Event Information

Microsoft Power Platform will be featured prominently at Microsoft Build, Microsoft’s flagship event for professional developers kicking off on May 21! Microsoft will be landing key news through a set of executive-delivered keynotes as well as breakout sessions, demonstrations, hands-on labs, and expert meet ups. If you haven’t already, there is still time to register for the event. In addition to the keynotes, a roundup of the top news will be covered in a breakout session led by Charles Lamanna, as well as be included in Microsoft’s hero Power Platform blog.

Release Summary

The top tier news at Microsoft Build 2024 includes:  

New copilots with agent capabilities, built in Copilot Studio and entering a limited private preview program, will enable developers to build copilots capable of independently managing long-running processes and associated tasks with contextual memory and learning.
New Copilot Studio connectors to enhance your conversational experiences with data from your productivity, analytical, and operations, and within Copilot for Microsoft 365. 
New AI flows in Power Automate to enable developers to build a new type of AI powered flow. Simply describe the goal, including any parameters, and AI will build an execution plan and run it, reasoning with the LLM at every step – changing automation from rules-based to outcome based.
AI recorder in Power Automate is a new intuitive, multimodal desktop automation experience where users create flows by showing and telling the recorder how to automate a task, using voice and screen share rather than mouse clicks and keyboard entries.  
New pro dev features in Power Apps, including copilot, to explain code and convert natural language to Power Fx, native Git integration, co-authoring in Canvas apps, and viewing source code in PowerApps Studio. 

Product Announcements 

Copilot Studio: powering the next wave of copilot experiences 

Microsoft is introducing new capabilities in Copilot Studio that enables developers to build copilots that can act as agents, able to run and orchestrate many long-running business processes, integrate line of business data directly into copilot experiences and publish new copilot extensions.  

Copilot Studio is introducing new agent capabilities, empowering developers to build copilots that can proactively respond to data and events, tailored to specific tasks and functions. Copilots built with this new category of capabilities will be able to independently manage complex long running business processes by leveraging memory and knowledge for context, reason over actions and inputs, learn based on user feedback and ask for help when it encounters situations that it doesn’t know how to handle. You can now put copilot to work for you – from IT device procurement to customer concierge for sales and service. These capabilities in Copilot Studio are available for customers in a limited private preview program. Based on feedback from program participants, we will iterate and refine capabilities for wider availability in preview scheduled for later this calendar year. 
Introducing Copilot connectors (public preview), which brings together Microsoft Graph, Power Platform Connectors, Microsoft Fabric AI skills (in private preview) and Dataverse. This makes the process of grounding Copilot in 1st & 3rd party LOB data a wizard-based experience, enabling developers to quickly incorporate their organizational knowledge into Copilot, enable new actions, and add real-time intelligent Q&A.
Copilot extensions can be published through Partner Center (public preview), allowing the copilot extensions to be available for users to install from the relevant Copilot, Microsoft 365 Store (Teams, Outlook), and Microsoft AppSource. 
Conversational analytics in Copilot Studio (public preview) gives deep insights into user engagement for your own copilots, providing developers with valuable metrics to enhance user satisfaction. 
New conversational design experience (public preview) enables easier development and configuration of copilots via conversational, human-like interaction.
Templates (public preview) allow you to build your own copilot faster with pre-built templates including IT Helpdesk, Order tracking, Travel assistance and more. 

Next steps:  

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

What’s new with Microsoft Copilot Studio 
Build Microsoft Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio 
Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio 
Demo: Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio (onsite only)
Lab: Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot studio (onsite only)

Visit the Copilot Studio page on Power Platform Partner Hub for resources  – What’s News in Copilot Studio and Build a Copilot with agent capabilities in Copilot Studio decks coming soon.

Power Automate: AI and process automation updates

Several new innovations are being launched in Power Automate, capitalizing on process automation and generative AI to help revolutionize the way people work.

