Level 4: ExpertChecked October 2026

Microsoft Copilot Studio first steps

When your agent needs to take actions, reach more people or be properly governed.

By Josh Igoe, Microsoft Certified Trainer, IGOE AI

IGOE AI learning resource · Our guides are independent educational content, not a promise of course inclusions. See the current five-course training offer.

Microsoft Copilot Studio is the low-code studio for building and managing agents and workflows. It is where you go when an agent needs to connect to business systems, follow multi-step logic, serve a whole department or external users, or sit under proper lifecycle controls.

Access it at copilotstudio.microsoft.com.

1. The building blocks

  • Agents: AI assistants that follow instructions, use knowledge sources and call tools to complete tasks. They can be published to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot, websites and other channels.
  • Copilot Studio workflows: automations built in Copilot Studio's visual designer, similar to Power Automate cloud flows. Steps can combine agents, tools and logic, with testing and human-in-the-loop controls, and a workflow can run on its own or be attached to an agent as a tool.
  • Tools and connectors: prebuilt and custom connectors that let agents read and act on other systems.

2. Harnesses

Microsoft Learn now describes a choice of harness, the engine that runs what you build:

  • The GitHub Copilot harness for reasoning-heavy, multi-step work.
  • The standard harness for rule-based agents and structured conversations built from topics.
  • The Microsoft Copilot chat harness for extending Microsoft Copilot Chat with your organisation's knowledge.

The harness affects capabilities and billing.

3. A sensible first project

Take an agent you built in Agent Builder and copy it to Copilot Studio, or start with a narrow internal service such as:

  • An IT or facilities request agent that collects details and creates a ticket through a connector.
  • A new-matter or new-client intake agent that gathers information and starts an approval flow.

4. The build loop

  1. Describe the agent in natural language to create a starting point.
  2. Add knowledge (SharePoint, websites, files, connectors) and tools (connectors, Copilot Studio workflows).
  3. Write instructions using the structure in Writing agent instructions.
  4. Test in the test pane, then build an evaluation test set to check quality before and after publishing.
  5. Publish to the channels your users already use, usually Teams and Microsoft Copilot.
  6. Monitor with analytics, and improve.

5. Governance from day one

  • Build in a dedicated environment, not the default one, as agreed with your Power Platform admin.
  • Agree data policies on which connectors may be used together.
  • Give every agent a named owner and a short description of purpose and data used.
  • Admins manage Copilot Studio through the Power Platform admin centre, with finer-grained controls than Agent Builder.

6. Licensing in one paragraph

For users with the Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, Microsoft states Copilot Studio agents used in Teams, SharePoint and Copilot Chat are included at no extra charge. Other users and scenarios may need Copilot Studio capacity or pay-as-you-go billing in Copilot Credits. Licensing is the area most likely to change; confirm with your admin or licensing provider before building for a wide audience.

Sources

Product details checked against these Microsoft pages in October 2026. Microsoft updates Microsoft Copilot frequently, so check the current page before relying on a detail.

Choose the right starting point for your organisation

Tell us who you want to train. Request dates for a private Copilot cohort or ask about a discovery conversation.

Request cohort datesCompare courses & pricing

Prefer email? josh@igoe.ai