Microsoft Copilot Studio: an introductory guide

Launched at Microsoft Ignite 2023, Microsoft Copilot Studio represents a revolution in the field of generative AI and large language models, eliminating the need to write code. This tool enables companies of all sizes to easily create, test, and publish custom copilots and GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) for digital interactions.

But what is Microsoft Copilot Studio? In short, it is an advanced platform that offers a range of features, including customizable AI models, generative AI plug-ins, and robust analytics, providing a comprehensive environment for developing AI-powered copilots. Its capabilities allow companies to optimize operations and improve customer interaction through tailored AI tools.

What is Microsoft Copilot Studio?

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a new low-code solution designed to customize Copilot in Microsoft 365 and develop tailored generative AI tools. In recent years, Microsoft has introduced various versions of its Copilot assistant, such as Copilot for Sales and Microsoft Security Copilot, integrating these technologies into the Microsoft Graph ecosystem and the company's existing portfolio of tools.

So, what is Microsoft Copilot Studio? It is an advanced platform that allows companies to have greater control over their AI experience, offering access to over 1,000 pre-built connectors for tools like SAP and Workday. This platform also includes advanced conversational features, from customized GPTs to generative AI plug-ins.

As companies continue to adopt AI for a wide range of business processes, there is a growing demand for customized and unique solutions. However, creating, deploying, and analyzing complete AI tools can be complex, especially for small businesses.

Microsoft Copilot Studio aims to democratize the experience of generative AI and large language models (LLM) through a SaaS service based on Microsoft Power Platform technologies. Moreover, it integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft solutions such as Azure OpenAI Studio, Azure Bot Service, and Azure Cognitive Services, facilitating the implementation and use of AI in companies of all sizes.

Microsoft Copilot Studio: What features does it offer?

For Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Copilot Studio, the Copilot for Word goes beyond a simple writing assistant, becoming a powerful resource for creativity and efficiency. This advanced tool can generate summaries, suggest the best tone for the target audience, create compelling arguments, and rewrite text sections to improve clarity. Additionally, if the user starts with a simple draft, the Copilot can transform it into a complete text draft to start the document. These integrated features demonstrate how Microsoft Copilot Studio offers highly personalized AI tools to enhance productivity and the quality of content created in Microsoft 365.

For Microsoft PowerPoint

With Microsoft Copilot Studio, creating effective presentations becomes simple and immediate. Users can generate slide show drafts that capture the key message, summarize presentations, modify slide layouts, and synchronize animations to keep the audience engaged. Thanks to the new features of Copilot for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot Studio transforms the presentation creation process, eliminating the need to start from blank slides and ensuring a smooth and interactive user experience.

For Microsoft Excel

Employees will be excited about the new features offered by Microsoft Copilot Studio. This platform transforms data columns into detailed insights, answering complex questions, identifying correlations, exploring hypothetical scenarios and trends, and generating visualizations to bring data to life. Integrated into Copilot for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot Studio significantly improves data analysis and employee productivity within the company, optimizing decision-making and operational processes.

For Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Copilot Studio offers valuable support in managing long email discussions. This tool analyzes conversations, summarizes the main content, and suggests relevant responses, helping to simplify and speed up the communication process. Thanks to Microsoft Copilot Studio, employees can quickly transform brief notes into clear and concise messages, improving efficiency and productivity in the workplace.

For Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Copilot Studio in Teams acts as a personal assistant for business meetings. This tool organizes meetings, synthesizes critical actions, provides answers to questions, and keeps participants informed about what has been discussed, ensuring they are always informed and involved in the decision-making process. Thanks to Microsoft Copilot Studio, companies can optimize meeting management and improve team collaboration, thereby increasing overall efficiency and productivity.

For Microsoft Power Apps

In the context of app development and business workflow automation, Microsoft Copilot Studio stands out. Users can conversationally describe their app needs via Power Apps and see Microsoft Copilot Studio automatically translate these ideas into functional solutions. Thanks to this advanced platform, companies can accelerate the development of their internal applications, improving operational efficiency and technological innovation.

For Microsoft Power Automate

In the context of Power Automate, Microsoft Copilot Studio excels in its ability to enrich and modify workflows through AI-guided conversations. This tool offers unparalleled efficiency, optimizing business processes and saving considerable time compared to manual configuration. Thanks to Microsoft Copilot Studio, companies can automate their operations more quickly and intelligently, improving overall efficiency and productivity.

For Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Copilot Studio enhances the experience of Power BI users by assisting with DAX formula generation, visualization customization, and query optimization. This tool simplifies tasks by suggesting relevant code snippets, optimizing queries to improve performance, and interpreting requests in natural language to provide useful insights. Thanks to Microsoft Copilot Studio, companies can optimize data analysis and improve the productivity of teams responsible for managing and interpreting data within the organization.

