Copilot Chat vsus. Microsoft 365 Copilot What's the difference?
While their names sound similar at first glance - Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat - they differ in several aspects. And more importantly, one can't be without another. What is Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat? First since first. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is also called Copilot Chat. Copilot Chat generates answers based on web content, while Microsoft 365 Copilot is also grounded on users' data, like emails, meetings, files, and more. Since January 15, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is available for everyone. Everyone in organizations. Also customers with a Microsoft 365 Business Basic subscriptions can enjoy using Copilot Chat securily. The screenshot below shows how Copilot Chat looks like and highlights its main capabilities. Note that EDP - Enterprise Data Protection is available. What is Microsoft 365 Copilot? Microsoft 365 Copilot is an add-on available for specific Microsoft 365 Subscriptions: Microsoft 365 E3, E5, A3, A5, and Business Standard & Premium. It includes Copilot Chat in addition to other Copilot features: Microsoft 365 Copilot also includes a chat grounded on users' meetings, emails, chats, and documents. It integrates into Microsoft 365 apps, like Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and more. It brings the capability to create agents and additional Copilot management features such as SharePoint Advanced Management and Copilot Dashboard. The screenshot below shows how the Copilot chat experience for those users who got the Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Note that EDP - Enterprise Data Protection is available here too. Copilot Chat can be pinned in MS Teams and MS Outlook as App. How can I access Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat? Copilot Chat is nowadays accessible via m365copilot.com using your Entra account. In contrast to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat users cannot see, by default, Copilot Chat pinned on the Microsoft 365 homepage. Microsoft 365 Copilot Administrators will have to pin the chat in the admin center so it is easy for Copilot Chat users to access it. What's the difference? There are some aspects, such as licensing requirements, subscription fees, data sources, or access to organization content, that determine the differences between Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot. I have listed it in the screenshot below. đ Image showing a 3-column table: Aspect, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Chat Management in CoPilot desktop (browser) and Mobile
I love CoPilot, it's been my go-to assistant for months now. However I think a few features would contribute to it's long-term usability. Pin conversations. Keep certain recurring conversations at the forefront in the list of chats. This would be useful for daily chats such as a food diary, workout tracker, etc. Delete or Archive conversations. The ability to either delete individual conversations or archive/hide them to keep the chat history list clean, concise and relevant. Rename and Label conversations. As a daily CoPilot user I want the ability to name my chats and/or add labels to them so that I can easily find particular chats and add a bit of structure to my chat history list. Bonus Request - The ability to customize the start screen or bypass it altogether. I'd rather jump straight into my chats and use CoPilot for its core features. The suggested content in the beginning screen is simply an extra click and (for me) serves no practical purpose.
Can we enable Copilot in Azure Devops for AI assisted user story and test case generation?
