Power Platform Community Conference & Copilot Wave 2

This week was a busy week in the Microsoft BizApps world. The Power Platform Community Conference (PPCC) was held. The Microsoft 365 Copilot wave 2 was announced too. I will not just ask Microsoft Copilot to write me a summary of what is going on, I will also reason over it myself. Copilot Agents, autonomous agents, Copilot Pages, Copilot to help you make plans in the Power Apps Studio, re-branding of the Copilot + Microsoft 365 concept, in this post we’ll look at what’s new and what’s what.

Out of curiosity, I did ask Microsoft Copilot about it. Can you please write me a summary of the announcements that happened during the Power Platform Community Conference 2024 and the Microsoft 365 Copilot wave 2 event? Include re-branded products and new features. I got a list with 6 announcements from PPCC and 4 from Copilot Wave 2. Yesterday I went though the official blogs and watched the Wave 2 event. So I already knew of those announcements. Oh well.

Power Platform Community Conference

Last week the PPCC 2024 was held. What’s this conference? It’s a conference entirely dedicated to the BizApps product & services suit from Microsoft, i.e. Power Platform & Dynamics 365.

It was the third of its kind, the first edition of PPCC was held in Orlando, 2022. The second edition was held in Las Vegas 2023. This year people from all over the world traveled to Las Vegas (again), MVPs to share their knowledge and the product groups to have discussions with those who use their products and services daily, to receive feedback and to share what’s new and what’s coming.

A conference about the BizApps suit. So why all the buzz about Copilot? Well, Copilot, with it’s AI related features, has been infused into Power Platform and the Dynamics 365 apps of course. As well as into most of the other products & services from Microsoft. Other parts are used together with the BizApps suit too. Microsoft 365 and Power Platform work together and have multiple synergies.

This conference comes with a cost and it’s an in-person only conference. Fortunately, you can follow #PPCC24, e.g. on LinkedIn and X and you can expect new posts in the official blogs. No exception this year. Here follows a few selected features, then a summary of what’s new and I’ll also share all links you possibly need to catch up.

Copilot Agents, from simple to autonomous

There has been a lot of buzz around Copilot Agents. Copilot Agents, what’s that?!

At Microsoft Build in May this year, Copilot with Agent capabilities was announced and highlighted. From having the purpose of being a chat bot and answer questions for you automatically to now having the capability to work in the background, even be triggered without someone starting a new chat. I had this included in my previous post, Microsoft Build 2024 Highlights.

Now at PPCC 2024 Copilot Agents are described further. Copilot Agents of different sizes. From small agents, that can gather information for you, reason over it and help you take decisions. To more capable agents that can take actions when asked. To autonomous agents, the most advanced, operating independently, orchestrate other agents, and know when to escalate to a real (live person) agent. The below is taken from this post.

An agent uses AI to automate and execute business processes, working with you and on your behalf

Agent Builder is another new feature announced. A new Copilot Studio experience, build agents with natural language from within SharePoint and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat).

“Generate a plan” with Copilot in Power Apps

The Power Apps Studio will include a plan designer and you will be able to ask Copilot how to best plan building solutions. This features will let you start with a description of a business problem and give additional context; e.g. process diagrams, data models, screenshots of legacy apps. Copilot uses this and makes a draft for user roles and requirements for the solution. From there makers add or change roles and the requirements themselves or with Copilot. Read more about it here.

It was announced as in a limited preview. Be an early adopter and join the Early Adopters Program. You can request to join here: https://aka.ms/LetsBuildaPlan

Collaborate with Copilot & colleagues with Copilot Pages

When Copilot has given you a result, you will be able to “Edit in page” and utilize the new feature Copilot Pages. Create a page from your copilot conversation, invite your colleagues to participate with you. Copilot brings info from the web, puts it on a canvas, and you can collaborate over the content with your colleagues. Upload a document and ask copilot to create a new version of it, continue working on it with your colleagues. Read more here and there’s also a video available.

Power Platform Conference Book of News?