AI flows (early access preview) which offers a brand-new type of outcome-based automation that allows generative AI to achieve a result by building a flow autonomously and within set guardrails, without requiring users to map out every process step. AI flows will employ LLMs at runtime to dynamically reason, configure actions and execute them.
AI recorder (early access preview) in desktop flows creates a more intuitive, multimodal experience where users create flows by both showing and telling the recorder how to automate a task.
Natural language to flow capabilities (private preview), now available for desktop, allow users to build rules-based desktop flows faster and more easily by using natural language.    
Automation Center (public preview) provides in-depth monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities, providing an end-to-end view of company-wide automation status including SLA attainment, average processing time and work queue throughput.
Flows inside Microsoft Copilot (public preview) allows users to discover and run flows as plugins in Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Conversational cloud flows (public preview) allow users to create, refine and troubleshoot workflows using natural language.
Personal automation recommendations mined from M365 Graph (public preview) helps optimize personal processes based on patterns in the work.

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Review the blog on Partner Center certification and publishing
Attend the breakout session: Revolutionize the way you work with automation and AI 
Watch the demo: New Copilot experiences for developers in Power Automate (onsite only)

Power Apps: helping developers build apps at scale

Power Apps is making it even easier to build and deploy modern enterprise applications at scale. Developers can now build comprehensive applications faster and more cost effectively than before. New improvements, now in preview, include: 

Use Copilot to create and understand Power Fx inline (public preview) as it is now going beyond the basics to explain code intricacies (GA), auto-generate comments, and generate Power Fx code from natural language instructions right in the formula bar in a “type ahead” style similar to Github Copilot.
Native Git integration (public preview in July) allows developers to synchronize their Power Apps environment and Git repositories. By connecting the two, development teams can see and track all changes, quickly and seamlessly integrate their development processes, quality tools, and best practices directly into their Power Apps environment, thereby reducing the time it takes to build an app.
Copilot in apps on mobile (public preview in June) lets developers modernize mobile apps for frontline workers with copilot on mobile devices. Frontline workers will soon be able to use voice dictation and generative AI to complete tasks, including collecting and submitting information. Developers can customize and extend Copilot in Power Apps using Microsoft Copilot Studio to create specialized conversational experiences. 
Co-authoring in canvas apps (public preview) means multiple makers can now edit a canvas app at the same time with live co-authoring in the same style as Office apps like Power Point, Word or Excel. Co-authoring was previously announced in the modern app designer. It is now available across experiences, so all makers can work better together.  
Code in Power Apps Studio (public preview) enables developers to view source code directly in Power Apps Studio, making it easy to use in a readable YAML format. 

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

Enable every developer to collaborate with low code + pro code 
Using Power Platform to accelerate full-stack software development 
Building the apps of the future today with Power Platform and Copilot 
Lab: Developing a custom control using the Power Apps Component Framework (onsite only)

Power Pages: New security features to help monitor, protect sites 

Power Pages empowers users to create dynamic, customizable sites tailored to their specific needs. New security and AI features cater to a wide spectrum of users with tailor-made solutions.  

Power Pages chatbots and customization with Copilot Studio (generally available): The ability to use chatbots on Power Pages websites is now generally available and will enable makers to configure a copilot chatbot out-of-the-box with no additional authoring. This chatbot will also understand authenticated user context and can be customized using Copilot Studio.
Generative AI-Powered search (public preview): Microsoft Copilot in Power Pages provides AI-enabled search capabilities including summarization of results, akin to Bing copilot chat experiences. This improves end user experience by providing information upfront.
Security workspace (public preview) seamlessly integrates into the Power Pages design studio and provides value-add security features to safeguard sites from potential data breaches, limit user access and permissions, and promotes secure hosting. 
Power Pages upgraded Web Application Firewall (WAF) (generally available) is now offering enhanced capabilities, including IP and Geo filtering to strengthen against cyber threats. Easily manage access control with authentication and authorization configurations, and with a built-in copilot experience that assists with security-focused Q&A, security testing, and summarizing scan results, users can stay in control and stay informed.
Virtual Tables with no-code connectivity to Salesforce and Oracle databases (public preview) enables organizations to build Power Pages websites on top of their Salesforce or Oracle databases.
Integrate data from Microsoft Fabric and Business Central (public preview) into Power Pages websites without coding, enabling self-service actions for suppliers using templates. This is yet another example of data connectivity with SAP.
Power Fx formulas in the Power Pages Design Studio (public preview) enables users to utilize Power Fx formulas to bind data with UI Components in Power Pages design studio and build custom user experiences in their websites.  

