Microsoft is bringing app creation deeper into Copilot. Starting now (I have been playing around with this over the past few days), app building is arriving in Copilot Cowork and, over the next couple of weeks, Copilot Studio.
This will give people the ability to create business apps simply by describe what they need, how they want it to look and function. In return (and for some Copilot Credits), Copilot will plan, build and generate a working application that can connect to organisational data, external sources and connectors whilst respecting security and governance boundaries. These can be kept person or published securely across the organisation.
create business apps simply by describe what they need, how they want it to look and function.
This moves past workflows and agents and will help people and organisations move from low-code to “almost” no-code, with Copilot acting as the orchestration, design and coding engine behind rapid enterprise app creation.
Cowork first, Copilot Studio next
Microsoft’s official message centre post (MC1469329) for organisations on the Frontier Preview confirms that:
- Copilot Cowork’s /app skill rollout started on 8th Sept and will be slowly enabled over the next week. It needs a M365 Copilot licence and Cowork access
- Copilot Studio’s public preview will start to roll out w/c 14 September, as announced in Microsoft’s Copilot Studio blog.
Both experiences share the same intent: natural-language app creation, connected to organisational data through approved connectors and Work IQ.
How to build an app in Cowork
Before you follow along – you’ll need access to Cowork, Copilot Credits, an idea.
1. PROMPT YOUR APP: In Cowork you can invoke the /app skill and describe the outcome they want or just use a phrase like “create me an app that…..” In this example I want an app that pulls in data from Microsoft AI@Work roadmap and puts into an app.
2. COPILOT PLANS YOUR APP: Here Copilot begins to plan the app. Here is has also told me (as I asked) that it understands the ask, replays back to me the tasks and may (or may not) ask some clarifications before it starts.
3. COPILOT WORKS WITH YOU: You can see here that Copilot is asking to clarify and confirm a few things before it starts building the app – for example how deep do I want to go in the first version.
👉 Remember – this is Cowork so it’s using credits as it works, advice, build out and then refine to save those Copilot Pennies.
ℹ️ Apps built in Cowork can be opened and refined in Copilot Studio.
4. COPILOT BUILDS YOUR APP – this took around 10 minutes before the first version was ready. You can interject, add things, tweak things as you need just by typing. Rember your Credit Burn so keep checking with Cowork with the /cost command.
5. TEST IT TWEAK IT: In the initial version we created together, Copilot built the app but didn’t actually create the connection to the RSS feed. Once I had confirmed I was happy with the initial version and I was happy with the UI, I asked it to create the RSS feed. (This used the native Microsoft RSS Connector in our Power Platform Environment).
6. APP READY TO TEST AND USE – Yes, this is the finished app with live RSS data, customer tabs and even a setting menu for me to toggle global settings.
Copilot has created the app as I ask. (note I did do a little bit of, “can you add this”, “can you add a filter that does….” but the main thing you can see here is that it the data is it using is live.
NOTE: I have used a skill I created in PowerPoint to illustrate and explain how the app works (you can read more about that here).
App Creation Governance
One of the biggest gaps in “citizen development” has always been governance. Microsoft is addressing that directly:
- Within the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre, admins get a new app inventory under Apps > All apps in the Microsoft 365 admin center
- They can enable or disable the preview and scope access to security groups
- When building apps, “makers” are routed into a personal developer environments by default, protected by secure defaults and governed by existing policies
- You can ask Copilot in create mode to use a specific environment if required ( you must have access to it of course)
- Some connectors (if you need to them) will require configuring by IT – Copilot is pretty good at telling you this if it runs into a problem on the way.
- All apps created use Microsoft Entra authentication and follow connector, data, compliance, and sharing policies already in place
This is the first time Microsoft has given Copilot-built apps a proper home inside the admin center.
Apps use Consumption Billing
Building and running these apps uses consumption billing – this is described in the official documentation at MC1469329, but is easy to get carried away so worth checking your credits as you run through…
Essentially this means (however) that:
- Enterprise Apps are easy to create – no paying a developer
- Apps are easy to share
- Apps are built, shared and used in adherence to your company security and governance standards
- The apps cost Credits to build and use – so someone/department needs to own the cost of this…
This is the same approach that underpins Copilot Cowork’s general availability release earlier this year, and it’s now tied directly to app execution.
Resources:
- Check all the official Microsoft blogs and posts by Ryan Cunningham, Microsoft Official Copilot Blog
- Copilot Blog: Microsoft Copilot Blog | Microsoft Community Hub
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