Ready to harness the power of Microsoft Copilot Studio without spending a dime? This comprehensive guide reveals how to build your custom Copilot and unlock its incredible potential. Dive into a step-by-step process for setting up your Copilot Studio for free, ensuring you start your journey with all the knowledge you need. From signing up to creating a unique Copilot chatbot, this resource will guide you through leveraging this groundbreaking tool to elevate your productivity and enhance user experiences.
What if I told you that you could create custom Copilots?
Microsoft Copilot is regarded as the most powerful productivity tool on the planet, and Microsoft just announced that you can create custom ones. This naturally develops questions that need answers, such as:
- How do custom Copilots even work, after all?
- How do I start building these Copilots today?
- Are you telling me I can build custom Copilots for free?
Sign Up to use Microsoft Copilot Studio
Step #1 – Navigate to Microsoft Copilot Studio Webpage
Microsoft Copilot Studio | Extend Copilots or Create Your Own
The link provided will direct you to the official Microsoft webpage that explains what Microsoft Copilot Studio is, and you will find a button that says “Try free”. This will direct you to this link here.
Step #2 – Sign up for Microsoft Copilot Studio
Subsequently, you will have to fill in all the necessary information to begin using Microsoft Copilot Studio for free in your organization. If you do not have an organization, or would like to start a trial environment to test this out, follow this Step-by-Step Guide here.
After getting started, creating your account, and confirming your details select Get Started
Create a Custom Copilot Chatbot
Once you have sign up for Microsoft Copilot Studio, you should be automatically directed to the Copilot Studio Maker Portal. If not, you can access the Copilot Studio here.
Step #1 – Create a Copilot Bot
In the Home tab, select the + Create a copilot. This is going to prompt you to fill in all of the appropriate information needed for your bot. the information includes:
- Copilot Name: The name your Copilot will have
- Copilot Language: The language your Copilot will speak
- Website: The website that the Generative AI copilot will reference to create responses
- Copilot Icon (advanced): The image your Chatbot will carry
- Solution (advanced): The Power Platform Solution your bot will be added to
- Schema Name (advanced): The backend name assigned to the bot
Select Create once you fill in all the neccessary information.
Note: You can update the Copilot name, icon, and website at a later date but you will not be able to update Copilot’s Language or Schema.
Step #2 – Setting up Your Copilot
After selecting Create, you will be directed to a loading screen that says “Thanks. We’re setting up your copilot.”
You unfortunately must wait for the screen to update. It can take up to several minutes for your bot to be created. You may also get an email the first time you create a copilot. If you are not automatically redirected to the Copilot Maker Portal, then refresh your browser.
Step #3 – Enable Generative AI for you Copilot
The first thing you want to do is navigate to the Generative AI tab and opt your bot into utilizing the generative AI capabilities available. If you did not set the website for your bot previously you can also update that on the same tab.
Secondly, be sure to select the Copilot content moderation that is most appropriate. The Copilot content moderation sets how creative you want your copilot to be. If you would like to learn more, please check out the Microsoft Documentation here. Microsoft has provided copilots with three presets:
- High: Copilot Generate fewer answers, but responses are more relevant
- Medium: Copilot generates more answers, but the responses may be less relevant
- Low: Copilot generates the most answers, but responses can have inaccuracies
Without opting in for generative AI capabilities, your copilot would effectively remain a Power Virtual Agent… which is old news! Sorry PVA!
Step #4 – Create and Update your Copilot Topics
Much like Power Virtual Agents, the Copilot Studio follows a similar format. These Copilots are made up by a series of topics to facilitate conversations. Topics are a way to organize the conversation flow between the user and the copilot. A topic is a collection of related questions and answers that the copilot can handle. When a user asks a question, the copilot tries to match it with a topic.
If the copilot finds a matching topic, it will use the questions and answers in that topic to respond to the user. If the copilot does not find a matching topic, it will use the default topic to respond to the user or use the new Generative AI capabilities. You can use topics to create and manage conversation paths in a copilot, work with topic triggers and conversation nodes, add branching to a topic. You can use system topics and create topics from content, and set up fall-back topics to handle unrecognized user input.
Copilot designers can create completely custom topics from scratch or create them from written prompts. These prompts allow you to explain to Copilot Studio what you are looking to create and it will create the topic, and all the topic’s components as needed, for you. Copilot Studio even provides some predetermined prompts (pictured below).
In Conclusion
Microsoft Copilot Studio is a powerful tool that enables teams to create and deploy copilots quickly and easily using a guided no-code graphical experience. With the integration of Power Virtual Agents capabilities and features, Microsoft Copilot Studio has become even more versatile and user-friendly. You can use topics to create and manage conversation paths in a copilot, work with topic triggers and conversation nodes, add branching to a topic, use system topics and more.
With the new Generative AI capabilities available, the effectiveness of Copilot bots just skyrocketed. There are quite literally endless possibilities on the different topics and redirects you can use to create a fully fledged copilot. Now, that Copilot has integrated and replaced Power Virtual agents, you can use the Generative AI capabilities automatically. If you have a Power Virtual Agents bot currently in use, you actually just got a free little upgrade.
Now imagine you go through all of this work creating a custom Copilot. You would hate to find out that you are not using Copilot correctly. It’s sad to say, but most people are not using Copilot effectively. Check out this post here to see the five most important things you need to know when using Copilot.
Happy Developing!