutions as a non-technical maker, to working with professional developers to build solutions.

To assess the viability of entry roads at mine sites around the world, the company’s Mining Tire Group performs “site severity” surveys. These surveys helped understand the mine site conditions and extend the lifespan of the costly mining haul truck tires. Donia explains that previously, “Supervisors used to spend up to an hour and a half entering data into Excel, taking photos, and then building out reports.”

Kal Tire operations managers in Canada brought this business issue to Donia and together they saw the opportunity to use Microsoft Power Apps to build an app that manages the surveys. Now, Kal Tire’s Site Severity App, developed in conjunction with MNP Digital, runs on mobile devices and automates the mining site data collection process. The app safely caches data while offline—a common necessity in remote mining sites. Microsoft Power Automate then generates polished PDF reports complete with visual graphs, ready to be shared with stakeholders.

“By integrating the app’s data into Power BI, the Mining Tire Group gained a comprehensive view of mine conditions across all regions,” Donia says. “This leads to better decision-making and reduces wear and tear on mining truck tires.” It also saved substantial time and resources, allowing supervisors to concentrate on their most critical tasks.

Looking forward, Donia is particularly excited about using Microsoft Copilot Studio to create new types of custom copilots for Kal Tire. Her advice to others who are just beginning with Microsoft Power Platform is: “Start simple, experiment, and you’ll be amazed at what can be created. The [Microsoft] Power Platform and AI are game changers: Saving time and opening new possibilities.”

A chatbot for business travel

Daniel Schaurich de Oliveira is the founder and owner of A1, a business travel agency based in Florianopolis, Brazil. For nearly 30 years, Daniel has focused on providing international and domestic travel services for corporate clients.

The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic presented an unexpected opportunity for Daniel to explore new ways to improve his company. With travel restrictions severely impacting the industry, Daniel used the downtime to explore how Microsoft Power Platform and AI could transform his daily operations. He started by automating alerts and generating reports, but soon embarked on more ambitious projects to reimagine daily business.

“I have no IT background and never studied coding,” he says. “But I used Copilot Studio to develop a chatbot to assist my team with various company and industry inquiries.” Daniel was concerned that employees would be slow to adopt a new AI-powered chatbot, so he named it “Fifi” (whose name is akin to “a gossiper” in Brazilian Portuguese) and gave it a personality to make her a humorous, yet knowledgeable, addition to A1.  

Fifi has streamlined internal operations, reducing the time Daniel and his team spend on routine inquiries and allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks. “Nowadays, Fifi is not just a chatbot or digital tool. She is a teammate,” Daniel says. “She’s our essential colleague. And whenever Fifi’s offline, we joke that ‘Fifi’s out sick today’.”

Daniel concludes, “The [Microsoft] Power Platform is amazing. It allows me to build my ideas and improve my business in ways that I never imagined were possible.”

From the mailroom to Microsoft MVP

As a young woman moving from the Netherlands to the US, Dian Taylor worked in a clothing store and the mailroom of a large American office supplies retailer. Later, she transferred to human resources at a bank. Eventually, she learned about Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Now, working in presales at RSM US LLP in Boca Raton, Florida, Dian is tasked with creating a large volume of engaging and effective demonstrations. Even without a formal technical background, Dian uses Microsoft Power Platform to build copilots and apps that can be seamlessly integrated into her demo presentations.

“I use Copilot Studio a lot; not just to create custom chatbots to utilize on websites and Power Pages but also to connect to Dynamics 365 Customer Service,” she says. “It’s great for demos and helps take the pressure off our live agents.”

Dian also credits Microsoft Power Platform with making her job more fulfilling. “The advice that I would give somebody starting out in tech is to keep going and don’t feel overwhelmed,” she explains. “It’s okay not to know everything all the time. Take a step back, learn to use the right tools, and you’ll get there.”

Dian should know as she is now a four-time Microsoft Business Applications most valuable professional (MVP).

Supporting parents and children with autism

Raghav Mishra is a Product Architect at the Sprint365 consultancy in Copenhagen, Denmark. He discovered Microsoft Power Platform’s potential while developing new business solutions for a hackathon and realized that the same tools could be applied to address personal challenges at home. He was inspired by his wife who dedicated several hours each week creating visual instruction sheets for their son with autism. Raghav explains, “She made one-page instruction sheets with hand-drawn images and written directions to guide our son through daily activities like brushing his teeth or removing his shoes.”

