What’s Happening with Power Virtual Agents?

• Power Virtual Agents is rebranded as Copilot Studio, with new features and licensing implications.
• A new billing model will benefit scenarios where copilots handle mostly short requests, such as package tracking.

In Nov. 2023, Power Virtual Agents was absorbed by Microsoft Copilot Studio, which itself was announced as a component of the new Microsoft 365 Copilot offering. While this introduces new paid capabilities for Microsoft 365 users, existing Power Virtual Agents customers can continue to use the rebranded service without technical complications but with a new billing model.

Transition to Copilot Studio

Power Virtual Agents originally implemented a form of AI by enabling customers to create chatbots, which are natural language interfaces that guide end users through business workflows. In Nov. 2023, Microsoft rebranded the service as Microsoft Copilot Studio and now refers to chatbots as copilots.

Copilot Studio provides creators with a design portal, much like the previous Power Virtual Agents design studio, but also includes new Copilot features that help streamline the creation of new copilots. When creating a copilot, the designer can use a “Create a topic to…” prompt to describe intended functionality. For example, the designer could enter, “Let a user check the status of an incoming shipment, accepting the tracking number. For each question, add three message variations and a speech alternative.” Copilot Studio would build a copilot (chatbot) based on the prompt and allow the designer to further modify it before putting it into production.