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

Reimagine Enterprise Website building with Low Code using Power Pages 
Demo: Build enterprise websites over Salesforce and Oracle using Power Pages (onsite only)
Demo: Build Dynamic website content using Power Fx and Power Pages (onsite only)
Lab: Dev tools to extend Power Pages websites (onsite only)

Microsoft Dataverse: New security and connectors 

Security hub (public preview), a new feature in the Microsoft Power Platform Admin Center, allows administrators to quickly assess the security posture for the tenant and identify and act on the most impactful recommendations to improve the posture, proactively set policies in place to safeguard from vulnerabilities and risks and use a rich set of tools and security capabilities available to gain deep visibility and detect threats effectively. 
Knowledge (public preview) in Microsoft Dataverse enables makers to build custom copilots and agents that include various enterprise and LOB data sources, helping efficiently access relevant business insights. Supported data sources include public websites, SharePoint/OneDrive, Microsoft Fabric, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, and other external data sources indexed in Microsoft Graph.

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update
Attend the breakout sessions:

Activate enterprise data in AI-enabled business applications 
Secure and govern Copilot within enterprise-grade low code solutions 
Demo: Maximize Power Platform and Source Control (onsite only)
Demo: Build a conversational AI app using enterprise data (onsite only)
Demo: Leverage Copilot plugins to activate your dynamics applications (onsite only)
Demo: Protect AI-driven applications with high value capabilities and tools (onsite only)
Demo: Unlocking efficiency: low-code app building with Dataverse and Copilot (onsite only)

Copilot Platform: Introducing Copilot extensions

Microsoft is unifying all Microsoft Copilot extensibility concepts into a single construct called Copilot extensions to streamline the way developers create extensions for workflows they use everyday.

Copilot extensions (public preview) enhance Microsoft Copilot by enabling new actions and customized knowledge for grounding within Copilot. With Copilot extensions, users can get a Microsoft Copilot experience that is tailored with the data, systems, and workflows they use every day, and for developers, this opens opportunities to create Copilot extensions through plugins, Copilot connectors, and even by developing their own copilots. Developers can create Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio or using Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. Copilot extensions from leading apps like Jira, Priority Matrix and Mural are available in preview for Copilot for Microsoft 365, along with company-developed line of business Copilot extensions. IT admins can control and manage access to extensions via the Microsoft 365 Admin center.

Copilot extensions can be published through Partner Center (public preview), allowing the copilot extensions to be available for users to install from the relevant Copilot, Microsoft 365 Store (Teams, Outlook), and Microsoft AppSource. 

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update
Understand the new process to publish Copilot extensions
Review the ISV Partner Blog: Copilot Studio brings power of generative AI to ISV offerings
Download the ISV Partner Datasheet: Develop a Copilot-enabled Solution
Attend the breakout sessions:

Developer’s Guide to Customizing Microsoft Copilot
Extend Microsoft Copilot with Copilot Studio
Developer deep dive on building plugins for Copilot with VS Code
Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio
Reach 320M+ users in flow of work building your own copilot for Teams
Grow your business with Copilot extensions and marketplace
Transforming the most valuable industry workflows with Copilot
Build Microsoft Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio 

Stay Connected with Business Applications Partner Resources

Sign up for the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Partner Newsletters
Follow the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform partner LinkedIn channels
Bookmark the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Partner Hub pages
Join and engage in the Business Applications Microsoft Partner Community

​Event Information
Microsoft Power Platform will be featured prominently at Microsoft Build, Microsoft’s flagship event for professional developers kicking off on May 21! Microsoft will be landing key news through a set of executive-delivered keynotes as well as breakout sessions, demonstrations, hands-on labs, and expert meet ups. If you haven’t already, there is still time to register for the event. In addition to the keynotes, a roundup of the top news will be covered in a breakout session led by Charles Lamanna, as well as be included in Microsoft’s hero Power Platform blog.
 