I am currently using Copilot as an enterprise user for github copilot in VSCode and want to have copilot enable in Azure Devops so that it can assist in user story and test case generation. But i am not sure if it's even possible. Please let me know how can i achieve it?Beyond the hype: turning Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents into real business outcomes
Microsoft Ignite 2025 in San Francisco was an electrifying gathering that brought together over 30,000 tech professionals, business leaders, and innovators from around the globe. This yearâs event set a bold tone for the future, spotlighting the transformative role of Copilot and agents in modern workplaces and unveiling a wave of advancements across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The energy on the ground reflected both the excitement and the urgency of this new era, making it clear: Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents are not just the futureâthey are redefining the way companies get work done today. As I spoke with partners and customers, I was inspired by how organizations are embracing these tools to unlock new ways of working and developing rich business solutions. I want to take a moment to reflect on some of my highlights from the event. Extend familiar management infrastructure to agents with Microsoft Agent 365 Over the last week, I heard time and time again how business leaders are embracing the Frontier Firm wave, steering their organizations toward partnering people with agents across every workflow. Thousands of agents are already automating business processes, and by 2028 IDC projects there will be 1.3 billion in circulation.* For enterprise customers, this will bring a massive new digital workforce to manage. As agents get added to every workflow and become more capable, some business leaders have expressed concerns about how to accelerate AI innovation securely. Microsoft Agent 365 turns this challenge into an opportunity. Operating as a control plane for AI agents, Agent 365 extends the existing infrastructure used to manage people to also manage agents, equipping them with the same apps, protections, and context. For IT leaders, Agent 365 gives organizations a single platform to deploy, govern, and organize agents, transforming them from isolated actors into an integrated part of business operations. Agent 365 helps protect and manage agents across the organization by unifying Defender, Entra, and Purview, and provides a single view of their entire agent fleet with the Microsoft 365 admin center. To ensure agents have the context they need to provide the most accurate results, Agent 365 connects Microsoft 365 apps and Semantic Index through WorkIQ. For organizations ready to take advantage of this unified foundation, Agent 365 will offer a robust ecosystem. For example, Microsoft agents like the new, fully autonomous Sales Development Agent; partner agents from Adobe, Cognition, Databricks, Genspark, Glean, Kasisto, Manus, NVIDIA, n8n, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday, and more; and open-source agents from Anthropic, Cursor, LangChain, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Vercel. For developers looking to build their own Agent 365-compatible agents, they can start with Copilot Studio or Microsoft Foundry. For deeper integrations, Microsoft Agent Framework or Agent 365 SDK enable unified discovery, governance, and collaboration across Microsoft 365. Simplify HR and IT support with the Employee Self-Service agent Another impactful way businesses are integrating agents into operational workflows is by replacing fragmented employee-support systems for HR or IT tasks. At Ignite, we announced the general availability of the Employee Self Service (ESS) agent, which brings AI-powered service delivery directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve HR and IT employee support scenarios. Within Copilot, employees can ask questions, submit requests, and complete routine tasks in one trusted place without disrupting workflow. Natively built into Copilot Studio, the ESS agent provides a customizable foundation for intelligent employee service. It works with HR and IT systems such as Workday, ServiceNow, and SAP SuccessFactors and can easily be expanded through low-code extensions, connectors, and integrations with enterprise systems. Employees can tailor workflows, embed organizational knowledge, and adapt the experience to match their organizationâs systems, resulting in a faster and more connected support experience. Frontier Firms in action: Turning AI innovation into business outcomes On Thursday, I hosted a panel session with leaders from several enterprise customers who are well on the path to becoming Frontier Firms: Sean Alexander, SVP, Connected Ecosystem, Lumen Tim Holt, VP, Health Answers Tech Lead & Architect, Pfizer Mona Riemenschneider, Head of Global Communications, GenAI, BASF John Whittaker, Director, AI Platform & Products, Ernst & Young Two themes emerged from our panel discussion. First, the most successful organizations are moving from experimentation to operationalization, developing agent-specific KPIs, governance structures, and more. These are not science experiments, but production tools already embedded directly into some of the worldâs most complex enterprises. For example, Pfizer is leveraging Copilot Studio at scale with over 300 agents deployed across their organization, including a specialized agent that provides continuous manufacturing improvement with prioritized opportunities across the supply chain. Second, leaders on the panel emphasized that the future of work is human-led and agent powered. At Lumen, theyâve developed a declarative agent that synthesizes internal data, external filings, and real-time insights to generate tailored executive briefings, reducing cognitive load and surfacing the context needed to prepare for partner and customer meetings. At BASF Agricultural Solutions, theyâre using a Copilot agent to transform global corporate communication efficiency. The Copilot agent streamlines the compilation of internal and external communication messages, efficiently and securely, resulting in significant time savings. "If 2025 was the year of the agent, then 2026 will be the year of the agents," said EYâs John Whittaker. âThatâs where I think weâre going to see the consolidation of processes into far faster, more real-time, improved outcomes.