Raghav developed the Make Life Easy app using Microsoft Power Platform to automate the creation of these daily instructions. Raghav leveraged Power Apps, AI services, and the DALL-E API to generate both text and images, which are then saved in Microsoft Dataverse and compiled into a one-page, colorful PDF. This document serves as an engaging visual guide for their son.

“I’d never worked with canvas apps,” he said. “The platform’s predefined structure allowed me, as a citizen developer, to build the app from scratch within just five days.”

The app streamlined their family’s routines, cutting down the time spent on creating instructions and making the process clearer and more enjoyable for their son. What once took hours now only requires a few minutes, allowing the family to spend more quality time together. “This app has improved our daily lives,” Raghav says. “I really hope it can also help other families with similar needs.”

Modeling fashion and new technologies

Yumu Hatakeyama, a Microsoft Power Platform Evangelist at Akkodis in Tokyo, Japan, began his career as a fashion model. However, over time, it became increasingly difficult to make a living in the modeling industry. Yumu went back to school to study hardware engineering.

When COVID-19 struck, he was working in automotive parts manufacturing, creating circuit boards. As his company started to push for digital transformation, Yumu took the initiative to learn about Microsoft Power Platform and play a pivotal role in the transition. 

He had never created an app before. Drawing on his experience in the fast-paced fashion industry, he understood the importance of managing schedules. He learned how to use Power Apps and quickly put it to use by creating an attendance management app for remote workers during the pandemic. It visualized attendance data in an accessible dashboard format.

The app had an immediate impact, streamlining attendance across their team of 50 employees. Building on this success, he began incorporating Microsoft AI Builder into his work. Instead of manually inputting data from PDF invoices and receipts, the team trained custom AI models to automate this process, significantly reducing errors and saving time.

Now, he works full-time as a Microsoft Power Platform Evangelist. Yumu says, “Originally, I was in the business of promoting and selling fashion. I transitioned from evangelizing fashion to evangelizing technology. It seems like quite a shift, but the goal remains the same: to deliver better products to everyone.”

When speaking to new Microsoft Power Platform users, Yumu jokes, “If a former fashion model can achieve digital transformation with the Power Platform, you can definitely do it too.” His dream is to spread the use of Microsoft Power Platform across Japan, from large corporations to small and medium-sized businesses, helping everyone to imagine and build their own solutions.

The Future of Microsoft Power Platform is innovation and empowerment

It’s clear that the future of innovation is in the hands of those who do the work and turn their ideas into reality. The incredible advances created by the global Microsoft Power Platform community exemplify the power of low-code and AI tools to transform businesses and careers.

We can’t wait to see many of you at the Power Platform Community Conference in Las Vegas and to witness what we’ll achieve together in the coming years. With the recent advances in Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Power Platform development will only get easier and more powerful.

Join the Power Platform Community

Connect with peers and experts

Learn more

The post How the Microsoft Power Platform community is using low-code and AI to transform work and lives appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

To support investment decisions, Microsoft commissioned a 2024 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study that quantified Power Platform’s impact. The study highlights a 224% ROI, USD82 million in net-present value (NPV), and a payback period of under six months. These benefits stem from reduced development timelines and IT costs, time savings for users, and faster revenue growth from quicker solution deployment. 

The even better news: these figures don’t account yet for the transformational capabilities of generative AI. Currently, Microsoft is seeing organizations create workflow automations two times faster and developers successfully build low-code applications at a 60% higher success rate. 

The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Power Platform

Explore the cost savings, efficiency gains, and revenue growth that organizations experienced using Microsoft Power Platform.

Read the report

Over time, we expect time savings for users and developers, IT costs savings, and topline revenue growth to dramatically increase as generative AI matures.  

For now, we encourage you to learn how customers are maximizing their current low-code investments below—and learn how you can do the same. 

Accelerate development timelines by 35% with low-code 

Microsoft Power Platform has enabled organizations to significantly reduce development and IT costs by significantly streamlining the creation of solutions and automations.  

