Copilot Studio for extending Microsoft 365 Copilot: An overview

in my view one of the most important topics for many businesses who have deployed or are looking to deploy co-pilot for Microsoft 365 is how it can be extended this is a constant topic for questions and many of those questions come from a place of some misunderstanding of one of the important building blocks of that extensibility toolkit copilot studio so in this video I'm going to dig into the issue of extending coop pilot for Microsoft 365 using co-pilot Studio considering what types of things it can do what it can't do that you probably think it can what it likely will be able to do in the future and what you should know about other aspects of co-pilot for Microsoft 365 extension that live outside of co-pilot Studio first though a quick introduction my name is Nick Dei I'm the owner of bright ideas agency a digital trans information consulting company focused on the needs of smaller businesses I'm also the author of who's in the co-pilot seat a guide book for small and medium-sized Business Leaders on how to adopt AI technology if you're interested in learning more about working with me or getting a copy of my book there are links Down Below in the description the purpose of co-pilot studio in my opinion at least can be a little confusing at its core it is mostly a renamed power virtual agents the Power Platform service that has been around for a good while to allow you to develop chatbot experiences using a visual canvas and low code approaches and its capability to create power virtual agents now just renamed as co-pilots or more clearly referred to as custom co-pilots is still the biggest chunk of its functionality and purpose on first inspection it can seem that copilot studio is designed as a b for extending co-pilot for Microsoft 365 but you'll probably recall that Microsoft breaks these extensibility options down into three different paths teams message extensions graph connectors and Power Platform based plugins the only one of these paths you can take with copilot studio is the Power Platform plugins path if you want to create or deploy message extensions or graph connectors or even just get information about them and how they're being used in your environment you'll need to use different tools elsewhere in Microsoft 365 so unfortunately that means that as it stands there isn't just one place from which you can build or manage all the different extensibility options for co-pilot for Microsoft 365 with that said let's take a look at what you can do in copilot Studio as always all the demos you see in this video are created solely for that that purpose and you never see anyone's private information to access copilot Studio you can head over to copilot studio. microsoft.com and confusingly in my experience at least it doesn't generally jump directly into the homepage but into a resource you might have been working on if this is the case just hit the home option once in co-pilot Studio you can see two main options here create a custom co-pilot and extend Microsoft co-pilot it's important to be aware that what license you have available will determine exactly what you can do here copilot for Microsoft 365 gives certain access to extending workloads but if you start building a custom co-pilot to stand on its own you're going to need separate Licensing in order to deploy it within co-pilot Studio there are certain things you could do within the context of both a custom co-pilot and extending Microsoft co-pilot that depending on where you do them will be deployed differently used differently and require different licenses there are also options for integration with other services like AI Builder which always require add-on licensing like everything in Power Platform the license inside of this tool can get pretty complicated pretty fast when you click on extend co-pilot you're taken to the extend Microsoft co-pilot preview screen and do bear in mind that this is still in preview here you have three options for creating extensions the add a custom GPT option will be coming soon and add an open AI plugin is live but outside the bounds of this video for the purposes of this video we'll be talking about the ad Power Platform components option however I do think it's important for us to pause to consider the options that are on this preview page first the fact that custom gpts are shown here as an option is great that implies that an upcoming feature is to provide similar functionality to the GPT builder for co-pilot Pro that I looked at recently I'll put a link to that video down in the description and that would probably offer a much more accessible option than the rest of copilot studio for most users hopefully though it doesn't end up being buried several items deep inside copilot studio and it's just accessible from the Microsoft co-pilot Service as it is for co-pilot Pro users secondly it's important that we recognize that when thinking about extending co-pilot we are currently specifically talking about the Microsoft co-pilot with graph grounded chat option available inside Microsoft teams that is the only place right now we get the ability to use plugins on Commercial accounts the fact that there is a second tab here for other co-pilot experiences leads to questions about what we might see in the future so clicking on the add Power Platform components option we see four additional options specific topics or conversation content and insights or prompt tasks or flow and data or connector let's look at each of these and what scenarios you might want to use them in just something to bear in mind here I'm not covering how to activate