â Learn how partners and customers are already unlocking new value with AI agents Itâs exciting to see how our rich ecosystem of customers and partners are using Microsoft technology to create their own agents to solve real-world challenges, accelerate transformation, and scale human-agent collaboration. Ignite 2025 featured several Microsoft partners and customers who are building innovative agents, designed to work with Microsoft 365 Copilot to help save time, boost productivity, and accelerate business transformation. ADP - The ADP Assist agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot is purpose-built to support HR and will simplify payroll tasks by bringing key workflows into Copilot Chat and Microsoft Teams. Employees will be able to check time-off balances, review pay statements, and confirm direct deposit settings, all without leaving their flow of work. Blue Yonder - Blue Yonder Inventory Ops for Microsoft 365 Copilot automates demand forecasting using advanced machine learning and generates optimized, constraint-based supply plans covering production, distribution, and procurement to meet business objectives and enhance planner productivity. Freshservice - Freddy AI Agent now integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Copilot, bringing instant IT and support assistance into Word, Outlook, Teams, and more. This deep integration boosts adoption, eliminates context switching, and empowers employees to resolve issues effortlessly inside their everyday Microsoft 365 tools. monday.com - monday.com has integrated its MCP server with Microsoft Copilot both as a ready-to-use agent in the Agent Store and as a "Tool" for users to build custom agents on Copilot Studio. Users can now directly access their monday.com data, surface boards and items, or even update statuses directly within their Teams app or Microsoft 365. Sophos - Sophos Intelix will integrate real-time threat intelligence into Microsoft 365 Copilot, empowering IT teams and business users to check links and files, and make faster, more informed security decisions while democratizing enterprise-grade cybersecurity insights within everyday Microsoft 365 workflows. Wipro â Wipro has implemented Copilot-powered agents across sales, procurement, finance, and talent functions, enhancing knowledge access and decision-making to drive faster, more accurate, and consistent business operations. These arenât the only incredible agents helping businesses. Thousands more are available in Microsoft Marketplace, where partners like the ones below are already reaching customers at scale. Shape the future of work with AI agents What inspires me most coming out of Ignite 2025 is seeing how customers and partners are already building the foundation of their Frontier Firmsâpeople and agents working together to transform productivity and decision-making. This shift is no longer theoretical, itâs happening now across industries, powered by Copilot. To learn more about agents in Copilot and gain access to Microsoft resources, follow the links below. Check out recorded sessions from Ignite and watch demonstrations of agentic solutions from leading software companies Read about the exciting AI innovations for software developers who are building agents Start building agents withâŻMicrosoft Copilot StudioâŻandâŻMicrosoft Visual Studio⯠Get resources for building and customizing agents from theâŻMicrosoft 365 Dev Center and the AI Agents Hub *IDC Info Snapshot, sponsored by Microsoft, 1.3 Billion AI Agents by 2028, #US53361825 and May 2025
Use Copilot with Microsoft ToDo
It would be great if I could have Microsoft Copilot Pro talk to and be able to query these few responses. 1. What are my important task that I am missing? 2. What task do I need to focus on in the next few days? 3. Look at this project/doc/sharepoint file and add additional task to my ToDo that isn't currently on my list.When not to purchase Copilot Studio
Copilot agents are everywhere and for everyone. They are experts on a topic, able to talk to other agents, start an automation, and complete tasks for you. Agents can boost team productivity and process efficiency. Productivity dreams may come true with agents. That's how the need to use and create agents increases every day. â Stay calm and read further before making any purchase decision on the M365 admin center. It may save you over 224,64 EUR monthly with a 1-year upfront commitment. đ Who can create agents, and how? M365 Copilot licensed users can create agents using Copilot Studio. Although the creation is not available for M365 Copilot non-licensed users, they can add and interact with agents. Nowadays, the easiest way to create Copilot agents is as follows: Use the built-in version of Copilot Studio. Do not start from scratch. Instead, use an agent template like the Prompt Coach to build your own. Why do agents bridge the gap between M365 Copilot licensed and non-licensed users? Agents are an excellent option for providing M365-Copilot non-licensed users access to Copilot capabilities grounded on organizational data. Even if users are not licensed with M365 Copilot, they can benefit from Copilot grounded on organizational data via agents. Can I purchase Copilot Studio? Copilot Studio is a no-code Power Platform tool that allows the creation of Copilot agents. The M365 Copilot add-on license already includes licensing for Copilot Studio. You can find it as Copilot Studio in M365 Copilot. There are 3 different ways to license Copilot Studio: đ¤ Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go meter: 0.01 USD per message (no upfront commitment) đ¤ Copilot Studio message packs: 200 USD per tenant, per month đ¤ Copilot Studio in M365 Copilot: 30 USD per user, per month Nevertheless, there's a product called Microsoft Copilot Studion on the purchase services on M365 Admin Center. I am not quite sure, what this product is for. If you know it, please let me know in the comments. đ The challenge is: Microsoft Copilot Studio on the M365 admin center purchase services can easily be mistaken for Copilot Studio in M365 Copilot. Be cautious!
