Workflows Agent within Microsoft 365 Copilot

Hey everybody, welcome to a new episode of the Low Code podcast. I'm Sean Feny, a senior product marketing manager on the Power Platform and Microsoft Co-Pilot Studio team. And I'm joined by

>> I'm Wendy Hadad. I'm a senior customer experience program manager on the planner team. And I am joined by I am

planner team. And I am joined by I am General Josel Manchow, senior product manager of all different types of agentic security. We haven't decided

agentic security. We haven't decided today yet what my job is, but last month we had an episode with the lovely Miss Heather Orta Almo, principal product manager, and they had the audacity of

doing this episode without me, so we brought her back. Heather, how are you?

Doing great, Joselyn.

Thank you so much for having me. I hope

that this podcast is going to be extremely different and funner than the last.

>> Whoa. Whoa. I think it's already a win.

>> As someone who's on literally every podcast, I take much offense. Um, hey,

so like what are we talking about?

Typically, we talk about low code, no code solutions. We are going to focus on

code solutions. We are going to focus on a pretty noode solution that's coming out. This is going to be workflows agent

out. This is going to be workflows agent in Microsoft 365 C-pilot. Heather, what

that's a mouthful. What is that? What am

I talking about? This is so new. It's

new to everybody. Please inform us, Heather. What's going on? Yeah, we are

Heather. What's going on? Yeah, we are so so excited to be announcing the release of the workflows agent inside of

Microsoft 365 copilot. So when the next time you're inside of M365 Copilot and you're part of our Frontier program, you'll be able to find the workflows

agent inside of that agent store and you can use it to create automations across your M365 applications. So, we've seen

how we've evolved the creation experience for workflows or automations across Microsoft and this is just a new way for information workers to create

personal automations for themselves directly inside of M365 Copilot. So, you

get all these really cool prompts and responses from co-pilot today. So maybe

every single day you wake up and you ask co-pilot, hey, summarize my meetings for the day. Help me stay on top for a for

the day. Help me stay on top for a for on my calendar or my emails. And then

you wish I just wish that it would just do this. Like why do I maybe if I had a

do this. Like why do I maybe if I had a way to actually have an automation that schedules getting these types of intelligent responses and then takes

action. So maybe I want to get a summary

action. So maybe I want to get a summary of all of my planner tasks that I have inside of my planner and I want it to create focus time for me every day on my

calendar. Now I can do that with a

calendar. Now I can do that with a simple prompt inside of workflows agent.

And that's really what's so magical about this new experience where it's a conversational experience with the agent to create your flow in real time and

then be able to edit and manage that flow directly inside of M365 Copilot.

>> Wendy's hooked. You said planner. She's

like, I'm all in.

>> So, >> so help me understand. There are a lot of disparit automation exagentic solutions right now. And kudos to the team cuz y'all are putting out one thing

after another. When do I use which?

after another. When do I use which?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So we have Power Automate Cloud Flows that we have known and loved for many many many many many years. And then we have agent flows

years. And then we have agent flows inside of co-pilot studio which is really about bringing the ability to have deterministic intelligent

orchestrated actions inside of our co-pilot extensibility story. Right?

Those things will continue to exist uh and be the place for our makers to extend and create automations for business processes at scale. What

workflows agent does is it really allows folks who are looking to create personal automation who maybe have never heard the word API in their life and might not

know how to truly configure a connector action in the way that you are meant to inside of our traditional automation designers. This is really for that

designers. This is really for that person. So, if you're thinking about

person. So, if you're thinking about your friend who uh still doesn't use Teams because they are still stuck on Outlook, but they want to be able to

automate their processes. This is this is really targeted at that persona. So,

you answered the what is it? You

answered the who, and you've given a couple examples, but I mean, I'm coming from the Power Platform background, too, of of building those workflows. And so,

you think about things in terms of connectors or services you're connecting to. Now, if this is for an information

to. Now, if this is for an information worker who doesn't know what an API is, does that limit what connectors, what services you can connect to, or can you talk to me through about how useful is

this tool actually? Yes. So, and

workflows agent allows you to create automations across SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Planner, and Approvals. Outside

of that, if you want to create an automation that uses something that calls to Salesforce or Azure, really the place to do that is inside of our other automation suites.

>> So, you brought up something before, right? Like you make a prompt or you you

right? Like you make a prompt or you you you enter a prompt and you get uh a workflow. Awesome. Right.

workflow. Awesome. Right.