plugins in your environment in this video as I recently made a video that covered that if you need that information I'll have a link to it down below before we take a look at each of the options if you're enjoying this video and it's bringing you value please do hit the like button to help you get in front of a wider audience and if you're not subscribed to the Channel please do so to see more like this let's start with the last option as this is probably the most straightforward if you click on data you are sent over to the custom connector screen in power automate this is where you build custom connectors that allow you to interact with pretty much any service that has an API and are the basis for connecting power automate or power apps to secondary services theoretically you get exactly the same option for extending co-pilot if you head over to make. power apps.com copilot plugins on your co-pilot for Microsoft 365 licensed account you are shown a list of connectors enabled as co-pilot plugins and the ones you select and connect here will be available to you to turn on as plugins in co-piloting teams however right now no matter how many custom connectors you have in your environment you're unlikely to see any of them here as your connector has to be certified as compliant as a co-pilot connector before it can appear and there are some other major caveats the biggest being that right now your connector has to be readon to be certified as an example we can see the types of queries accepted by the certified Salesforce connector are limited simply to querying Salesforce data you couldn't for example update the state of a lead using a co-pilot prompt through the connector as a plugin this type of write action is currently entirely unsupported so to summarize a connector as a plugin will allow you to enable co-pilot to take read actions against a certain external data source only certified connectors are available the actions of the connector must be readon and this is a suitable solution when you want to enable one or more single step actions against a certain data source next let's take a look at the tasks or flow option if you click here you'll be taken to a new power automate flow with a trigger of run a flow from co-pilot and a response of respond to co-pilot if you jump into either of these steps you'll see that they're set up exactly the same as the equivalent for running a flow from power apps and then responding back to the app now if you have connectors you already use with Power Platform that you're disappointed you cannot use directly as plugins for co-pilot this is a quick way around that limitation as you could use your existing connectors here to drive whatever automation you're looking for I've been looking at flow-based plugins for the last few weeks off and on and conceptually they work very well you can even integrate instructions back to co-pilot in your responses so that co-pilot will present the data in the way you want however everything you pass back will be reinterpreted by co-pilot so it's not possible to send back something that's highly formatted or very specific right now how you describe your flow is extremely important to co-pilot being able to understand what it does and use it and this is the same for all plugins so you must take the extra time to make sure that's clear and if you have multiple flows that would appear to do the same thing that's going to really confuse co-pilot however there are big issues here too first it takes flows literally hours as much as a day or more to appear in the list of available Flows In cop pilotin teams and that list is very buggy at times sometimes you end up with just multiple copies of the same flow even though it isn't the actual list of flows that's been published secondly we have another prohibition on right actions like the example of connectors I have only been successful in getting co-pilot to use flows that are for read actions only so it would be remiss of me to not highlight again that these are currently preview features and buried in the documentation of this feature is that all that's supposed to work right now are two demonstrative flow templates you can get from the plugins control page that I showed you in the last example both of them are purely readon flows we can't expect features Mark as preview to function 100% or what would be the purpose of marking them as preview so I just wanted to remind you of that so let's summarize as to why you would use this and how it works so you'd use a flow if you want co-pilot to initiate an action that requires a series of steps perhaps dealing with multiple data sources or having some kind of error checking routines baked into them you're happy to publish a plug-in that is a single action in contrast to a connector that can be published with multiple actions baked into it and right now your need is read only I know that extending co-pilot is a top priority to find out about for many businesses both those who have already started deploying co-pilot and those who are still on the fence about it and doing Justice to this range of options in just one video is impossible so to meet this demand I've decided to try something new I'm planning my first Public Live virtual course called simply get to know co-pilot for Microsoft 365 extensibility this 3-hour program will overview the co-pilot extensibility model look at the three different approaches currently available give examples of use cases and consider some of the connected issues like adoption and risk management it's a program designed for leaders wanted to understand the potential of copilot but also for Technical Resources wanted to gain an overview of where they should focus their continued learning on these issues right now I have a pre-registration open on my website and I plan to offer the program in June and July giving the opportunity to take in any updates from the upcoming Microsoft build conference so if you're interested please use the link below to let me know capacity will be limited to ensure everyone can have a good experience and the opportunity to ask questions along the way I hope to see you at one of the sessions next let's consider the content and insights of prompt option if we click here we're taken over to power apps to a different view of our AI plugins and from here you can click on add a Power Platform component as an AI plug-in then the option you want is generate content or extract insights this option uses AI Builder to reason through some sort of prompt input and provide an output whereas copilot operates on the GPT 4 AI model these prompt plugins operate with GPT 3.5 and like the other options we've looked at here this isn't a new tool for co-pilot this is reusing an existing capability that allowed you to integrate an AI prompt and response into other Power Platform assets like power automate flows with a prompt plug-in you can define a particular prompt and test it before deploying it as a plug-in this may seem a little redundant given that you'll be calling this plug-in from a dialogue with an AI chatbot that's actually working on a better model and with all you can e consumption rather than having to consume AI Builder credits as using this will so what's the purpose of this let's take this example of a prompt to extract data from text this uses a well established AI Builder capability I tell the prompt that what I want to extract is a first name last name animal and location and give it the text Nick dorsy took his dog to the park and you can see that the prompt extracts that data and organizes it for me but I'm not limited to these sorts of templates I can build on them or create something completely custom I can customize what I end up with to whatever need I want which could be a fairly long prompt that I would have to outline every time I used it if I wanted to do that 10 times each day then having a prompt plugin like this is going to make life much more efficient for me in the absence of the end user changeable co-pilot lab that I think was mentioned prior to release but hasn't turned up yet this is a NE way to make it easy to access prompts consistently however do bear in mind that if the purpose of your prompt plugin closely resembles something co-pilot feels it could do on its own then it's unlikely to call your plug-in activating a plug-in is one thing but making co-pilot use it is sometimes another right now do ensure you bear in mind though that AI Builder credits are not included in co-pilot for Microsoft 365 licenses so if you want to use this feature you'll have to ensure an appropriate amount of credits are assigned so let's summarize this option you want to reason over a specific prompt given an input or set of inputs deride from co-pilot your request works with GPT 3.5 you have access to or you're willing to buy AI Builder Licensing in addition to your co-pilot for Microsoft 365 licenses you are focused on repeatability perhaps across multiple control services in Power Platform last is the plug-in option that will probably be most familiar to those who had a history with power virtual agents prior to the conversion to co-pilot Studio a conversation plug-in takes what would have essentially been a PVA topic and allows you to package it up as a plugin for co-pilot when you select this option it builds out your plugin in data verse much as you might have seen a full PVA bot built out before and once it's established the correct resources you can begin authoring your conversational Plug-In or topic from the topic auth in canvas you see something fairly similar to what we saw in power automate an initiation of the plug-in from co-pilot it brings in a single variable activity. text which is the string the user sent to the co-pilot related to the plug-in initiation and then you can take further actions right now the list of preview limitations here is fairly long you can't Converse back and forth it doesn't operate in the context of the authenticated user making the request quests its responses can only be text based and it's either turned on or not in your environment you cannot determine which co-pilot for Microsoft 365 users see the plug-in but the fact that these are called out as preview limitation implies that they will all be resolved though which makes this a very powerful tool outside of those limitations the options here are just as powerful as creating a bot topic elsewhere you can access resources to generate answers make calls to external services and even initiate power automate Flows In fact a lot of the capabilities in the other three options we've already looked at live here too or be it currently with a different setup related to user authentication since I started to make this video I've had a generative AI option pop up here too which adds in the option you getting custom co-pilots to reference an external Source like a document to give answers but this this again is a premium feature now tied to co-pilot Studio previously power virtual agents licensing once you've created a topic and published the plugin it'll appear under the co-pilot Studio list of plugins in your co-pilot for Microsoft 365 chat in teams so for this option think about you want features also available in custom co-pilots like generative answers you're willing to deploy features that may also