Microsoft’s new Copilot Workflow Agent makes it easy to automate repetitive tasks across Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint—no coding required.
Key Takeaways:
- Automate everyday tasks in Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint just by describing what you need—no coding required.
- Copilot builds secure, ready-to-run workflows that handle your routine emails, tasks, reminders, and updates automatically.
- SMBs can cut busywork, stay organized, and boost productivity by using the new Workflow Agent for repetitive processes.
Unlike a single AI tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot is made up of multiple specialized “agents,” each designed to handle specific tasks. The Workflow Agent is the newest agent and focuses on simplifying automation by allowing users to describe what they need in natural language. With this new capability, your organization can streamline routine processes, boost productivity, and make better use of Copilot’s AI-driven features to save time and focus on higher-value work.
What Are Copilot Agents?
Copilot agents are like specialized “modes” or mini-AI assistants within Microsoft 365 Copilot, each trained for particular kinds of tasks or content. Rather than always using the same generic Copilot for everything, you can choose an agent that’s tuned to your current need. For example, Copilot includes a Researcher agent (great for finding information and summarizing content), and an Analyst agent (focused on data analysis and visualizations).
The key benefit of these agents is that they’re pre-configured to handle specific scenarios. Using the purpose-built agents for their intended tasks can be more effective than just defaulting to the primary Copilot chat bot for everything. Many users currently just ask the main Copilot for help out of habit, but they’re missing out. By switching to a relevant agent, you can often get more targeted and accurate results because the agent understands the context better.
Microsoft is even adding new agents like a “Skills” agent to help identify expertise in your organization, and an admin agent for IT tasks, among others. Now, Microsoft has introduced a brand new agent to the Copilot family – the Workflow agent. Let’s take a closer look at what it does.
Introducing the New Workflow Agent
The Workflow agent (also referred to as the Workflows agent) is the latest Copilot agent designed to help you automate multi-step tasks and routine processes. This capability was just released in late 2025, so it’s very new. Think of those repetitive tasks you do regularly – checking emails every morning, compiling weekly reports, sending reminders, updating trackers – the Workflow agent is built to handle those for you, following your instructions.
How does Copilot Workflows work?
Instead of manually writing scripts or clicking through a bunch of tools, you simply describe the workflow you want in natural language. For example, you might say: “Every weekday morning, gather all my unread emails from the last 24 hours, identify the urgent ones, and send me a summary with who they’re from and what they need." The Workflow agent will take that description and automatically create a workflow behind the scenes to execute it. It leverages Microsoft 365’s ecosystem (Outlook, Teams, Planner, SharePoint, etc.) to carry out the steps. In the case of the email summary example, Copilot’s Workflow agent will generate a flow that connects to your Outlook inbox, filters and categorizes your recent emails, and then delivers a nicely organized summary to you (for instance, via a Teams message) each morning – all without you having to lift a finger once it’s set up.
No coding or complex setup is required.
You “program” this agent by literally telling it what you need, as if you were talking to a colleague. Microsoft describes this as “describe what you need in natural language, and Copilot helps you build it”, which captures just how approachable it is. Under the hood, Copilot translates your request into the appropriate sequence of actions (often similar to an automated workflow you might create with Power Automate or Copilot Studio, but now the AI builds it for you).
Because the Workflow agent is part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, it integrates securely with your work data and tools. It can tap into Outlook for emails, Teams for chats and notifications, SharePoint for files, Planner for tasks, and more – all according to what you describe. It also respects your organization’s security and permissions: it won’t access anything you couldn’t access yourself, and any automated process it creates stays within the allowed boundaries of your Microsoft 365 environment. In short, it’s a safe, company-compliant way to automate your daily grind.
It helps to remember that the Workflow agent is meant for repetitive or scheduled tasks. As one of our team members noted, “Workflows is more for like a repetitive task that you want to automate”. You can set workflows to trigger on a schedule or event (e.g. every morning, or when a new item is added somewhere). If you don’t specify a trigger, you can still run the workflow on demand. Either way, once it’s configured, it will consistently carry out the task you defined. This is powerful for making sure important routines happen reliably.