Release Summary
The top tier news at Microsoft Build 2024 includes:  

New copilots with agent capabilities, built in Copilot Studio and entering a limited private preview program, will enable developers to build copilots capable of independently managing long-running processes and associated tasks with contextual memory and learning.
New Copilot Studio connectors to enhance your conversational experiences with data from your productivity, analytical, and operations, and within Copilot for Microsoft 365. 
New AI flows in Power Automate to enable developers to build a new type of AI powered flow. Simply describe the goal, including any parameters, and AI will build an execution plan and run it, reasoning with the LLM at every step – changing automation from rules-based to outcome based.
AI recorder in Power Automate is a new intuitive, multimodal desktop automation experience where users create flows by showing and telling the recorder how to automate a task, using voice and screen share rather than mouse clicks and keyboard entries.  
New pro dev features in Power Apps, including copilot, to explain code and convert natural language to Power Fx, native Git integration, co-authoring in Canvas apps, and viewing source code in PowerApps Studio. 

Product Announcements 
Copilot Studio: powering the next wave of copilot experiences 
Microsoft is introducing new capabilities in Copilot Studio that enables developers to build copilots that can act as agents, able to run and orchestrate many long-running business processes, integrate line of business data directly into copilot experiences and publish new copilot extensions.  

Copilot Studio is introducing new agent capabilities, empowering developers to build copilots that can proactively respond to data and events, tailored to specific tasks and functions. Copilots built with this new category of capabilities will be able to independently manage complex long running business processes by leveraging memory and knowledge for context, reason over actions and inputs, learn based on user feedback and ask for help when it encounters situations that it doesn’t know how to handle. You can now put copilot to work for you – from IT device procurement to customer concierge for sales and service. These capabilities in Copilot Studio are available for customers in a limited private preview program. Based on feedback from program participants, we will iterate and refine capabilities for wider availability in preview scheduled for later this calendar year. 
Introducing Copilot connectors (public preview), which brings together Microsoft Graph, Power Platform Connectors, Microsoft Fabric AI skills (in private preview) and Dataverse. This makes the process of grounding Copilot in 1st & 3rd party LOB data a wizard-based experience, enabling developers to quickly incorporate their organizational knowledge into Copilot, enable new actions, and add real-time intelligent Q&A.
Copilot extensions can be published through Partner Center (public preview), allowing the copilot extensions to be available for users to install from the relevant Copilot, Microsoft 365 Store (Teams, Outlook), and Microsoft AppSource. 
Conversational analytics in Copilot Studio (public preview) gives deep insights into user engagement for your own copilots, providing developers with valuable metrics to enhance user satisfaction. 
New conversational design experience (public preview) enables easier development and configuration of copilots via conversational, human-like interaction.
Templates (public preview) allow you to build your own copilot faster with pre-built templates including IT Helpdesk, Order tracking, Travel assistance and more. 

Next steps:  

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

What’s new with Microsoft Copilot Studio 
Build Microsoft Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio 
Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio 
Demo: Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio (onsite only)
Lab: Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot studio (onsite only)

Visit the Copilot Studio page on Power Platform Partner Hub for resources  – What’s News in Copilot Studio and Build a Copilot with agent capabilities in Copilot Studio decks coming soon.

Power Automate: AI and process automation updates
Several new innovations are being launched in Power Automate, capitalizing on process automation and generative AI to help revolutionize the way people work.