Building Copilot Agents with User Experience in Mind
Understand where and how the user will be accessing the Copilot agent Create multiple-modal experiences for your Copilot using voice To enhance the accessibility and user-friendliness of your copilot agent, consider developing a voice agent for voice interactions. This hands-free experience is not only inclusive but also particularly beneficial in customer scenarios where associates are using their hands and need to interact with the agent quickly and effectively without typing. Before deploying the agent to your user base, ensure thorough testing in the work environment to validate a good end-user experience, especially considering the loudness of the environment. For step-by-step instructions on testing the voice agent experience, you can view this blog Determine the proper channel deployment Selecting the appropriate channel for deployment is crucial. Ensure you reach users where they perform their work, whether it's through M365 Copilot, M365 Copilot chat, embedding into a website, or other channels. It's essential to deploy the agent to the channels that best suit the use case. Creating multilingual agents Creating multilingual agents is essential for providing a personalized and inclusive experience. By enabling your agent to interact in multiple languages, you can cater to a diverse user base and ensure effective communication without language barriers. This feature enhances accessibility, user satisfaction, and expands the agent's reach in global contexts. For more specific information on multilingual agents see below. Take Time During the Configuration to Set Up the Agent for Success Creating a name for the agent In a world where multi-agents are on the rise, it's essential to be as descriptive as possible in the name and description for the intended use. This helps users understand the agent's purpose and functionality. Planning out your multi-agent scenarios early and defining clear names is especially important to avoid confusion. Add starter prompts Starter prompts guide users on how to interact with the agent effectively. These prompts should be clear and concise. When selecting starter prompts, consider defining the most common use cases for the agent. For example, if you are creating an IT Support agent, you might include prompts like "create a support ticket" or "check request status" to cover the most asked questions. Provide description and general instructions A detailed description of the agent's capabilities and intended use helps users understand what they can expect from the interaction. This description also assists the language model in identifying and utilizing your agent for specific tasks or situations. Ensure that the description is concise yet informative. For the instructions (declarative and generative mode), you should be as detailed as possible. Include the purpose, guidelines on what the agent should and should not do, tone, and the skills the agent will possess. Below are resources that provide detailed instructions on how to construct the verbiage effectively. Add key knowledge resources Adding key knowledge sources to the agent is crucial for its effectiveness and reliability. By integrating relevant documentation and connecting to essential business systems, the agent can provide accurate and timely information, ensuring users receive the support they need. These connections enable the agent to perform specific tasks efficiently, leveraging up-to-date data and resources. This not only enhances the userâs experience but also ensures the agent remains a valuable tool in various scenarios, from customer support to internal business operations. Offer alternative ways to answer questions Connecting to a live agent Provide users with the option to connect to a live agent for more complex queries or issues that the agent cannot resolve. Customizing the escalation topic is another way to track potential opportunities for agent improvement. Creating a step in the topic to record the escalation to ensure it is captured for agent performance is key to ensuring agent success and continued feedback on areas of improvement. Create adaptive cards Using adaptive cards in a Copilot agent enhances user interaction by providing a visually appealing and interactive interface. They facilitate structured data collection, ensuring consistency and ease of processing. Adaptive cards offer customization and flexibility, allowing them to be tailored to various scenarios and use cases. They improve communication by presenting information clearly and concisely, reducing ambiguity. Additionally, adaptive cards integrate seamlessly across different platforms and devices, ensuring consistent user experience. Overall, they significantly enhance the functionality and user experience of Copilot agents. Provide