In a nutshell

Microsoft Copilot Studio functions as an intelligent assistant, capable of providing answers, inspiration, and summaries from various online sources. This tool helps users stay focused, adjust PC settings, organize windows, and even explore AI art creation. The introduction of this feature is being rolled out progressively in selected global markets, with future expansion plans, thus ensuring greater accessibility to the full potential of Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Microsoft Copilot Studio: What are the benefits?

Through continuous use of the tools available in the Microsoft Copilot Studio ecosystem, the following benefits are offered.

Management of vertical scenarios

Microsoft Copilot Studio allows companies to design personalized conversations that require specific responses, for example, in regulatory compliance matters, thus ensuring targeted interaction that meets industry needs.

Increased productivity

Thanks to the ability to automate even complex workflows, such as expense report submission, employee onboarding, and policy updates, Microsoft Copilot Studio helps increase operational efficiency and overall company productivity.

Data utilization

Microsoft Copilot Studio allows for selecting, editing, and refining datasets through predefined connectors, enabling companies to fully leverage the power of data to inform strategic decisions and optimize operations.

Customization of connectivity and experience

Microsoft Copilot Studio allows companies to create and publish customized plug-ins, GPTs, and prompts, as well as expose business data exactly where needed, ensuring a highly personalized and integrated user experience and processes.

Differences between Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio

In the quest to understand the differences in the landscape of Microsoft AI assistants, it is essential to analyze the nuances between Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio. Here is a comparative analysis to clarify the distinctions and help companies determine which tool might best suit their needs.

Service levels and performance

Microsoft Copilot presents two distinctive versions. Copilot is a versatile and free AI chatbot that offers a range of services, including quick responses, content generation, and image creation, all at no cost to the user. Copilot Pro is designed for those who require a more robust AI experience. It promises faster performance, priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo, and seamless integration with Microsoft 365 apps, making it a premium choice for advanced users and creators.

Microsoft Copilot Studio offers extensive flexibility and creative possibilities. Essentially, companies are building their own AI companion.

Integration and creative tools

Microsoft Copilot in the free version offers basic AI functionalities, ideal for occasional use. However, Microsoft Copilot Pro goes further, deeply integrating with Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. This enables a more sophisticated experience in content creation, programming, organization, and design, tailored for business users who require more flexibility and power from the AI assistant.

Microsoft Copilot Studio emerges as an even more comprehensive tool, offering a low-code solution that not only integrates with Microsoft 365 but also allows users to create their own custom Copilots. This platform is particularly advantageous for companies that want to fully customize and adapt their AI experience, allowing interaction with proprietary business content and documents without relying on external influences.

Data security and protection

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an enterprise-grade product that focuses on prioritizing the Copilot experience while ensuring high data protection. It ensures secure interactions with browser content and PDF documents, protecting critical information with advanced encryption protocols and rigorous data access controls.

Microsoft Copilot Studio follows the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL). The SDL is a set of rigorous practices that support security assurance and compliance requirements. It is governed by your commercial licensing agreements.

Which one to choose?

When evaluating the differences between Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio, it is essential to consider specific business needs.

If the company is looking for a basic AI tool for daily tasks without additional costs, Microsoft Copilot might be the appropriate choice. However, if the company requires a more powerful AI with deeper integration with Microsoft 365 and superior performance, Microsoft Copilot Pro might be the preferred solution.

For companies that need a customizable, secure AI solution tailored to their specific needs, Microsoft Copilot Studio is the ideal choice, offering a wide range of creative tools for creating custom AI assistants.

Use cases for Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studio represents the forefront of conversational AI technology, where copilots not only perform tasks for users but actively collaborate with them, such as copilots mentioned within Microsoft Teams, similarly to how one would mention a person. Microsoft Copilot Studio has been adopted by 30,000 organizations worldwide. Thanks to the latest features and improvements of the Conversational AI Platform, including Copilot Connectors, Analytics, and Templates, this technology has seen remarkable adoption in numerous sectors.

The integration of Microsoft Copilot Studio allows companies to achieve their goals and demonstrate added value, improving operational efficiency and supporting their organizational objectives. With advanced tools for customization and analysis, Copilot Studio offers organizations a flexible and powerful solution for improving internal collaboration and interaction. Let's look at some use cases for Microsoft Copilot Studio:

Business use cases

• ‍Customer service and support: Microsoft Copilot Studio allows creating copilots that handle common questions, FAQs, and customer requests. Automate responses, provide relevant information, and assist users efficiently.
• ‍Technical documentation: With Microsoft Copilot Studio, it is possible to train custom copilots with specific domain knowledge to assist in writing technical documentation. Generate code snippets, explanations, and troubleshooting steps.
• ‍Content creation: Use Microsoft Copilot Studio for brainstorming blog ideas, writing articles, or even composing poetry. Experiment with different tones and styles to suit your content.
• ‍Language learning: Develop copilots with Microsoft Copilot Studio that generate example sentences, vocabulary lists, and grammatical explanations.