Workflow Agent in Action: Use Cases and Examples
Here are several use cases that show how it can streamline common scenarios. Each scenario will show what you might want to accomplish, how the Workflow agent can help achieve it, and the outcome you’d get.
|
Scenario |
How the Workflow Agent Helps |
Outcome |
|
Daily Email Digest |
You receive a flood of emails and worry about missing urgent requests. With Workflow agent, you describe a rule like: “Every morning, check my last 24 hours of Outlook emails. Pull out any high-priority or time-sensitive messages that need action, and summarize them with sender, subject, and what’s needed.” The agent builds an automated flow to do this. It scans your inbox and categorizes messages (e.g. “Needs Response,” “For Your Info,” “Other”) and creates a summary. |
Each morning, you get a concise summary in Teams (or via email) highlighting the critical emails and what they entail. You can quickly see which messages require your attention without wading through your entire inbox. This saves time and ensures urgent matters aren’t overlooked. |
|
Task List Reminders |
Managing tasks across projects can be tough. Suppose you use Microsoft Planner or To Do to track work items. You can ask the Workflow agent: “Every Monday at 9 AM, gather all my tasks marked In Progress or Not Started in Planner and any tasks due this week. Then post a summary of these tasks to me in Teams.” Copilot will create a workflow that connects to Planner, filters tasks, and sends you the list |
A scheduled reminder of your tasks appears at the start of each week. For example, Monday morning you receive a Teams message (or an email) listing your open tasks and upcoming deadlines. This keeps your priorities clear and helps in planning your week, without manual effort sorting through Planner. |
|
Team Updates Digest |
Important updates can be scattered across SharePoint sites, Teams channels, or email threads. You can have the Workflow agent automate a digest. For instance: “Every Friday, compile any new announcements or posts from the Marketing Team channel and our Project SharePoint page, and send me (or the team) a summary.” The agent uses natural language to set up a flow pulling the latest updates from those sources [thurrott.com]. |
Weekly team digest delivered automatically. Each Friday, a summary arrives consolidating the week’s announcements and updates in one place. This might be posted in a Team channel or sent to your email. The team no longer needs to manually check multiple places – the highlights come to them, improving awareness and saving time. |
|
Meeting & Calendar Reminders (Never miss a meeting) |
If you have a packed calendar, the Workflow agent can help you manage it. For example: “Every weekday at 7 AM, look at my calendar for the day and send a summary of my meetings (with times and titles) to my phone or Teams. If I have any important meeting invites I haven’t responded to, remind me.” The agent will create a workflow that reads your Outlook/Teams calendar and sends these reminders. Similarly, after meetings, you could have it send out a standard follow-up email or task list. |
Personalized schedule alerts and follow-ups. You’d receive an automated daily schedule in your chat each morning, so you know what’s coming up. Additionally, you could set it to ping you (or attendees) with a reminder or summary after a meeting. This kind of hands-off calendar management means fewer missed meetings and timely follow-ups, all handled by Copilot. |
The introduction of the Workflow agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot marks an exciting step towards everyday AI-powered automation. For new users, it means you don’t need to be a developer or power-user to streamline your routine tasks. The approachable, conversational interface lowers the barrier to creating useful workflows – you can automate chores at work almost as easily as asking a colleague to do them.
This is especially powerful when combined with the richness of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Your emails, chats, files, and tasks are all at the fingertips of Copilot (in a secure, permission-aware way), so the workflows you create can leverage all of that context. Early users have started experimenting with scenarios from email triage to project management, and the possibilities are growing as people think of new ideas. In our own testing and discussions, we found that many folks simply weren’t aware of these agents yet, or how to use them, which is why educational posts like this are valuable – once you see what’s possible, it sparks ideas on how to use Copilot more effectively.
Bottom line: The Copilot Workflow agent is like having a proactive assistant who takes care of repetitive tasks and keeps you informed without constant prompting. It helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks, whether it’s an unanswered email or a forgotten follow-up, thereby increasing your productivity and peace of mind. If you have access to Copilot’s latest features, give the Workflow agent a try and create a simple workflow for yourself. You might quickly find that it becomes a trusty part of your daily routine.
As this tool evolves (and more agents come into play), embracing these AI helpers will empower you to focus on the more meaningful parts of your work while the tedious stuff runs on autopilot – all thanks to a few well-placed words to Copilot.
Want to Get the Most Out of Your Microsoft 365 Subscription?
Looking to leverage AI tools like Copilot to automate your daily tasks and transform the way your team works? Proper Sky specializes in helping businesses unlock the full potential of Microsoft 365 and AI-powered productivity solutions.
Our team can help you:
- Implement and configure Microsoft Copilot agents tailored to your workflows
- Identify automation opportunities across your organization
- Train your team on best practices for AI task automation
- Optimize your Microsoft 365 environment for maximum efficiency
Ready to automate your workday and boost productivity? Contact Proper Sky today to schedule a consultation and discover how the Copilot Workflow Agent can revolutionize your business operations.
Ready to explore more AI automation possibilities? Check out Microsoft's official documentation on Copilot Studio to learn about additional capabilities and how to get started with building your own workflows.