documentation references or links In the agent's response, include links to additional resources. Offer links to documentation or external sites where users can find more detailed information. Automate, Automate, Automate Enhancing efficiency with automation Using automation in Copilot agents (agent flows and agent actions) can significantly improve efficiency and reduce manual workload by identifying key processes that can be automated. Incorporating messages that inform users when the agent is processing their request helps manage user expectations and enhances the overall experience. By automating repetitive tasks and providing real-time updates, Copilot agents can streamline workflows, allowing users to focus on more complex and value-added activities. This approach not only boosts productivity but also ensures smoother and more transparent interaction with the agent. Monitor Agents for Insights Actively review the analytics for the agent Regularly reviewing analytics is essential for assessing the agent's performance and identifying areas for improvement, ensuring a high-quality user experience. By analyzing metrics such as engagement outcomes, knowledge source usage, action success rates, and user feedback, you can gain valuable insights into how effectively your agent is meeting user needs. Resources like Microsoft Copilot Studio Analytic, Topic Analytic Autonomous agent health, and Application Insights telemetry provide detailed guidance on measuring and enhancing agent performance. For more information see the discussion on monitoring performance and effectiveness of M365 Copilot agents. Collect Feedback Integrate feedback mechanisms Use adaptive cards to collect user feedback after every interaction with your agent. This allows you to assess and enhance the quality of agent responses while ensuring user satisfaction. Implementing this feedback mechanism helps in obtaining valuable insights into how well your agent is performing and identifying areas for improvement. Conclusion To create an effective Copilot agent, focus on providing easy accessibility by developing voice interactions and multilingual capabilities. Ensure you set up the agent properly in a world of multi-agents to decrease complexity and avoid confusion. Be creative in how you answer prompts, using adaptive cards and alternative ways to respond. Automate crucial business processes associated with the agent's purpose to enhance efficiency and reduce manual workload. Finally, actively collect feedback and apply it to continuously improve the user experience, ensuring the agent remains a valuable tool. A special thanks to IvicaIvancic ((3) Create your first custom AI enabled Copilot Studio Voice Agent â step-by-step guide | LinkedIn) and TrevorNorcross (Monitoring performance and effectiveness of Microsoft 365 Copilot agents | Microsoft Community Hub) for their incredible support in allowing me to link to their insightful blogs.Clarity around the different types of connectors available for Microsoft 365 Copilot
Working with some of the largest and most technical of Microsoft's partners in the Global System Integrators (GSI) team, we are still often met with confusion around the different types of connectors available in M365 Copilot. While agent extensibility could easily be a full week or more of discussion topics and sessions, I wanted to spend a moment to focus specifically on some of the various types of connectors available to agent makers working with M365 Copilot. GRAPH CONNECTORS Graph Connectors play a crucial role in enhancing the knowledge scope of Microsoft 365 Copilot, by enabling the integration of external data sources into the Microsoft Graph. This integration allows Copilot to reason over a broader range of enterprise content, thereby improving the relevance and accuracy of responses to user queries. By ingesting unstructured business data through Graph Connectors, organizations can ensure that their critical content is indexed and accessible within Microsoft 365 Copilot. This process involves semantic indexing, which optimizes data retrieval and enhances the matching of search queries to content, providing more relevant results than simple keyword matches. The relevance of Graph Connectors to Microsoft 365 Copilot is particularly significant in the context of enterprise search and data utilization. Copilot leverages these connectors to access and summarize information from various external sources, such as third-party applications, databases, and cloud services. This capability allows users to find, summarize, and learn from their business data through natural language prompts in Copilot. For example, when a user asks Copilot to summarize recent communications or project updates, Graph Connectors enable Copilot to utilize relevant data from integrated sources, ensuring