Let's explore real use cases where companies and organizations have applied Microsoft Copilot Studio to their needs.

Support for students and education

In the education sector, Victoria University of Wellington identified a significant challenge: students are overwhelmed with information when starting their university journey. Despite access to numerous resources, it is difficult for students to navigate the vast amount of data available—the searches often return links rather than concrete answers.

Using Microsoft Copilot Studio, the university aims to create a 'single pane of glass' experience where students can get answers to their questions through the Generative AI capabilities integrated into the platform. This system uses the university's internal data sources to provide natural language answers, significantly improving navigation and access to information.

The pilot project's feedback has been extremely positive, with over 90% of students reporting a favorable experience and 95% saying they would use it again. Victoria University of Wellington is now planning to expand the use of this technology to further improve student support, demonstrating the value and effectiveness of Microsoft Copilot Studio in an educational context.

Innovation in the financial sectors

Organizations in the financial services sector have been at the forefront of innovation, with companies like Rabobank and Paypal adopting Microsoft Copilot Studio. Virgin Money's Copilot, named 'Redi,' was presented at the Microsoft Build conference; its Copilot experience for credit cards recently received an award at the Card & Payments Awards for "Best Use of AI in Financial Services," providing 24/7 support to credit card customers within the Virgin Money Credit Card app.

Innovation in local public sectors

Significant innovation has also been recorded in the local administration sector, with entities such as the City of Burlington and the City of Kelowna using the Microsoft Copilot Studio platform. The City of Burlington developed 'CoBy' and is currently deploying it in production. This digital assistant demonstrates the ability to discover, analyze, aggregate, and synthesize rich content, providing easy-to-understand or resident-oriented answers. Questions about city services and/or regulatory requirements are answered based on content published on Burlington.ca. It is expected that the implementation of CoBy will improve customer service by providing 24/7 support and greater interaction opportunities for the public. The City of Kelowna has also leveraged Microsoft Copilot Studio to provide solutions to its citizens, contributing to accelerating housing construction in the province through integration with Azure OpenAI. This approach improves the building permit application process, supporting the City of Kelowna's efforts to address the housing crisis by delivering homes quickly.

Transport

London Heathrow Airport has implemented a passenger assistance program called "Here to Help," where non-operational colleagues assist customers in airport terminals by answering common questions. Using Microsoft Copilot Studio, the airport has equipped "Here to Help" colleagues with a personalized and collaborative copilot to provide real-time answers to passenger questions via Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Copilot Studio allowed developers to quickly aggregate information from various sources, such as the public website, internal FAQ documentation, and bus schedules, to support colleagues using artificial intelligence instead of relying on manual searches, other colleagues, or phone calls. This approach not only improves the passenger experience but also increases the confidence of the "Here to Help" team, who may work in the terminals only 4 or 5 times a year.

Support for non-profit organizations' vision

In the non-profit sector, Microsoft Copilot Studio is identifying numerous use cases to introduce innovations that can benefit the world. For example, simplifying volunteer management or assisting non-profit organizations like the Centro de la Familia. These organizations are eager to explore the capabilities of AI agents to support teachers and social workers, allowing them to reduce the time spent on administrative tasks and focus more on direct work with children. This approach aims to significantly improve outcomes for children, optimizing human resources and increasing operational efficiency through the use of Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Microsoft Copilot Studio: How much does it cost?

Microsoft Copilot Studio has a pricing model with a fixed monthly fee (€187.20) for a limited number of messages (25,000 messages). This includes the ability to customize Copilot for Microsoft 365, create custom copilots and GPTs, and use a connected platform that works with Microsoft's conversational AI tools. More information is available on the official Microsoft page.

Conclusion

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a revolutionary platform that makes generative artificial intelligence accessible to all companies. With a low-code solution, companies can customize copilots, automate workflows, and leverage business data efficiently. Integrated with Microsoft 365 and over 1,000 connectors for applications like SAP and Workday, Copilot Studio ensures security and compliance through secure development practices.

Success stories demonstrate its transformative impact across various sectors, making it an essential tool for innovating and optimizing business processes. In summary, Microsoft Copilot Studio is a complete solution for improving companies' efficiency and productivity.

FAQ on Copilot Studio

What is Copilot Studio?

‍Copilot Studio is a low-code platform by Microsoft that allows users to create and deploy AI copilots tailored to their business needs.

What features does Copilot Studio offer?

‍Copilot Studio integrates with Microsoft 365 tools, enabling AI-driven data analysis, content creation, and workflow automation.

How can Copilot Studio benefit my business?

‍Copilot Studio enhances productivity by customizing AI solutions for specific tasks within Microsoft 365.

What is the cost of Copilot Studio?

‍Pricing starts at €187.20 per month for 25,000 messages.