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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Use the Microsoft 365 Copilot workflows agent (Frontier program, accessed from "Explore agents") to build an autonomous email-response agent by describing the behavior in natural language, rather than manually assembling it in Copilot Studio. The presenter, Shervin Shaffy, demonstrates rebuilding his earlier Copilot Studio email agent, which auto-drafts research-backed replies to incoming questions and sends a Teams summary.
Key Points
- The workflows agent sits alongside the app builder and Copilot Studio (light and full) as one of three Microsoft 365 Copilot building tools, all driven by conversational natural language and governed by Microsoft 365 security and compliance.
- Workflows can automate tasks across Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, Approvals, and Planner, using your existing M365 apps and data.
- The agent is created by adding it from the agent store and then giving it a detailed prompt; it automatically sets up the trigger, the research steps, the email action, and the Teams action.
- Before running, review the assumptions the agent lists and refine instructions if needed, since the saved agent only runs when its trigger fires.
- The agent generated a draft reply that goes to the user for proofreading first, plus a Teams status message, providing a review step before the external sender sees anything.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Open a browser, sign in to Microsoft 365 Copilot, and select "Explore agents" to open the agent store.
- Find the workflows agent (scroll down past the Microsoft-built agents) and select Add to add it to your profile; it then appears under Agents in the left rail.
- Optionally try a built-in prompt such as "Each weekday morning, review all the unread emails."
- Write a prompt specifying the trigger (new email in inbox), the condition (questions directed at you), the research sources (internal and external), and the output (a reply email to yourself, not the sender, formatted in HTML, professional, with a paragraph per question and links to references, signed "Regards" with your name, and the original email appended).
- Add a Teams message request summarizing who sent the email, their questions, and a brief summary of responses.
- Review the generated assumptions, refine if needed, then Save. Saving alone does nothing until a new email arrives.
- To avoid a loop, create an Outlook rule that moves emails sent from your own account (where the agent sends from) into a separate folder such as "inbot."
- Test by sending an email with several questions from another account, then check Activity on the agent, your inbox for the draft reply, and Teams for the summary.
- The test email, sent from another computer and addressed to 'Albert,' asked about Copilot Studio, agent pricing and licensing, and M365 Copilot productivity features; the draft answered each with research, links, and metrics such as interaction and API counts for pricing.
- The presenter notes the prompt asks for detailed, verbose, factual answers with diagrams where appropriate, and that sending directly to the sender is possible but not recommended until the output is trusted.
- The app builder was not covered in this video and is planned for a future session.
Bottom Line
Workflows agents let you describe an email-triage and response process in plain language and have Copilot build it, but the practical setup still depends on careful review of assumptions, a safeguard against self-triggering loops, and proofreading of the drafted replies before anything goes to outside senders.