Book of News? Is there such a thing? No, not for this conference. During Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite announcements are packed together in a Book of News. There’s no book summarizing PPCC announcements, but there are great info in the official blogs (see further down). Here’s a summary of what’s new.

Power Automate – AI recording for desktop flows (Public Preview)
Power Automate – Generative actions with inline cloud flows (EAP) Sign up here
Power Automate – Desktop flows from natural language (Public Preview)
Power Automate – Copilot expression assistant (Private Preview) Sign up here
Power Automate – Two-action panes in the Power Automate designer (General Available)
Power Apps – Generate a plan with Copilot in Power Apps (Limited Preview) Sign up here
Power Apps – Co-authoring in Power Apps (General Available)
Power Pages – GitHub Copilot in Power Pages (Public Preview)
Copilot Studio – Copilot Agents (Public Preview)
Copilot Studio – Agent Builder (Public Preview)
Copilot Studio – Publish Copilot Agents directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot
Copilot Studio – The core platform now features GPT-4o as the default model
Uncategorized – Copilot Pages ”A dynamic, persistent canvas designed for multiplayer AI collaboration.”

Power Platform Community Conference 2025

Save the date! During this year’s conference it was announced that the next Power Platfrom Community Conference will be held October 28-30, 2025, shared by Dona Sarkar.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2

On the 16^th of September Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro held an event, announcing Microsoft 365 Copilot wave 2. Microsoft will release Copilot in 3 major waves. This is wave 2. Not to be mixed up with the release waves for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 (the two release waves per year). Both Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro mentioned Copilot as the UI of AI.

You can think of Copilot as the UI of AI

Among other Copilot related announcements, there were two which are of extra interest for BizApps enthusiasts. Already described earlier in this post, here they are again, and now you will not forget about them

Copilot Pages Invite your colleagues to collaborating with you after you have initiated a Copilot conversation.

Copilot Agents Simple to more advanced to autonomous agents. Jared Spataro talked about how agents will change how we look at business processes.  

We’re enabling every organization to break free of yesterday’s take on business process, introducing Copilot Agents

You can catch up with this event on LinkedIn here. Everyone who works with Microsoft BizApps should listen in on this event, specifically the parts where Copilot Agents (21:55 info the recording) and Copilot Pages (4:10 into the recording) are presented. You can also find more info here.

Another re-branding of a product? From being called Copilot for Microsoft 365 to now being presented as Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft 365 vs. Power Platform

Identity crisis all over again. Project Oakdale, Dataverse for Teams, a few years ago. Today I blog about features related to Microsoft 365. The boundaries gets blurred again. We (BizApps enthusiasts) know Power Platform by heart and if you are an MSCRM old fan, you hold Dataverse close to your heart. So what? Well, we know the hidden features, what to do what not to do (even it is technically possible). We might also know Copilot Studio, coming from the Power Platform feature/service Power Virtual Agents, which we explored early. Copilot Studio can be used to extend Microsoft Copilot 365. We do not know all Microsoft 365 features by heart though. Luckily we have the Office Apps and Services peeps to collaborate with!

The official blogs

• AI-powered business innovation with the Power Platform Community
• Unveiling Copilot agents built with Microsoft Copilot Studio to supercharge your business
• IT Governance Controls for Your Copilot agents
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Pages, Python in Excel, and agents
• Announcing Copilot Pages for multiplayer collaboration
• Build user-focused intelligent solutions in Power Apps, start with a plan
• Advancing automation with new AI capabilities in Power Automate

New features, so what? Well, in order to be able to recommend solutions built on the Power Platform and related technologies, you simply need to keep up to date with the upcoming possibilities with the platform. With the fast evolution of all AI related features, keeping up with what’s new might seem harder than ever. I hope this post was a little helpful, making it a bit easier to keep up with what was announced this week. If you attended the event and have something to share, feel free to add a comment to this post!

Original Post https://carinaclaesson.com/2024/09/20/power-platform-community-conference-copilot-wave-2/