By combining traditional development environments with Microsoft Power Platform’s low-code tools, companies have accelerated their development processes by 35%, allowing them to bring new solutions to market faster and with fewer resources.  

This efficiency gain, combined with the ability to replace costly legacy tech stacks, has resulted in substantial savings. For example, the Forrester study found that the composite organization was able to reduce their tech stack expenses by up to 80% within three years and cut support staff by up to nine full-time employees.

Time isn’t the only thing enterprises are saving by investing in low code tools for developers. Companies like G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, who was not interviewed for the Forrester study, used Microsoft Power Platform to achieve over USD1.5 million in savings by streamlining development and reducing costs. Their IT team quickly built apps like a Store Audit app that saved USD100,000 in external development costs and a Parking Lot app developed in one day, saving drivers time and reducing delivery costs.

The Forrester study found that the composite organization achieved a risk-adjusted total of USD43.6 million in direct development and IT cost savings over three years, demonstrating Microsoft Power Platform’s powerful impact on operational efficiency and cost reduction. 

Complete tasks 25% faster with Microsoft Power Platform 

Microsoft Power Platform has proven to be a transformative tool for organizations, enabling significant time savings and increased productivity across various departments. By building solutions with low-code products such as Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, and Microsoft Power Pages, organizations have streamlined processes that took weeks, now completing them in hours or minutes.

For instance, one energy customer Forrester spoke to reported savings of USD1 million, with a third of that coming directly from employee time savings. In another case, a financial services firm reduced an up-to-six-week manual HR process to just one hour, freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives.  

Additionally, while they were not interviewed for this particular TEI study, EY separately reported that they used Microsoft Power Platform to create PowerMatch, an app that increased automatic payment clearing rates in their SAP system from 30% to 80% and improved matched payments to 95%. PowerMatch is set to save EY 230,000 hours annually, illustrating the time saving capabilities of low-code solutions. 

On average, organizations have seen a 25% reduction for users in the time required to complete key processes improved using Microsoft Power Platform, translating into a risk-adjusted total of USD44.4 million in time savings over three years. This efficiency not only drives operational improvements, but also empowers teams to focus on innovation and value creation. 

Revenue increased by 7% by empowering employees 

Microsoft Power Platform has proven to be a catalyst for topline revenue growth by notably improving the time to market for new solutions, enabling organizations to better meet customer needs and capitalize on market opportunities.  

By rapidly building and iterating on prototypes, businesses have swiftly adapted to client feedback, enhancing user experience and maintaining competitive market share. For example, companies using Microsoft Power Platform have seen up to 7% of their revenue growth directly attributable to these accelerated processes, resulting in a risk-adjusted total of USD15.4 million in additional revenue over three years.  

This capacity to quickly deliver tailored solutions not only strengthens customer loyalty but also drives net new business, contributing to substantial revenue increases across impacted areas.  

For example, one head of new product at a manufacturing organization said, “By being able to deliver the right product to the customer, we’re getting additional orders from repeat customers. We avoid churn because customers are not going to competitors. We’re getting net new customers. For certain parts of our organization, our revenue increased by 18% to 20%, split between net new customers and repeat customers.”

Customers such as Lerøy Seafood Group, who was not interviewed for this TEI study, separately shared they used Microsoft Power Platform to streamline operations and drive millions in savings annually—contributing to topline revenue. Key innovations that drove savings and revenue increases included apps that optimized production schedules and improved fish weight estimation accuracy, to the tune of USD8 million annually. 

Get a custom business value assessment today

And the implementation of Microsoft Power Platform goes beyond quantifiable benefits, offering organizations a robust foundation for future growth, improved governance, and enhanced employee satisfaction.  

Organizations are reporting reduced risks of shadow IT by empowering employees to solve problems with low-code tools and governance via embedded tools such as Managed Environments. This not only strengthens compliance and security, but also leads to a more engaged and satisfied workforce. 

As businesses continue to explore new opportunities, the flexibility and scalability of Microsoft Power Platform position it as a key enabler of digital transformation, driving long-term success and sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive market. 

We invite you to read the Forrester Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Power Platform report and sign up for a custom business value assessment with your Microsoft Power Platform specialist. 

The post Reduce development times and increase ROI with Microsoft Power Platform  appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

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 Power Platform Blog.

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 Power Platform Blog.

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.

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