Microsoft Corp. is updating its Power Platform today at its Ignite conference in San Francisco with new artificial intelligence features, governance tools and data integrations aimed at speeding the deployment and management of applications more efficiently.

The updates span Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Dataverse, with many being released in preview over the coming weeks.

Power Platform encompasses five components, including a low-code tool for building business applications, workflow automation, analytics, a website builder and a tool for building conversational AI agents and copilots. It is the most widely adopted low-code platform in the market, according to Forrester Research Inc.

Microsoft Power Apps is gaining features designed to simplify application creation and enhance logic, data and workflows. A new maker workspace, now in preview, brings planning, data modeling and application design into “one intelligent, AI-powered canvas,” the company said.

The workspace will use Microsoft 365 Copilot to generate multi-page applications through natural language prompts with point-and-click refinement. Microsoft said the improved experience will enable developers to visualize and modify designs in real-time without switching tools.

Microsoft is also previewing the Power Apps Model Context Protocol Server, which connects autonomous AI agents to the logic and data defined inside Power Apps. MCP services act as an intermediary layer that standardizes communication between agents and app services, removing the need for custom integrations, the company said. Integration will allow capabilities such as approvals, form submissions and record retrieval to be exposed to agents through a unified protocol.

Beginning Dec. 10, customers will also gain early access to a unified Copilot Chat in model-driven applications, which carries context between productivity and business applications to reduce context switching.

Better Copilot Studio management

Microsoft Copilot Studio is getting enhancements aimed at improving security, performance management and administrative oversight. Agent evaluations, now in preview, automatically test agents against predefined scenarios and grade their responses to help developers tune agent performance, catch regressions early and compare the performance of different agent versions.

A new computer-use capability allows agents to perform tasks in a hosted browser or cloud-based virtual PCs using Windows 365. The feature, now in preview, enables agents to interact with applications and websites through a virtual machine in the same way as a physical user.

Microsoft has also enabled real-time security monitoring during agent runs. That allows organizations to connect internal or external monitoring tools, such as Microsoft Defender, to detect threats such as prompt injection. A new Microsoft Entra Agent ID assigns unique identities to agents created in Copilot Studio to allow organizations to secure and control them like human users. It helps administrators manage agent access, prevent over-permissioned assets and identify “shadow agents” that are deployed under IT’s radar.

Agents built in Microsoft 365 Copilot can now generate Word, Excel and PowerPoint files using natural-language prompts. This is enabled through an expanded set of Microsoft 365 knowledge sources to enable more context-rich interactions. Agents are also getting expanded access to context sources such as Teams meetings, shared mailboxes and organizational directory information.

Dataverse integration

Microsoft Dataverse, the data platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Copilot Studio, is adding features intended to strengthen the connection between enterprise data and AI systems. Dataverse is now integrated with Microsoft Fabric, enabling enterprise data indexed with Dataverse Search to be accessed through natural language queries.

A Dataverse software development for Python, now in preview, will allow developers to create agentic workflows and perform data science tasks in Python. The Dataverse MCP Server, now generally available, offers standardized AI-to-data access and supports a range of built-in tools for viewing, updating and searching data.

Microsoft’s market-leading position is powered by its integration across Microsoft’s cloud products, large customer base and emphasis on combining low-code development with AI-assisted automation. Microsoft said the enhancements being announced today make Power Platform a central layer for building and managing agent-based applications.

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