AI flows (early access preview) which offers a brand-new type of outcome-based automation that allows generative AI to achieve a result by building a flow autonomously and within set guardrails, without requiring users to map out every process step. AI flows will employ LLMs at runtime to dynamically reason, configure actions and execute them.
AI recorder (early access preview) in desktop flows creates a more intuitive, multimodal experience where users create flows by both showing and telling the recorder how to automate a task.
Natural language to flow capabilities (private preview), now available for desktop, allow users to build rules-based desktop flows faster and more easily by using natural language.    
Automation Center (public preview) provides in-depth monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities, providing an end-to-end view of company-wide automation status including SLA attainment, average processing time and work queue throughput.
Flows inside Microsoft Copilot (public preview) allows users to discover and run flows as plugins in Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Conversational cloud flows (public preview) allow users to create, refine and troubleshoot workflows using natural language.
Personal automation recommendations mined from M365 Graph (public preview) helps optimize personal processes based on patterns in the work.

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Review the blog on Partner Center certification and publishing
Attend the breakout session: Revolutionize the way you work with automation and AI 
Watch the demo: New Copilot experiences for developers in Power Automate (onsite only)

Power Apps: helping developers build apps at scale
Power Apps is making it even easier to build and deploy modern enterprise applications at scale. Developers can now build comprehensive applications faster and more cost effectively than before. New improvements, now in preview, include: 

Use Copilot to create and understand Power Fx inline (public preview) as it is now going beyond the basics to explain code intricacies (GA), auto-generate comments, and generate Power Fx code from natural language instructions right in the formula bar in a “type ahead” style similar to Github Copilot.
Native Git integration (public preview in July) allows developers to synchronize their Power Apps environment and Git repositories. By connecting the two, development teams can see and track all changes, quickly and seamlessly integrate their development processes, quality tools, and best practices directly into their Power Apps environment, thereby reducing the time it takes to build an app.
Copilot in apps on mobile (public preview in June) lets developers modernize mobile apps for frontline workers with copilot on mobile devices. Frontline workers will soon be able to use voice dictation and generative AI to complete tasks, including collecting and submitting information. Developers can customize and extend Copilot in Power Apps using Microsoft Copilot Studio to create specialized conversational experiences. 
Co-authoring in canvas apps (public preview) means multiple makers can now edit a canvas app at the same time with live co-authoring in the same style as Office apps like Power Point, Word or Excel. Co-authoring was previously announced in the modern app designer. It is now available across experiences, so all makers can work better together.  
Code in Power Apps Studio (public preview) enables developers to view source code directly in Power Apps Studio, making it easy to use in a readable YAML format. 

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

Enable every developer to collaborate with low code + pro code 
Using Power Platform to accelerate full-stack software development 
Building the apps of the future today with Power Platform and Copilot 
Lab: Developing a custom control using the Power Apps Component Framework (onsite only)

Power Pages: New security features to help monitor, protect sites 
Power Pages empowers users to create dynamic, customizable sites tailored to their specific needs. New security and AI features cater to a wide spectrum of users with tailor-made solutions.  

Power Pages chatbots and customization with Copilot Studio (generally available): The ability to use chatbots on Power Pages websites is now generally available and will enable makers to configure a copilot chatbot out-of-the-box with no additional authoring. This chatbot will also understand authenticated user context and can be customized using Copilot Studio.
Generative AI-Powered search (public preview): Microsoft Copilot in Power Pages provides AI-enabled search capabilities including summarization of results, akin to Bing copilot chat experiences. This improves end user experience by providing information upfront.
Security workspace (public preview) seamlessly integrates into the Power Pages design studio and provides value-add security features to safeguard sites from potential data breaches, limit user access and permissions, and promotes secure hosting. 
Power Pages upgraded Web Application Firewall (WAF) (generally available) is now offering enhanced capabilities, including IP and Geo filtering to strengthen against cyber threats. Easily manage access control with authentication and authorization configurations, and with a built-in copilot experience that assists with security-focused Q&A, security testing, and summarizing scan results, users can stay in control and stay informed.
Virtual Tables with no-code connectivity to Salesforce and Oracle databases (public preview) enables organizations to build Power Pages websites on top of their Salesforce or Oracle databases.
Integrate data from Microsoft Fabric and Business Central (public preview) into Power Pages websites without coding, enabling self-service actions for suppliers using templates. This is yet another example of data connectivity with SAP.
Power Fx formulas in the Power Pages Design Studio (public preview) enables users to utilize Power Fx formulas to bind data with UI Components in Power Pages design studio and build custom user experiences in their websites.  