need dedicated co-pilot Studio licensing you can set up your plug-in as a single request per topic and the preview limitations such as authentication are clear so we've covered a lot in this video the biggest takeaway I want to express to you is that for all the features we've looked at in detail here Microsoft really means it when they say they are in preview I think we're very used to getting a Hands-On preview products that in big substantive Ways work exactly the same as the final product and for all but the most Edge use cases there is little more than theoretical risk in using the preview for any workload that in my opinion is definitely not the case here this set of products seems to be under really active development by Microsoft there regularly seem to be small changes to them and even bigger changes to the documentation often the documentation doesn't align with the product you see live and for each of the options we looked at there are really big caveats around their use that you must understand before trying to use them the tools are somewhat buggy they don't tend to work as you'd expect and you can waste hours achieving very little grappling with these challenges but for those of us excited by these upcoming features it still makes a lot of sense to explore them if you're in the situation that you're using co-pilot for Microsoft 365 today and you must extend it then my recommendation for right now is that either team's message extensions or graph connectors should be your path however if you're just starting to roll out co-pilot and you're looking for a path that will allow you to extend it in the future knowing about the tools available in copilot Studio makes a huge amount of sense my assumption is that many of the big limitations we see here will clear up over time the biggest one be the potential to build plugins that can write back data sources buried in the documentation it's implied that for example eventually we'll be able to push adaptive Cards into the chat in the same way we can from teams message extensions or currently from Power automate using teams based flows I think it would be surprising if Microsoft doesn't allow more active writing to data sources and to the chat in the future but I'm assuming that right now working out how to do that in a way that assures safety is proving to be a big challenge there there are two big concerns I have about Microsoft's co-pilot extensibility path though first is the cost and license creep this is another surface through which Microsoft has graciously turned on for all users with co-pilot licenses the opportunity for trying out additional premium features that have the potential to cost their businesses a lot of money based on what's available in copilot Studio the claim that it's just included with your coop for Microsoft 365 purchase is a little disingenuous in my opinion the other connected issue here is timelines these tools we've looked at today are far from ready for prime time and other options such as message extensions or graph connectors AR a great fit for many use cases we're now deep into the first year of many Enterprises having access to co-pilot and a full quarter has passed since the first smaller businesses got the same and more and more what I hear from clients is that co-pilot for Microsoft 365 is okay but they feel really limited by the fact it isn't talking to X data source or Y system that they really depend on for their work I'm concerned that as time goes on and these features languish in preview Microsoft starts to lose the first mover advantage and the renewal windows on those 12- month co-pilot for Microsoft 365 subscriptions come closer and closer every day this is why in my opinion Microsoft should be throwing every benefit they can afford to those co-pilot for Microsoft 365 licens users to ensure their businesses resubscribe at the end of their first year the biggest differentiator Microsoft has to assure that long-term lockin to the copil ecosystem are these extensibility paths and right now at least a third of that offer is a wonderful view to the future but little more than that on the flip side despite the issues I've outlined Microsoft is significantly further along this path than any other equivalent vendor and how co-pilot will work within the broader Microsoft ecosystem is fairly clear if a little rough around the edges in places the complexity of this offer is a reflection of the breadth of what Microsoft can provide its customers and while some of this offer might cost a little more than the B licenses you've already bought there simply isn't a solution that's equivalent from vendors like Google or open AI right now in Fairly substantive ways if you want a flexible extendable integrated AI tool and you don't want to go back to the drawing board to build your own from scratch on top of an llm copilot is the only game in town what do you think about these extensibility options and where they are right now let me know down in the comments thanks for watching through to the end until the next video bye-bye

Channel: Bright Ideas Agency

Views: 1,369

Keywords: generative ai tutorial, copilot studio, generative ai, microsoft copilot studio, microsoft copilot studio demo, microsoft copilot studio training, microsoft copilot studio example, microsoft copilot studio plugins, microsoft copilot studio topics, microsoft copilot studio generative ai, microsoft copilot studio custom prompts, copilot studio microsoft, copilot studio plugins, copilot studio power automate, copilot for microsoft 365, m365 copilot, microsoft 365 copilot

Id: yy_Nnd7jTQ8

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024