comprehensive and accurate responses. As an agent maker using M365 Copilot, one important consideration of Graph Connectors is that they offer high-performance operations, due to direct access to information via the Large Language Model (LLM). However, keep in mind that data accessed is not pulled from the external data sources in real-time, as the Graph Connectors sync this business data on a set schedule. Additionally, your operations will be limited to retrieval-based ("read only") tasks when interacting with externally-synchronized Graph data. It should also be noted that these types of connectors will work best for working with unstructured data. Moreover, Graph Connectors are not limited to Microsoft 365 Copilot; they also power other intelligent experiences within the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Microsoft Search and Context IQ. This extensibility allows users to hover over in-text citations to preview external items referenced in responses and dive deeper into the referenced content by selecting links at the bottom of Copilot responses. The ability to configure custom connectors and utilize pre-built ones further enhances the flexibility and utility of Graph Connectors, making them a valuable tool for organizations looking to leverage their external data within Microsoft 365. By integrating these connectors, organizations can ensure that their data is not only accessible but also actionable, driving better decision-making and productivity. POWER PLATFORM (FLOW) CONNECTORS Power Platform Connectors are integral to extending the capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot by enabling seamless integration with various external applications and services. These connectors act as proxies or "wrappers" around APIs, allowing Copilot to interact with other apps and services within the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond. By leveraging Power Platform connectors, users can connect their accounts and utilize prebuilt actions and triggers to build sophisticated workflows and applications. This integration enhances Copilot's ability to retrieve and process data from diverse sources, thereby providing more comprehensive and actionable insights to users. In the context of Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform connectors enable the creation of custom agents that can perform specific actions based on enterprise data. For instance, connectors can be used to retrieve sales opportunities, manage orders, or even check the weather at a customer's location for site visits. This functionality is particularly valuable for businesses looking to automate routine tasks and streamline operations. By integrating these connectors, Copilot can ground its responses in real-time data from various enterprise systems, ensuring that users receive accurate and relevant information. While the performance of a Power Platform Connector will inherently not be as speedy as data retrieval via Graph Connectors, agent makers should consider advantages to using Power Platform Connectors in the right scenarios. The API wrapper can perform real-time operations with the external business data, not requiring data synchronization to the Graph to access. Additionally, these types of connectors offer the ability to add and update records, in addition to retrieval. I have also seen use cases where Power Platform Connectors are preferred when dealing with structured data, even in retrieval-only agents and tasks. Beyond that, Power Platform Connectors are essential for extending Copilot's capabilities through Copilot Studio. This platform allows makers to add custom knowledge and skills to agents using connectors, thereby expanding the range of actions that Copilot can perform. For example, connectors can bring in data from Microsoft Graph, Dynamics 365, and other non-Microsoft enterprise sources, enabling Copilot to provide more nuanced and detailed responses. The ability to use these connectors in a no-code environment makes it accessible for users with varying technical expertise, empowering them to create intelligent, automated experiences that address unique business challenges. CONCLUSION By understanding the different types of connectors, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the scenarios where each work best, agent makers can use one of the most powerful tools for working with external business data. For additional technical detail, please see the links below: Copilot connectors and actions overview (preview) - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn Use Power Platform connectors (preview) - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn Extend Copilot for Microsoft 365 with connectors | Microsoft Learn Build Microsoft Graph Connectors for Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft Learn