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update 
Attend the breakout sessions:

Reimagine Enterprise Website building with Low Code using Power Pages 
Demo: Build enterprise websites over Salesforce and Oracle using Power Pages (onsite only)
Demo: Build Dynamic website content using Power Fx and Power Pages (onsite only)
Lab: Dev tools to extend Power Pages websites (onsite only)

Microsoft Dataverse: New security and connectors 

Security hub (public preview), a new feature in the Microsoft Power Platform Admin Center, allows administrators to quickly assess the security posture for the tenant and identify and act on the most impactful recommendations to improve the posture, proactively set policies in place to safeguard from vulnerabilities and risks and use a rich set of tools and security capabilities available to gain deep visibility and detect threats effectively. 
Knowledge (public preview) in Microsoft Dataverse enables makers to build custom copilots and agents that include various enterprise and LOB data sources, helping efficiently access relevant business insights. Supported data sources include public websites, SharePoint/OneDrive, Microsoft Fabric, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, and other external data sources indexed in Microsoft Graph.

Next steps: 

Learn more about this update
Attend the breakout sessions:

Activate enterprise data in AI-enabled business applications 
Secure and govern Copilot within enterprise-grade low code solutions 
Demo: Maximize Power Platform and Source Control (onsite only)
Demo: Build a conversational AI app using enterprise data (onsite only)
Demo: Leverage Copilot plugins to activate your dynamics applications (onsite only)
Demo: Protect AI-driven applications with high value capabilities and tools (onsite only)
Demo: Unlocking efficiency: low-code app building with Dataverse and Copilot (onsite only)

Copilot Platform: Introducing Copilot extensions
Microsoft is unifying all Microsoft Copilot extensibility concepts into a single construct called Copilot extensions to streamline the way developers create extensions for workflows they use everyday.
 
Copilot extensions (public preview) enhance Microsoft Copilot by enabling new actions and customized knowledge for grounding within Copilot. With Copilot extensions, users can get a Microsoft Copilot experience that is tailored with the data, systems, and workflows they use every day, and for developers, this opens opportunities to create Copilot extensions through plugins, Copilot connectors, and even by developing their own copilots. Developers can create Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio or using Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. Copilot extensions from leading apps like Jira, Priority Matrix and Mural are available in preview for Copilot for Microsoft 365, along with company-developed line of business Copilot extensions. IT admins can control and manage access to extensions via the Microsoft 365 Admin center.
 
Copilot extensions can be published through Partner Center (public preview), allowing the copilot extensions to be available for users to install from the relevant Copilot, Microsoft 365 Store (Teams, Outlook), and Microsoft AppSource. 
 
Next steps: 

Learn more about this update
Understand the new process to publish Copilot extensions
Review the ISV Partner Blog: Copilot Studio brings power of generative AI to ISV offerings
Download the ISV Partner Datasheet: Develop a Copilot-enabled Solution
Attend the breakout sessions:

Developer’s Guide to Customizing Microsoft Copilot
Extend Microsoft Copilot with Copilot Studio
Developer deep dive on building plugins for Copilot with VS Code
Build your own copilot with Microsoft Copilot Studio
Reach 320M+ users in flow of work building your own copilot for Teams
Grow your business with Copilot extensions and marketplace
Transforming the most valuable industry workflows with Copilot
Build Microsoft Copilot extensions with Copilot Studio 

Stay Connected with Business Applications Partner Resources

Sign up for the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Partner Newsletters
Follow the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform partner LinkedIn channels
Bookmark the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Partner Hub pages
Join and engage in the Business Applications Microsoft Partner Community  Read More

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