Power Platform 101

What is Power Platform?

Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of tools that empowers users to analyse data, build solutions, automate processes, and create agents experiences with ease. This suite of tools is designed to work seamlessly together, and within the flow of work, to enable organisations and users to access the data they need, in the context they need.

• Power BI for rich business analytics and visualisation of complex datasets
• Power Apps for custom app development to provide unique UI/ UX across processes and systems
• Power Automate for workflow automation, removing manual and repetitive tasks
• Power Pages for bespoke, data-driven, websites
• Microsoft Copilot Studio to transform experiences with custom copilots and automation within the chat experience

All five tools integrate seamlessly with Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and thousands of other services, making it easier than ever to connect your data.

The benefits of Power Platform

Power Platform isn’t just for developers. It’s for everyone. The benefits include:

• Increased productivity through automation
• Faster app development with drag-and-drop interfaces
• Improved data insights across your organisation
• Cost savings from reducing manual tasks and reliance on third-party apps
• Better decision-making through real-time dashboards and data visualisation
• Scalability through robust infrastructure that can grow with your business

More on Power Platform

While the core Power Platform tools already offer extensive capabilities, Microsoft’s continued growth and launch of new technology continues to take things a step further. By combining low-code development with the latest in AI technology, Power Platform becomes even more powerful. These advanced features are designed to streamline work and bring intelligence to your organisation. Let’s take a closer look at what’s possible.

We’re now entering the next phase of digital productivity. Through using Power Platform plus other Microsoft technology, organisation can integrated advanced AI capabilities directly into the tools, solutions and ways of working.

Copilot in Power Platform

Copilot in Power Platform uses generative AI to help users build apps, automate workflows, and analyse data using natural language. You can simply describe what you want, and Copilot will generate the structure for a workflow or app.

For example, say: “Create a leave request app with manager approval and email notification”. Copilot builds it in seconds.

Copilot’s Generative AI Plus Power Automate

With the recent emergence of Copilot Agents, its now easier than ever to incorporate automated actions within your generative AI chat experiences.

Using Copilot Studio, Agents and Power Automate, users can now trigger approvals, call automated actions or begin unattended RPA directly from within a chat experience using generative AI outcomes within the flow of automation.

Power Automate Plus AI Extraction and Action

AI Builder within Power Platform now allows you to seamlessly extract data from invoices, emails, forms, and other documents using AI models. You can then use that data to trigger real-time actions like approvals, database updates, or notifications.

Think: taking incoming PDFs, extracting key details, and logging them into your CRM with no manual input.

Power Apps Plus AI Image Detection

AI-enhanced Power Apps now support image recognition directly within your mobile Canvas App experiences. This opens up a world of use cases across sectors:

• Facilities teams can identify broken assets, automatically check stock for replacements and book resource
• Retail staff can scan barcodes or damaged goods, detect defects, or categorise assets based on camera or images stored on the device
• Field engineers can snap a photo, count assets and automatically order new products based on the totals

With pre-trained models or your own custom-built AI, image recognition adds a smart layer to your applications.

Power Automate and AI Desktop Recording

Power Automate Desktop uses desktop recording to capture repetitive tasks and turn them into automated workflows. Beyond AI powered Processing Mining, users can use AI to describe in natural language the actions taken to complete a process. The models can then orchestrate an automated process based on the recording and suggests improvements, helping you refine the process and spot inefficiencies.

Ideal for HR, finance, and back-office teams dealing with high-volume, repeatable tasks.

Microsoft Power Platform is more than a collection of low-code tools. Whether you’re building apps, automating approvals, or analysing data, there’s a way Power Platform can transform your day-to-day.