What is Copilot Studio?
Microsoft Copilot Studio is a platform for creating custom AI agents that extend Microsoft 365 Copilot. It comes in two experiences: a lite version built into Microsoft 365 Copilot for quick, simple agents, and a full version for advanced, enterprise-grade solutions.
Understanding the Two Experiences
Copilot Studio Lite (or Agent Builder)
The lite experience lives directly inside Microsoft 365 Copilot. You access it by clicking "Create agent" in the left navigation. It's designed for anyone to quickly build and iterate on an agent.
Access: Open Microsoft 365 Copilot and click "Create agent"
Best for: Personal or small team agents, quick solutions using existing Microsoft 365 content, agents that answer questions from documents or SharePoint sites.
Key features:
Build agents by chatting with Copilot
Automatic saving
Share with specific users or your organization
Access SharePoint, OneDrive, and website content as knowledge sources
Limitations: No Power Automate integration, premium connectors, and no complex workflows or custom code.
Documentation:
Copilot Studio (Full Experience)
The full experience is accessed through its own portal. It's a comprehensive development platform with advanced authoring tools, broader integration options, and enterprise-grade governance.
Access: copilotstudio.microsoft.com
Best for: Department or organization-wide agents within a shared Environment, complex workflows and business processes, integration with Power Automate, AI Builder and Azure capabilities.
Key features:
Visual workflow designer for complex conversations
Power Automate integration with access premium connectors on a PAYG plan or with Copilot Credit Packs.
Ability to use and deploy to Environments
Documentation:
Quickstart: Create and deploy an agent - Microsoft Copilot Studio
When to Use Which Experience
Lite: If you want to create an agent quickly, have a simple question-answering use case, are building for yourself or a small team, or use content already in SharePoint or OneDrive.
Full: If you need robust capabilities, require a collaborative environment with you team for development, or need complex conversational flows with branching logic.
Learn more: Choose between Agent Builder in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio to build your agent
Licensing
Both experiences are included with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. The full experience may require additional licensing (Credit Packs or PAYG) for premium connectors, high-volume usage, or agents intended for wide audiences.
Learn more: Microsoft 365 Copilot agents FAQ
Here's a comprehensive glossary for your modified article:
Glossary of Terms
Agent Builder: Another name for the Copilot Studio lite experience.
AI Builder: A Power Platform capability that provides prebuilt and custom AI models for forms processing, object detection, prediction, and text analysis that can be integrated into Copilot Studio (full) agents.
Azure: Microsoft's cloud computing platform. Copilot Studio (full) can integrate with Azure services like Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI, and other cognitive services.
Copilot Credit Packs: Prepurchased bundles of usage credits for Copilot Studio that provide discounted rates compared to pay-as-you-go billing for premium features and high-volume usage. Please reach out to M365-Purchasing@utexas.edu for more information.
Environment: An isolated container in Power Platform that holds agents, data, and resources. Environments allow you to separate development, testing, and production deployments. Please reach out to aistudio-support@austin.utexas.edu to request an environment for your unit or college.
Knowledge Sources: The documents, websites, SharePoint sites, and other content your agent searches to find information and answer questions.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: The AI assistant integrated across Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook. The lite agent builder is accessed directly within the Copilot interface.
Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG): A usage-based billing model where you're charged based on actual consumption of Copilot Studio services rather than a fixed subscription fee. Please reach out to aistudio-support@austin.utexas.edu for more information.
Power Automate: Microsoft's workflow automation platform. The full Copilot Studio experience can trigger Power Automate flows to perform actions like updating databases, sending emails, or creating records within a conversation.
Power Platform: Microsoft's suite of low-code tools including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Copilot Studio. The full Copilot Studio is part of this ecosystem.
Premium Connectors: Advanced integrations in Power Automate that connect to third-party services and enterprise systems. These require additional licensing beyond the base Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and often require a contract and approval.
SharePoint: Microsoft's document management and collaboration platform. Both lite and full experiences can use SharePoint sites and libraries as knowledge sources for agents.
Visual Workflow Designer: The graphical interface in full Copilot Studio where you create complex conversational flows with branching logic, conditions, and multiple paths.