Building Your Own Copilot Using Microsoft Copilot Studio: A Step-by-Step Guide

I am Raiyan Bin Sarwar, Microsoft Student Ambassador (Beta) I am a third-year computer science and engineering student at Bangladesh College of Professional Studies. As someone who is passionate about exploring the world of technology, today I’m going to walk you through how to build your own custom Copilot using Microsoft’s Copilot Studio. Whether you’re an AI enthusiast or curious about how to create an intelligent assistant, this step-by-step guide will help you get started.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) One exciting area that is making waves across industries is creating personal AI co-pilots that automate tasks, secure data, and improve workflows. Building your own custom AI assistant has never been easier with Copilot Studio’s powerful tools.

Step 1: Log in to Copilot Studio

Let’s start by logging in and setting up your project.

1. log in
   Go to co-pilot studio door Sign in using Microsoft Edumail or your Student Partner account.

2. Create a new co-pilot
   Click “New Copilot”, name your Copilot and select a template or start from scratch. Templates help streamline the process when you’re not sure where to start.

Specify generative AI settings
To enable real-time data generation, select ‘Generate (Preview)’ in the settings. This setting allows Copilot to process and provide dynamic responses from the most up-to-date information.

Define the co-pilot’s purpose
Clearly explain what Copilot will be responsible for. Automate tasks? Source data? Or do you want to improve your workflow? For example, I built Copilot to manage university-related inquiries using data from institutional websites.

Step 2: Organize your knowledge base

This is where Copilot learns. Connect to trusted data sources to get information to answer queries or take actions.

1. public website
   Links to knowledge bases or authoritative academic resources. For my Copilot I connected: Bangladesh University of Professional Studies (BUP) This website is designed to efficiently handle inquiries related to university activities.

2. SharePoint
You can also upload documents from SharePoint, making it useful within your business.

3. file
Import documents directly from local storage. This is useful for small projects.

4. Dataverse (preview)
Customize and deploy structured data tables through Microsoft Dataverse to enable powerful data management within Copilot.

5. Microsoft Fabric (coming soon)
You’ll soon be able to expand the scope of Copilot’s potential by integrating enterprise data with Microsoft Fabric.

Step 3: Test and Deploy

This is an important step to ensure that everything is working as intended.

1. deployment
   Once you are satisfied with the test results, deploy Copilot on the platform of your choice. This could be for an internal tool, a public website, or a personal assistant.

testing phase
It is important to evaluate how well Copilot handles different types of queries. For example, if Copilot is designed to automate tasks, test it with real-world scenarios, such as scheduling meetings or responding to customer inquiries. It provides more accurate data to continuously improve learning and tailor responses to specific use cases.

You can expand the co-pilot’s capabilities by adding one or more tasks. The copilot uses actions to automatically respond to the user using: generative behaviorAlternatively, you can call it explicitly within the topic.

Add task

1. Select Next to open your custom co-pilot. co-pilot Open the left navigation pane and select Co-Pilot from the list.

2. choose act To see jobs for co-pilots

3. choose + Add task.

4. at Select a task (preview) In the wizard, search for and select the action you want to use.

Here we’ve linked to MSN Weather for weather forecast updates.

Real use cases

From personal experience, I developed Copilot to get information directly from the BUP website. This allowed the university administration to streamline inquiries and save both time and resources. Imagine building a similar Copilot for your business to automate customer support or student assistants for academic questions!

Additional Resources

To deepen your knowledge and take your Copilot development to the next level, we recommend the following resources:

Copilot Learning Hub

Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot

test results

Finally, remember that testing is an iterative process. If Copilot gives you incorrect answers, please improve the knowledge base by entering correct information. Over time, performance will be optimized and deliver value in real-world applications.