Is Microsoft Copilot in Power Platform a game-changer? 

‘You must know a PROGRAMMING language to develop an application’ – this is yesterday.  

‘You just need NATURAL language to develop an application’ – this is the future, and that future is almost here.  

Microsoft Power Platform is bringing Copilot, its assistive AI, into Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. Copilot is a powerful tool built on Large Language Models (LLM). It uses your data in Microsoft 365 apps and Microsoft Graph to learn from. It understands your words and generates responses to your inputs.

Microsoft Copilot: What’s in it for you?

Microsoft Copilot in Power Platform opens new doors of opportunities for enterprises, especially for SMBs that cannot afford hefty IT budgets. For the uninitiated, Microsoft Power Platform, with its set of products including Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents, helps you get your digital transformation journey off the ground. 
Copilot will address three key enterprise challenges: 

Resource crunch for app development

Power Apps is a low-code development platform that enables you to build applications with less coding knowledge. You just drag and drop the visual elements to build an application. Integrating with other Microsoft 365 apps and Azure cloud also doesn’t take much effort. Practically, you can build an enterprise application on Power Apps in one day. 

App development with Copilot will be lightning-fast. You just need to describe your requirement in natural language, English in this context, and Copilot will build the app for you. For example, ask Copilot ‘Build an employee onboarding application’ and it will deliver. You can make enhancements to this app just by describing the required changes to Copilot. Charles Lamanna, Corporate VP of Low code application platform at Microsoft, says Copilot can build an application on Power Apps in seconds.  

More productivity with minimal efforts

Copilot’s role doesn’t end there. This AI tool is sitting right inside Power Automate to help you create more efficient and smoother workflows. We already have the power of AI on Power Automate through the Describe it to design it feature. This feature creates automated workflows 2X faster than building from the scratch. Copilot is more powerful than the existing AI tool. You can have conversations with the AI to refine the flows. This will certainly boost your productivity and optimize efficiency. 

Enhancing customer experience

Integrating chatbots is a proven method for enhancing customer experience. But building a chatbot is painstaking. You need to curate step-by-step dialogs covering a vast set of topics and responses. Yet, customers come to talk to your customer agents in most cases. Your chatbots should have more contextual knowledge to replicate humans to answer all your customer queries. With Copilot aboard Power Virtual Agents, you can now build intelligent chatbots in no time using natural language.  

For example, you can ask Copilot: ‘allow customers to search for flights, check offers, and book tickets.’ Copilot curates the dialog instantly. You can spruce it up further by describing the changes. It’s going to be that simple. 

The true potential of digital transformation unleashes only when you digitize every possible aspect of your enterprise. The solution is simple – build an app for everything. But it shouldn’t be siloed. Practically, this is not as simple as it sounds. So, most companies are still hinging on legacy systems. I personally believe Microsoft’s Copilot will change this paradigm. Bringing the power of artificial intelligence into Power Platform will level the playing field for every enterprise that has digital dreams. 

That said, Copilot is not without its challenges. Humans are unique. No AI tool, at least as of now, can replace humans when it comes to communicating with sarcasm, humor, and irony. Microsoft consciously named its AI tool Copilot. Because it compliments humans in their work but doesn’t replace them. I’m very optimistic about Copilot.  

At Saxon, we are helping many enterprises help achieve their digital goals using Microsoft Power Platform. Copilot is a great addition to the platform. I will closely observe how this AI technology evolves to empower enterprises with new capabilities and share my findings with you. Watch this space.