Users and developers are now able to build full-scale business applications in Microsoft’s Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio AI platforms, expanding the breadth and sophistication of software that the tools can create.
The company positions the new features as a major advance over current functionality – which includes the ability to create agents or workflows in Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio: apps will provide connections to enterprise data and systems while operating under the Microsoft security umbrella for the governance required in enterprise environments.
Apps authored with these platforms also support Git source control as well as visibility in the Microsoft 365 admin center for additional enterprise controls.
Users or developers could utilize the new functions to build apps that, for example, combine Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management data with Work IQ context for emails, files, and projects. They could also extend Dynamics 365 Field Service with technical information, guided activities, and service history, said Dominic Downarowicz, innovation lead who has a Power Platform focus at Microsoft partner Prodware.
Such complete, interactive business experiences – which can include features such as state management of transactional applications, UI layout, and writing results to other systems — go beyond the functionality of an AI agent or workflow.
“As a Microsoft Partner and Frontier Partner, we are exploring how this new generation of governed, AI-assisted application development can accelerate real Dynamics 365 and industry scenarios,” Downarowicz wrote on LinkedIn.
App Building Process
Here’s how the new functionality is invoked:
In Copilot Cowork, a user taps into the new /app skill (available via the Microsoft Frontier Program). In Copilot Studio (public preview), the user will choose App from the home screen.
In either case, the user starts by specifying in natural language their desired outcome, then shapes the app’s functionality through natural conversation; the platform uses agentic coding to turn user intent into working apps. The app is connected to organizational data and then published as a framework with foundational code.
Once an app is published, the user can continue to iterate in natural language, review the code, and inspect the app in preview mode. The features are intended both for non-developers that need to deliver focus narrowly on an app’s features, or developers that need to go into the app’s structure and code to exert more control.
Cowork- and Copilot Studio-built apps use connectors to access business data; that includes use of WorkIQ for organizational context. That context enables connected experiences that go beyond surfacing data to include taking actions and writing results back to corporate systems within the Microsoft 365 tenant. Aforementioned app examples – such as combining WorkIQ context to supply chain data – demonstrate how these features can deliver an app experience built on the data and services that employees use in their work.
Apps created in Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio can use Git source control and version isolation so teams can continue improving the next version of their app without disrupting the live experience. By default, identity, organizational data, and connector policies, are applied and enforced through Microsoft Entra.
IT administrators have centralized visibility into apps built with Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio in the Microsoft 365 admin center, which shows an inventory of published apps and operational controls to help secure and manage them throughout their lifecycle.
“I have already been experimenting with the preview by building a project dashboard connected to project and business process data,” Downarowicz wrote. “What makes this especially interesting is that these are not simply generated mock-ups or agents with a visual layer,” he said. Instead, they are “full-stack applications built on open standards.”
With these developments, Microsoft is further democratizing AI-powered development, said Sasha Vovchenko, Microsoft Licensing and Program Lead APAC at Pax8. “This is another step towards making low-code and AI-powered development accessible to a much broader audience. The gap between ‘I have an idea’ and ‘I have a working business app’ keeps getting smaller,” Vovchenko wrote in a LinkedIn post.