Is is there somebody that's coming from a nonP Power Platform background that may have experience building these workflows that they can get a better understanding of maybe the purpose of

when a workflow is required and how they should structure that prompt or their natural language when trying to create a workflow? Like what are tips and tricks?

workflow? Like what are tips and tricks?

What are best practices they can use in using prompts to make these types of words? Yeah, this is this is a a great

words? Yeah, this is this is a a great question because that's really the magic of workflows agent. So someone's coming in and they might have a general idea of

what they want that automation to look like. Um but they have no idea about the

like. Um but they have no idea about the underlying services and the APIs and what's required to make those things happen. The workflows agent guides the

happen. The workflows agent guides the user to answer those questions. Right?

So, if I were to go into workflows agent today and say, "Hey, help me stay on top of my email." If you were to take that as a concept and try to build a flow in

Power Automate, you'd have to know a lot more before you start deciding what actions do you actually need to help automate or stay on track of your emails. Are you trying to reply,

emails. Are you trying to reply, forward, send? Right? There's all of

forward, send? Right? There's all of these like API calls that can be used to complete that task. And so Workflow's agent in a conversational experience

helps guide the user to get to what do you mean by manage your inbox? Are you

trying to summarize your unread emails?

Are you trying to reply to emails that meet certain requirements? What is it that you're trying to get to? Through

that conversational experience, the user can ultimately say, "Oh yes, I want a summary of my emails." And then workflows will say, "Where do you want that summary? Do you want another email

that summary? Do you want another email with that summary? Do you want it on teams? Do do you want to add a task in

teams? Do do you want to add a task in planner etc. All of all of that is actually done through that conversation and then that flow gets built into real

time. I will say some tips as with all

time. I will say some tips as with all co-pilot prompts is ask questions. So uh

if it created a trigger that is setting off on a weekly basis, you might want to ask what time and what day. uh to refine

it to what you want it to be and then really think about the output that you desire. Today I can go and ask workflows

desire. Today I can go and ask workflows agent, hey summarize all of the meetings I have in my calendar and it's very literal. It takes instructions really

literal. It takes instructions really well. So it'll come back and potentially

well. So it'll come back and potentially give me a summary that is just you have a meeting at 8 a.m. that is X. you have

a meeting at 9:00 a.m. That is why which might not be super helpful from a company perspective. So the more

company perspective. So the more specific you can be of hey use bullet points and only include meetings that I've accepted cuz I'm triple booked all

the time but maybe I only accept 50% of those meetings. Those are those are

those meetings. Those are those are things that are going to be super helpful for the workflows agent to curate an automation that is actually going to be useful. And as with

everything, refinement takes practice, right? So, we are definitely trying to

right? So, we are definitely trying to get our users into the habit of it's not a singleshot prompt. I can't just give it a prompt and then expect the output and then say, "Oh, well, that that

didn't work." And walk away. Which is

didn't work." And walk away. Which is

why we've brought testing directly into the experience, right? So try out some prompts, test it out, see see what it comes back with, go back, give it a

couple more guiding prompts, and then continue testing until you have something that is actually going to help you automate your your personal product processes.

>> No, that makes total sense. And it's

like it's it's very easy to get started and to build some really powerful workflows that do a lot for you in your your personal productivity. But let's

let's take not a happy path approach to this real fast. What if I build unknowingly unknowingly? What if I build

unknowingly unknowingly? What if I build a recursive workflow? What do how do I fix something like that? Because you can you can make a lot of workflows happen

real fast and send things out of whack.

How do I be a better um I don't know prompter? How do I build better

prompter? How do I build better workflows when I'm but and not set myself up for disaster?

>> Yeah. And I I want to also come at it with a direction of empathy. So last

night I was testing a flow. And I've

I've been on automation for seven years now. This is this has been my bread and

now. This is this has been my bread and butter. And last night I drowned my

butter. And last night I drowned my inbox with one of these flows that was creating an approval for an email I received that I was sending myself. And

I ended up with like 400 emails by the time I woke up this morning. So it

happens. It happens to the best of us.

these recursive flows. And I think sometimes you have to learn learn the hard way of testing it out and then having to spend a good portion of your morning deleting emails from your inbox.

