Create Your Customized Copilot Using Microsoft Copilot - Part 1

Introduction

Customer engagement and seamless service are more important than ever as companies use AI to assist their customers. In the AI era that we are currently living in, it is more crucial than ever for businesses to engage with their customers and provide seamless service. If you are thinking about how, you can use your current data to assist customers this blog is for you.

Microsoft Copilot Studio is revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their customers by leveraging the power of generative AI. This article explores how you can create custom Copilots to enhance customer engagement and provide efficient handoff to customer service hubs.

Creating Custom Copilots

Microsoft Copilot Studio allows businesses to create custom Copilots that can interact with customers, providing AI-based self-help solutions. These Copilots can access information from your company's website, uploaded files, or knowledge base sources to answer customer queries in a conversational tone.

Go to the URL: https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com/ or search in Google for Microsoft Copilot Studio to find the registration URL. After logging in, you will get to the home page of Copilot.

The ‘New Copilot’ feature will allow you to create a new copilot and customize it according to your business requirements. Once the create button is clicked it will get to the new copilot page.

By default, I will ask you to add a website URL for knowledge-based. You can add your name and create a new copilot. I created a copilot “Nop Commerce Support”. Click on created copilot and let us go to the details page.

The interface features sections for managing "Topics" and "Actions".

"Topics" allows users to create custom topics and workflows, providing greater control over scenarios the Copilot can handle.

"Actions" (currently in preview) enable the Copilot to interact with external data, use enterprise APIs, and automate workflows.

For example, if you want to add a file to your file system, create a new record in SharePoint. Create a new row in Excel or read a new row from Excel or Databased which can be utilized in your copilot.

“Entities” allow you to create new entities for the copilot. Some of the prebuild entities are already created to train copilots for certain keywords and to extract information for those keywords. You can your own list or regular expressions.

The "Analytics" section. This section provides data analytics on the interactions between users and the virtual assistant, showing metrics such as customer satisfaction and session information. It features the ability to download session data within a specified date and time range. This tool is essential for evaluating the virtual assistant's performance and user engagement over time, and it supports continuous improvement of the assistant's capabilities by providing actionable insights.

"Publish" section within Microsoft Copilot Studio for a "Nop Commerce Support" Copilot. It suggests that the user's Copilot is ready and has been published, as indicated by the message "Your published Copilot is good to go." Users are encouraged to share their Copilot by trying it out on a demo website and inviting team members to do the same. The section also hints at optimizing the Copilot through channel configuration for various platforms like social media and checking the Copilot's performance through the Analytics page. This functionality suggests an integrated approach to deploying and managing a Copilot across different digital channels for customer engagement.

“Conversational plugins” section within Microsoft Copilot Studio, where users can create custom plugins to extend the capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot. In this interface, there is a trigger setup section for Microsoft Copilot (currently in preview), where you can describe what the topic does, allowing you to enter keywords that trigger the plugin. There are also instructional guides on the right, offering guidance on how to use conversational plugins, including tips on extending Microsoft 365 Copilot with custom data and actions, building your topic, and publishing to Microsoft Copilot. This feature is crucial for tailoring Copilot to specific enterprise needs and workflows.

The “AI plugins” section within Microsoft Copilot Studio. This feature is still in preview mode and allows users to extend the functionality of Microsoft Copilot by integrating Power Platform components as AI plugins. There is a list of custom prompts that have been created, each with its own description hinting at the specific function or task the plugin is designed to perform. Additionally, there's a note indicating that there may be some delay in the appearance of newly created plugins on the page. This functionality is key for organizations that wish to enhance their Copilot with tailored capabilities to suit specific business needs.

You can also see plugins created using AI builder listed here which you can use in copilot.

Conclusion

Microsoft Copilot Studio offers a platform to build custom AI Copilots for enhancing customer interaction with self-help solutions using company data. These Copilots can be tailored with specific "Topics" and "Actions" to control workflows and integrate with external data and APIs. Users can analyze Copilot interactions through the "Analytics" section to improve performance. Copilots can be shared post-publication and optimized for various digital channels. The "Conversational plugins" and "AI plugins" (both in preview) sections allow further customization with triggers and Power Platform components, expanding Copilot's utility in business-specific scenarios. The next part of this blog will come soon.