Microsoft is adding new capabilities to Microsoft 365 Copilot to help employees be more productive. Available today through the Frontier Program are two new agents —App Builder and Workflows—and a lightweight version of the company’s existing Copilot Studio app. The goal of these tools is to empower all workers—not just power users—to use AI more effectively in their jobs.
Nine years ago, Microsoft introduced its Power Platform, a service with low-code development tools to help build custom business applications. Today, it’s used by more than 56 million people monthly. “Our ambition has always been far bigger,” Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s president of business and industry copilot, tells me in an interview. “It’s kind of this idea that everybody who uses Office should be able to do some lightweight development, and…gaining that user base.”
Artificial intelligence is making that a reality.
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Two Agents and a Studio Enter the Office
With the new App Builder agent, workers can create and deploy apps in minutes without setting up a database. It could be a new dashboard, chart, calculator, list, or any number of interactive elements. Microsoft touts that all the development can be done, restyled, and refined without ever leaving Copilot. Moreover, it’s grounded using the worker’s Microsoft 365 content. And when the app is ready, the worker only needs to share a link, just like they would a document.
As for the Workflows agent, workers can use this bot in Copilot to automate tasks triggered by specific events. For example, executing a series of actions after receiving a customer email or knowing what to do before meeting with a customer. Once these workflows have been created using natural language, Copilot will handle the rest, from binding up all the parameters, actions, and API calls to dealing with MCP servers, all without the worker having to deal with any “low-level details for it to run in the background in the cloud, safely and scalably.” These automated flows can span across Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Planner, and even services like Approval.
“In the same place where you use AI…to research topics or [find] information from the web or your calendar, you’ll also be able to make things with AI,” Lamanna points out. “That’s the power of this chat-based interface is it can do both these things in a single chat window because the model can route you to the right series of tools. And the idea is that, in a world where AI is pretty dang good at creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, the typical office worker isn’t going to create them anymore. They’re also going to create agents, apps, and workflows. That’s just going to be part of the expectations of a modern officer worker.”
Microsoft discloses that its Workflows agent uses the same infrastructure that powers Agent Flows that’s in the full Copilot Studio experience.
And speaking of Copilot Studio, Microsoft is offering a lighter version. As Lamanna explains, a large number of people are using Copilot Studio to build agents “just for themselves.” In fact, these users wanted bots to streamline repetitive tasks, such as a marketing professional who has a complex, pre-configured prompt for reviewing blog posts. Instead of continuously entering the same lengthy prompt and configuration each time, they built a dedicated agent that can quickly execute their specific review process. This is what led to the creation of Copilot Studio Lite.
If more robust agentic abilities are needed—for example, reporting, analytics, registering actions, or configuring an MCP server—users can visit the Copilot Studio website.
“I think we’ve been blown away by just how much usage there is of people building agents for themselves, and if you’re building it for yourself, you don’t need a lot of this other stuff. You don’t need to test it. You don’t need to track who’s using it. You don’t need to manage permission, because it’s just for you,” Lamanna shares. “Copilot Studio Lite was all about giving up some power for something super simple and easy, so people can create lots of these… throwaways—really quick, temporary agents for individual work or maybe something they use for just a couple of weeks.”
Both the App Builder and Workflows agent, along with the lightweight version of Copilot Studio, are included with the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.
“We’re super excited to see this kind of Cambrian explosion of even more apps and workflows being built, and kind of all in a way which integrates with tools people already know and love,” he concludes.
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Even though workers have been granted greater freedom to improve their productivity, Microsoft stresses that guardrails remain in place to protect company data. Whatever safeguards and protections organizations have instituted with Copilot will apply to these new agents, along with any IT policies.
Lamanna stresses that workers should always pay close attention to whenever data, workflows, or processes “leave the boundary of the company.” It’s one thing to pass data between colleagues, because even if something goes wrong, those people are employees who will likely act in the firm’s best interests and treat customer data appropriately. However, it’s different when data moves into the public space, either through emails to external parties or through posting to a website with anonymous access. He asserts Microsoft has settings in place to limit sharing or outside access.
“I always anchor back to the same scope you have for email, spreadsheets, docs, and PowerPoints,” he advises. “That should probably be the same scope you have for these apps, workflows, and agents you’re building inside of Copilot. Just like how, if you wouldn’t put it in an Excel spreadsheet and then email it to somebody outside the firm, [you] probably shouldn’t be doing that with an app either.”
Moving Forward with Frontier Firms
As our interview wrapped up, I asked Lamanna how today’s announcements advanced Microsoft’s vision for Frontier Firms. He believes it’s another step forward.
“One of the big elements of a Frontier Firm that we talk about is this idea of ubiquitous innovation, or this idea that…all parts of the company get to participate in generating new ideas, new revenue streams, [and] new cost measures,” he responds. “One of the best ways to have ubiquitous innovation is to empower more people to create, develop, and make things. So we view this very much as a natural continuation of that element of the Frontier Firm where, just like how now everybody has an expert in their pocket with Copilot…everybody has an app developer, a workflow builder, and an agent creator in their pocket, because they have Copilot, too.”
He asserts that because it’s accessible and fully enabled for everybody inside an organization, it’s a key element of the Frontier Firm philosophy. “We think more independence, more self-starting, more agency, is going to be an inevitable part of an AI-first company.”
Lamanna adds a nod to Bill Gates’ long-view philosophy: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten.” He believes that in the next decade, the idea of a “Frontier Firm” won’t be aspirational—it will be the norm.
Featured Image: Credit: Ken Yeung
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