But I think a good tip is anytime that you are sending emails to yourself, sending yourself reminders, etc. are a trigger. Triggers are really

trigger. Triggers are really sophisticated. So they can be described

sophisticated. So they can be described and defined in very specific ways that guardrail you from having these kind of

recursive flows that are just triggering over and over and over again from its own byproduct. And so I I think a good

own byproduct. And so I I think a good tip is just make sure that when you do define what that trigger is, you are being really specific. So defining a

trigger and saying, "Hey, trigger only when I receive an email that contains text in the subject keeps me from having that flow trigger for every single email I receive during the day." Right? And

WordPress agent, you know, the way that we've trained it to be is it's meant to be helpful and it's going to ask you follow-up questions, but it's not going

to try to waste your time. So, it's not going to babysit the user to some degree all to all of these options. If you ask it to trigger when you receive an email,

it'll trigger for every email that you receive, unless you define what that uh uh what how that email should look.

>> Yeah, makes sense. Thank you. An aside

fun fact, when I was a new hireer in flow, if our friends left their laptops open and like unlocked, we would go and like write a flow that would flood their emails for funsies to like teach you a

lesson. In the spirit of friends and

lesson. In the spirit of friends and collaboration here on the podcast, we are actually like big planner users.

Some of us are more diligent and obedient than others. I am definitely the problem. But if we're going to talk

the problem. But if we're going to talk about if we're going to talk about this from a collaboration standpoint, can you explain to me and help me understand what are the avenues of collaboration?

Can like Wendy used hers to bother me about like our shared planner or something like that?

>> Yeah, absolutely you can use and that's one of the key scenarios we have for workflows agents, right? So being able to use flows not only to keep personal

productiv to keep your personal productivity up but to also help your team to some degree, right? So I'm sure Wendy could write a workflows agent that pings Jocelyn every single day to update

planner. We can absolutely you can

planner. We can absolutely you can absolutely do that with workflows agent.

uh which is like a a great scenario that we have is the ability to use M365 tools which inherently are collaboration

tools. Just being able to automate those

tools. Just being able to automate those scenarios take us a a huge step back and it it's related but I I'm going to first ask Heather to answer and then I think Joselyn or Sean maybe if you want to

pile on to this as well. in working with customers around copilot adoption and now being in the agent space. What I'm

finding is that there there's two parts of this. There's the part of prompt

of this. There's the part of prompt engineering or giving instructions and I think we had this discussion around that which is really interesting that it takes it so literally. So you need to be

so specific and it's it's a muscle that we need to all develop and and be targeted. But there's another part of

targeted. But there's another part of this of just looking at work differently to understand what can be automated and that could be with the workflows agent.

It could be with power automate. It

could be with copilot itself or different tools here. And so you've lived in this space for a long time. I

know each of us has probably been through our own journey of automations.

How have you kind of grown in being able to identify things to automate and deciding what should be automated or not? And I guess in in the context of

not? And I guess in in the context of workflows agent, maybe in the more of your personal use case as well um for this this podcast episode, but I'd love to understand that journey of just how

do you think of what to automate?

>> Yeah, I love this question. This is a this is something that me and my friends talk about a lot. They I have a lot of friends across Microsoft that sit in

finance and operations and marketing and I'm always the like very eager product manager of like okay so you wake up in the morning and then and then you open email and then what do you do like how

do we how can I automate everything that you do today? And I think some something that I've learned is truly in the last

five years since the the you know since we got co-pilot since we've we've been able to have access to these AI tools we've almost have to take

away the scar tissue of some of those original engagements of like oh well I asked co-pilot to summarize something in the year 2020 and it did not do a good

job and it's like the models and what we were able to do in 2020 is like a completely different world than what we're able to accomplish today in 2025

and sometimes I think we have to do the same thing not from an AI perspective but from an automation perspective right so if I think about some of these personal productivity scenarios that

that we can use today with workflows agent so hey take all of my meetings and then here's something about me. I am a

PM and I own workflows agent. This is

what's important to me. Now create a summary that is actually pertinent to something that would be useful to me.

Imagining building that inside of flows as power automate used to be called for for uh for a moment of retro. It would

have been impossible to think that someone could build that flow and that someone coming from an M365 perspective that had never used the power platform and hadn't used AI builders, machine

learning models could build something like that is extraordinary, right? So,

we're really like in a in a new age of there's brand all like all of these scenarios that folks in the past could be like but I could never automate that.

