Build Your FIRST Copilot Studio Agent in Minutes

Conversational AI is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s an expectation. Businesses and users alike now anticipate seamless, intelligent interactions powered by AI-driven agents. Microsoft Copilot Studio enables you to create, customize, and deploy conversational experiences that integrate directly with your data, automate actions, and enhance user engagement—all without requiring deep coding expertise.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to build a conversational agent in Copilot Studio, from setting up knowledge sources and defining interactions to deploying your AI assistant to Teams and websites.

Getting Started with Copilot Studio

To access Copilot Studio, you’ll need a Microsoft 365 work or school account. Simply navigate to copilotstudio.microsoft.com and log in.

Once inside, the homepage provides key functionalities:

• A chat-based experience for generating agents.
• A list of recently created agents.
• A collection of pre-built templates for common use cases, such as a Website Q&A agent.

Using the Website Q&A Template

One of the most common use cases for AI agents is answering questions based on website content. The Website Q&A template provides a preconfigured setup that includes:

• Instructions to guide agent behavior.
• A polite and professional tone by default (but you can customize it to sound like a pirate or Shakespeare if you prefer!).
• Knowledge sources from which the agent retrieves information.

You can configure your own custom instructions, define conversation boundaries, and add multiple knowledge sources—including public websites and internal SharePoint sites—to enhance your agent’s responses.

Publishing Your AI Agent

Once your agent is set up, it’s time to publish it for real-world use. Navigate to the Publish tab, and then go to the Channels section to deploy it to:

• A custom website (via embed code).
• Microsoft Teams (great for internal employee support bots).
• Other platforms, depending on authentication settings.

Enhancing Your AI Agent with Actions

AI agents aren’t just for answering questions—they can also perform actions like retrieving data or logging issues in a system.

By leveraging Power Platform connectors, you can integrate with Office 365, SharePoint, Dataverse, Azure SQL, Salesforce, and more. For example:

• Use the Office 365 Users Connector to retrieve employee profiles.
• Implement SharePoint Create Item to allow users to log IT issues through the chatbot.

Switching to Generative Orchestration

By default, Copilot Studio operates in Classic Orchestration, where predefined topics guide conversation flows. However, enabling Generative Orchestration allows the AI to dynamically determine which knowledge sources and actions to use, improving flexibility.

Testing and Iteration

Before deploying your agent, test it thoroughly in the built-in Test Pane. This ensures:

• The agent correctly retrieves information from knowledge sources.
• Actions execute properly (e.g., logging an IT ticket in SharePoint).
• The conversation flows naturally for users.

Watch the Full Tutorial

Want to see these steps in action? Watch my full video tutorial on Building AI Agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio: