Microsoft Copilot Studio Step by Step: Customizing Copilot and creating agents
- By Lisa Crosbie
- Published Dec 16, 2025 by Microsoft Press.
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Description
- Copyright 2026
- Edition: 1st
- eBook
- ISBN-10: 0-13-549153-3
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-549153-9
Renowned Microsoft AI authority Lisa Crosbie unveils an essential guide to mastering agent building and business process automation with Microsoft Copilot Studio
Featuring a foreword by Dan Lewis, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Copilot Studio
Microsoft Copilot Studio Step by Step: Customizing Copilot and creating agents is the definitive, hands-on guide for professionals seeking to master Microsofts low-code agent-building platform. The book combines reference material with step-by-step tutorials, making complex AI concepts accessible to low-code makers, consultants, and IT pros. You will learn to design, build, and deploy AI-powered agents that automate workflows, transform business processes, and integrate with Microsoft 365 Copilot and your line of business systems. Through practical scenarios, best practices, and end-to-end examples, this book equips users with the skills to leverage Copilot Studio for organizational value, offering the depth and clarity needed to turn ideas into working solutions, and emerging as the essential resource for this rapidly growing technology.
By reading this book, you will:
- Understand the foundational concepts and architecture of Microsoft Copilot Studio and AI agents
- Create AI-powered agents using natural language and low-code tools for internal and customer-facing scenarios
- Configure autonomous agents with event-driven, scheduled, and data-based triggers
- Ground your agents in organizational knowledge by connecting to multiple data sources
- Author structured conversational topics using advanced tools like branching logic and adaptive cards
- Extend agent capabilities with connectors, prompts, MCP servers, and workflow automation
- Design multi-agent orchestration using child and connected agents to delegate tasks across specialized domains
- Publish and authenticate agents across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Teams, websites, and other external channels
- Monitor agent performance using built-in analytics to optimize user experience
- Expand your solutions with advanced capabilities for integration with voice channels, customer engagement hubs and Azure AI
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Sample Content
Table of Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Part 1: Introducing Copilot Studio and agents
Chapter 1: Understanding Copilot Studio and agents . 1
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Get started with Copilot Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Understand the capabilities of Copilot Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Explore use cases for Copilot Studio agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 26
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 2: Designing effective agents . 29
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Choose the type of agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Select the agents orchestration model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Design the agents capabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Understand and calculate agent costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Part 2: Building agents with Copilot Studio
Chapter 3. Building agents with the lite experience of Copilot Studio . 63
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Describe and configure an agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Build an agent from a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Share and manage agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 4: Building agents in Copilot Studio . 97
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Understand environments and solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Configure a new agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Manage agent settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Edit the Conversation Start topic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Start with an agent template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Install a managed agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Chapter 5: Building autonomous agents . 129
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Identify use cases for autonomous agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Build an autonomous agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Publish and monitor an autonomous agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Chapter 6: Grounding agents in knowledge . 169
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Understand how knowledge works in Copilot Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Connect to public websites as a knowledge source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Add files as a knowledge source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Add SharePoint as a knowledge source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Add real-time connectors to enterprise data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Chapter 7: Authoring topics . 233
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Create and edit topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Use message nodes and adaptive cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Use questions, variables, and entities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Use formulas, logic, and generative answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Manage topic transitions and internal triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Chapter 8: Extending agents with tools . 317
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Use connectors and REST APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Create agent flows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Add tools to a topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Use a prompt as a tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Add tools from a Model Context Protocol server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Chapter 9: Designing multi-agent orchestration . 391
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Understand multi-agent orchestration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Create and use child agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Connect to existing agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Part 3: Publishing and monitoring your agent
Chapter 10: Publishing and authenticating agents. 413
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Understand and select the agent authentication method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Publish and test an agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Choose and configure channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Chapter 11: Monitoring agent performance . 441
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Analyze conversational agent performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Download and view conversation transcripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Analyze autonomous agent performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Part 4: Extending and integrating with other platforms
Chapter 12: Working with voice and customer engagement systems . 465
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Create a voice-enabled agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Test a voice-enabled agent using chat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Publish to a customer engagement channel and configure escalation. . . . . . . 479
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Chapter 13: Extending Copilot Studio agents with Azure AI. 493
Practice files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Create a vector index in Azure AI Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Add Azure AI Search as a knowledge source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
Bring your own Azure AI Foundry model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Skills review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Practice tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Appendices: Practice tasks for end-to-end agent scenarios
Appendix A: Build an IT helpdesk agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Appendix B: Build a customer support agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
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