How to build a bot and agent with MS Copilot
Marco van Hurne
AI & ML advisory | Author of The Machine Learning Book of Knowledge | Building AI skills & organizations | Data Science | Data Governance | AI Compliance Officer | AI Governance
Although there are a lot of companies that are currently investigating the use of AI in their company, and that visonairy people have already adopted work mining platforms like FOUNT or Blue Prism, and saved millions of dollars/euros without having to lay off employees (read articles here, and here), most companies, and governments are starting at the beginning: with the implementation of simple chatbots based on Neural Networks, and Natural Language Processing instead of those arcain rule-based bots that never seem to really understand what it is that you want.
As Bill Gates once said, "The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life."
And that's exactly what we're going to do here in this article with chatbots and copilots. We're making technology more accessible and easier to use for everyone.
There are many bot platforms that are simple to use, and easy to develop (Chatbase or Botpress for example are platforms that I have worked with). Most of them only offer dialogue and information retrieval functions, and some of them actually can perform some activities. And one platform that stands out is the Microsoft Bot Framework for building bots, Microsoft Autogen for building Agentic AI (AI that does stuff for you), and the ready to use Microsoft Copilot, which is part of your Office 365 suite if you are willing to cough up some serious dough for each user.
So if you are one of the lucky few who are in the posession of a MS Copilot license and you have always wanted to create your own chatbot or copilot? Well, you're in luck because in this article, I'm going to guide you through the process of building your very own AI-powered conversational interface.
And to me, always the best part, is that you don't need to be a coding wizard!
Take for instance you are organizing a music festival, and you want to provide your potential visitors with a helpful chatbot that can answer their questions about the lineup, tickets, and other important details.
Before we start!
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If it's the first time that you build a bot, you might wonder, "How on earth do I even begin to create a chatbot?".
Well, that's where a non-coding platform like Microsoft Copilot Studio is kinda handy. It's part of the Power Platform, which means you have access to a wide range of features and integrations. Meaning, you can do more than only build a bot. But that's for the pro users.
Microsoft Copilot Studio is a graphical no to low-code tool for creating copilots. A copilot is an conversational interface based on large language models and sources of knowledge that you add yourself. It is part of the Power Platform, it is rebranded and previously it vas called Power Virtual Agents.
Are you ready to dive in and create your first bot? Let's go!
Lets start creating your first bot
You do not need high developer skills to use this tool. Because it is a ** no to low-code platform**, everyone can create chatbots with some configuration and drag and drop playing.
First things first, you'll need a license for Power Platform.
You can get your free trial Microsoft Copilot Studio. Just follow the link and sign up.
Once you have your free trial license, the next step is to create environment in Power Platform. If you're not sure how to do that, don't sweat it. Just check out this helpful guide.
Now that you have Copilot Studio and your environment set up, log in, and you should see an interface that looks like this:
See that big, beautiful + button (Create) in the corner? Click on that and choose New copilot. It's time to bring your chatbot to life!
Give your copilot a name and description. Make it something catchy and memorable. And don't forget about the instructions! They're super important because the copilot will use AI to create the skeleton and set up the behavior of the bot based on what you provide.
Remember this: Your copilot is smart, but it's not a mind reader. We need to give it some knowledge to work with. Otherwise, it might end up giving vague or inaccurate answers.
Since we're creating a chatbot for a festival, let's provide the public website of the festival as the main knowledge feed. Press the Add knowledge button and choose the option Public website. Enter the website link and press Add.
You're almost there! Just hit that Create button, and watch as your copilot comes to life.
When the copilot is created, you should see Overview page.
领英推荐
Lets test how it works
On the right side of the screen, you'll see an interface where you can test our bot. Give it a whirl and ask some questions about the festival.
Interaction with the bot
Would you look at that? It worked! The chatbot found the information from the website we provided and even included a link to the source. How cool is that?
Let's try something else.
Chat
Chat
As you can see, the copilot provides accurate information from the public site, making it easy for visitors to communicate with the bot and get the details they need about the festival.
But what if some information isn't available on the website?
The copilot will use its Azure Open AI feature to fetch information from other sources. That's one of the main advantages of Copilot Studio.
And there you have it, people You've just created your very own chatbot using Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Now it's your turn. Experiment with different knowledge feeds and see what kind of conversations you can have.
Oh, and one more thing. In the coming days, I will dive deeper into some of the more advanced features of Copilot Studio, like Topics, Actions, and configuration settings.
So, what are you waiting for?
If you have any questions or want to share your creations, drop a comment below. I'd love to see what you come up with.
Well, that's a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I'll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ??
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Signing off - Marco
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