How to set up agents and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, included with Microsoft 365

If your organization uses Microsoft 365, you can now get AI-powered assistance using Copilot Chat - without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Research faster, analyze files more securely, and automate repetitive tasks. Create and use agents to streamline workflows, with pay-as-you-go billing so you only pay for what you use.

See how as a Microsoft 365 and Power Platform admin, you can easily configure access for everyone in your directory by pinning Copilot Chat to make it discoverable for quick use, then manage agent authoring permission in Copilot Studio, and set up consumption-based billing. Jeremy Chapman, Director of Microsoft 365 shows how to optimize productivity while controlling costs.

Included with Microsoft 365.

Just sign in and boost productivity. Steps to set up Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

Leverage agents with AI in Copilot Chat.

Create agents that use your company’s knowledge sources, with flexible billing. Click to watch.

Only pay for what you use.

Scale AI-powered agents efficiently with pay-as-you-go pricing. Check out Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

Watch our video here.

QUICK LINKS:

00:00 — Copilot Chat and agents

00:45 — How to use Copilot Chat

01:52 — Use agents in Copilot Chat

02:43 — Compare with Microsoft 365 Copilot

04:00 — Make it discoverable

04:48 — Configure access for author agents

06:22 — Pay-as-you-go

07:24 — Wrap up

Link References

Get a detailed comparison to Microsoft 365 Copilot at https://aka.ms/CopilotChat

See how how pay-as-you-go works at https://aka.ms/CopilotChatMetering

For more information, check out https://aka.ms/CopilotChatDocs

For detailed Copilot enablement guidance go to https://adoption.microsoft.com/copilot

Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics?

As Microsoft’s official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft.

• Subscribe to our YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries
• Talk with other IT Pros, join us on the Microsoft Tech Community:https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog
• Watch or listen from anywhere, subscribe to our podcast:https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/podcast

Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social:

• Follow us on Twitter:https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics
• Share knowledge on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/
• Enjoy us on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/msftmechanics/
• Loosen up with us on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@msftmechanics

Video Transcript:

-If your company uses Microsoft 365, now anyone can use Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat with enterprise data protection. The good news is that Copilot Chat is available at no additional cost if you have Microsoft 365, so you don’t need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to get started. Additionally, Copilot Chat now includes the ability to create and use your own agents for repetitive tasks and business processes, and your agents are billed based on consumption, so you only pay for what you use. Today I’ll show you a few highlights of these experiences, and if you’re a Microsoft 365 or Power Platform admin, I’ll walk you through the steps to set everything up.

-Let me start by showing you how you can use Copilot Chat. Copilot Chat is great for fast research that’s grounded with the most up-to-date content on the web. And you can even safely upload your own files into your prompts. For example, let’s say I want to start with basic information about how EV charging has grown recently. Copilot can reason over reputable information on the internet and quickly pull up what I’m looking for.

-Now, if I want to compare national trends to our own company’s sales results, when I upload a file with my sales data, unlike other services, it securely stores that information in my company OneDrive within our compliance boundary. Then Copilot can instantly reason over my uploaded content and visualize our regional sales information. From there, I can keep going and I can ask Copilot to recommend ways to help increase sales in lower performing regions, and it recommends a few things that we can do there too. Everything I just did there is included as part of Microsoft 365 Business, Enterprise, or an Academic license.

-Next, and as I mentioned, I can take things to the next level using agents to help with frequent or repeated tasks. With Copilot Chat, agents are easy to find and use right from here. For example, as a salesperson, to get up to speed with a recent customer and its activities before a meeting, you can @mention your CRM agent just like you would a colleague for details about their account. You can even ask specific account questions, such as products they’ve purchased with a breakdown of type, implementation, and usage details. Copilot then quickly pulls all the details directly from your system of record. And you can do this without even opening up your CRM system. As your users then leverage agents in Copilot Chat, they can be billed without an upfront cost or monthly commitment, again, so that you only pay for what you use. And those are just a few highlights of what you can do with Copilot Chat.

-Now, if you’re wondering how this is different from a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, I’ll point out a few major areas. First, with Copilot Chat, you need to upload files into your prompt in order for it to reason over your work information. And if you’re building agents, those can be directed to work information as a knowledge source and your build based on what you use.

-On the other hand, with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, work information that you have access to is directly retrieved from SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, email, and calendar via the Microsoft Graph, as you’re seeing here with this chat example, without you even needing to reference or upload files. And of course, a Microsoft 365 Copilot license includes integrated, in-context Copilot experiences across apps, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more. And you can create your own agents that will leverage Microsoft 365 knowledge sources, like information in SharePoint. But in this case, they’re included with the flat-rate Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Check out aka.ms/CopilotChat for even more information, along with a highly detailed feature comparison of each.

-That said, let’s switch gears back to Copilot Chat and the three main steps that you can take as an admin to make it discoverable, configure access to Copilot Studio for agent authors, and get optional agent services running. First, you’ll want to pin Copilot Chat to the left navigation of Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to make it easy for people to find. You’ll do this in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Copilot, Settings, and in Pin Copilot Chat.

-Now, in my case, I’ve already pinned this in advance. Optionally, you can allow users to be asked whether they want to pin it. Here, I’m going to select Pin Copilot Chat to the navigation bar. Then hit Save to confirm. And once you’ve enabled this, your users can get started right away from these apps. Next, I’ll show you how to set up agents, starting with who has agent authoring permission in Copilot Studio. Now, by default, everyone in your organization with a Microsoft Entra account will have access, and you can also choose to limit access. So from the new Power Platform admin center, under Manage, and Tenant settings, select Copilot Studio authors. From there, you can edit the default configuration. And you’ll choose an existing group that you’ve previously created in Microsoft Entra. And if you change the everyone default to another group, only members in that group will have agent authoring permission in Copilot Studio.

-Then in order to create or run agents using Copilot Chat, you’ll need to set up a pay-as-you-go billing account, or you can use prepaid messages with a Copilot Studio license. So as a prerequisite for pay-as-you-go billing, you’ll need an active Azure subscription and a resource group to assign the billing plan to. Then you’ll also create this from the Power Platform admin center. From Licensing, under Pay-as-you-go plans, you’ll choose New billing plan. Then from the billing plan options, choose Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. This option automatically creates a Power Platform environment as a data backend for authors as they create agents. From there, you’ll give the billing plan a name, then select an existing Azure subscription, and an existing resource group within that Azure subscription. Once you complete this step, the provisioning process will run for a few moments. And while that runs, let me explain how the consumption-based model works.

-First, agent use is measured in messages, which are units of consumption. The number of messages is calculated based on what’s required to generate a response to a prompt. For example, generating answers using knowledge contained within an LLM will consume fewer messages, whereas generating responses that require orchestration and information from the Microsoft Graph will consume more messages. The total cost is then calculated based on the sum of messages used across your organization during that billing cycle.

-And to find out more about how pay-as-you-go consumption and billing works using messages, check out aka.ms/CopilotChatMetering. Now, back to our demo, your defined agent authors will have access to Copilot Studio, where powerful agents can be created using natural language prompts, along with simple configurations to customize agent experiences, and bring in your approved knowledge sources and more.

-So those are the basic steps to get Copilot Chat up and running, making it easy to find and start using services. And there’s even more that you can customize and configure in the Microsoft 365 and Power Platform admin centers. To learn more, check out aka.ms/CopilotChatDocs, and go to adoption.microsoft.com/copilot for detailed Copilot enablement guidance. And keep checking back to Microsoft Mechanics for the latest tech updates. Subscribe to our channel, and thanks so much for watching.