Those are wide open doors now. Uh, and

it just takes some some testing and some work on getting that prompting right, which can be difficult. Like I don't I don't want to minimize that that it's not, you know, annoying sometimes having

to rewrite a prompt, but it really is about like not closing ourselves off to what was possible when Power Automate was called Flows

in 2017, but what is possible today. And

I I think something that helps me really get new ideas is listening to podcasts, right? And uh I listen to a lot of

right? And uh I listen to a lot of podcasts on on products and and how you know product managers and folks are using AI and we have a ton of really

great listening boards internally at Microsoft too where people you know post of like here's what I did with this tool today and here's what I was able to to automate. Um, and then be able to run

automate. Um, and then be able to run back and see if I if I can replicate the same thing cuz people are coming up with new ideas every single day and they're they're willing to share which is really exciting.

>> I think the uh the thing I'm trying to figure out right now cuz this all sounds super awesome and like I want people to start building out all of these workflows but like getting good in a in

our side chat yelled at me to get good and like be good at automations which is super funny given my background but like how does somebody actually get good at this? Is this a journey of personal

this? Is this a journey of personal discovery and building workflows? Is

this like love, laugh, and automate?

Like what are we doing here to to actually make this a reality? Because if

it is something that is like for you personally and personal productivity, how do you build a center of excellence around this? How do you actually

around this? How do you actually understand best practice?

>> I need a love, laugh, automate shirt that I can wear the entire week of Ignite. If we can if we can figure out

Ignite. If we can if we can figure out how we can all show up at Ignite with a love laugh automate love laugh automate, cry a little bit. might be the

full yeah getting good it's I think the truth of it is that we've created a lot of these AI systems but the systems that they talk to are the same and they're

not changing in the next year right so teams is teams planner is planner and sometimes takes some learning of what

those systems do so not not to pick too much fun on on planner but in planner for you to actually My dog wants is reminding me that it's time for his

breakfast.

>> We are welcoming to animals on this podcast. Very much so.

podcast. Very much so.

>> Okay, good. Good. He uh he would love that. So, yes. So, planner, not to pick

that. So, yes. So, planner, not to pick too much fun, but to actually create a new task from an automation perspective, you have to have the planner name and

then you have to have the group name of where that planner resides. And as a novice user, you may be added to a plan.

you are never part of actually deciding what group you're in. And you have to know some information about that underlying system to be able to say, okay, create a task and here's my

planner name and here's my group name, right? And and that's not going to

right? And and that's not going to change. And we can make the well maybe

change. And we can make the well maybe that'll change on the planner side soon but from an AI perspective understanding the underlying applications is really

useful and not forgetting that those things are true right when I create a team's chat I have to know the team's name and if I want to automate a channel

I have to know the channel name and I have to know the team that it's under and I think sometimes we we think that things are really really magical which is great. Like we should definitely be super optimistic about

what AI can do, but it has to be in the realms of if I ask Joselyn to go do something, right? If I ask Joselyn, hey,

something, right? If I ask Joselyn, hey, can you post this in the team's chat?

Jocelyn's going to need to know what the name of the team's chat is, right? Or

Joselyn is going to go and post it in a team's chat that I do not want that information posted in. Uh, which is something that you'll learn very quickly that the automation is capable of doing.

So, I think that's a really good thing to keep in mind, which is that like as much as it's in an AI abstracted layer, the systems are still the same, right?

And they still need the same information that you would give a human about that system because I'm hearing a lot about this kind of angst and this is about helping people transition for the future. So, do you think you have more

future. So, do you think you have more to add on that topic?

>> Actually, you know what's interesting about that though? It's almost like um it's almost a great tool to help people understand the art of the possible. And

like what that means is I do all these processes that stay with inside of my Microsoft graph, right? And so I can hit Outlook, I can hit SharePoint, I can hit Planner, all these great things and

stuff, but like the beautiful part about automations is there's always the what's next. And in what's next means

next. And in what's next means connecting to thirdparty services, connecting to things like additional knowledge sources and that can actually take you on a more graduated workflow journey and utilizing new tools and just

like boosting your skills and your understanding of these processes, right?

Like you should know your business process as the business process owner and understand the ins and outs and the inefficiencies and the inefficiencies that you can build into the flows that you're making. And so like as you're

you're making. And so like as you're doing these things and you're testing it in product, like this is such a great opportunity to start at a level that's not going to cause crazy damage with

both first and third party data and then graduate that understanding into more complex workflow tools. Heather, did I did I say that right or does that sound stupid?

>> Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. So I think we think about

right. So I think we think about automation in almost like a three tiers.

So personal teams and then business process, right? And so sometimes to get

process, right? And so sometimes to get to that business process, you first need to exercise the muscle of that personal productivity. So that's yeah,

productivity. So that's yeah, absolutely. That's definitely how how

absolutely. That's definitely how how how we view it. Related conversation

topic and it kind of is going to segue into me asking like what do I do now?

Like how do I get started? The other

thing that I always thought about coming from like the cloudflow space as well about getting started or knowing how to build that muscle, right, is I used to be a huge advocate for the cloud flow's

templates, right? Because as a brand new

templates, right? Because as a brand new person to automation space, I'm like, I don't know what I can do. There's a

square. It's describing what it could do. It shows you the connectors that you

do. It shows you the connectors that you need to do it. You click it. You

establish the connections. You're doing

it, buddy. And from there, it helps you to really like imagine the art of the possible, as Sean loves to say, and take that further, right? Expand on that template or figure out further what else

you want to do along these lines or completely pivot. So on a similar note,

completely pivot. So on a similar note, what can I do to get started, right?

Besides just reaping the repercussions of Wendy getting started, what can I do to get started to know what I, Joselyn, can do to be better with this new technology?

>> Yeah. Oh, we love templates. So that's

not going away inclosed agent. So we do have templated prompts that show up right under that chat experience. And

that's you're so right, Joselyn. That is

a great way to get started of like clicking one of those, fiddling around with it, expanding it, etc. Um, and those will continue to expand. So today

we have three and in the future there will be many, many more.

>> That's awesome. And then I think one other thing just to add in experience and and maybe we're getting the signal from our producer, we need to start landing the plane here, but I think that

one thing that that you can also do is just even being more aware of your work itself. Sean, you alluded to this a

itself. Sean, you alluded to this a little bit, right, of just knowing your business processes, but some of it is just knowing your personal processes.

So, like, hey, I am always asking Jocelyn to update her planner. I'm going

to write this down and take some time and actually automated. Like, what are the things that you're repeating as well? I think building that muscle, as

well? I think building that muscle, as you mentioned, Sean, that's the first step in the journey to transition that mindset and build those muscles in that AI world. And so sounds like this is an

AI world. And so sounds like this is an awesome tool, Heather, for all of the information workers to be able to get started on that automation journey to better to better accomplish more with that. So as we're landing the plane, are

that. So as we're landing the plane, are there resources? Anything we should

there resources? Anything we should Ignite announcements? Anything we should

Ignite announcements? Anything we should be looking out for? Ignite announces got to you got to show to Ignite to find out. It's only getting more and more

out. It's only getting more and more exciting as we get closer to the end of the year. I will say please please try

the year. I will say please please try out Workflows Agent. You can find it inside of the agent store inside of m365copilot.

So if you go to office.com or m365copilot.com, you can click on all agents and then you'll find the workflows agent there.

It should be under built by Microsoft and then install it and please share any feedback. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not hard

feedback. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not hard to find. So I'm so excited to hear what

to find. So I'm so excited to hear what folks use use workflows agents to create.

>> Awesome. Thank you so much, Heather.

This is great. Like you alluded to it earlier, there's going to be many more advancements coming. I can't wait to

advancements coming. I can't wait to have you on again. And then you hit that that three time show which is going to be such a such an amazing >> We need swag. We like if you're on three times or more. You get like swag with

each episode.

>> I I have an update like and we can like I'll I'll go over that after the recording stops and I'll tell you all about the swag.

>> We're getting swag.

>> Yeah, like so much swag. But anyway,

Heather, thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna have you back on. If you

us. We're gonna have you back on. If you

are going to Ignite, look for Heather, look for Jocelyn, look for me, look for Ken. You can't miss him. He's 10 feet

Ken. You can't miss him. He's 10 feet tall.

>> We'll be there. He's so tall.

>> This would be a great time to be like, "Save $100 on your ticket with like promo code Heather 100 or >> No, no, no. It's it's love, Laugh, Automate." That is that's Heather's

Automate." That is that's Heather's that's that's her that's her discount code. Anyway, thank you so much for

code. Anyway, thank you so much for joining, Heather. Can't wait for the

joining, Heather. Can't wait for the next episode.

>> Yeah. Thank you so much.