Explore what AI agents are, understand their core components, and discover a range of impactful use cases driving AI-powered transformation.
After completing this module, you should be able to:
- Define AI agents
- Explain the business value of AI agents.
- Identify common use cases for AI agents.
- Define the core components of AI agents.
Explore Microsoft AI agent solutions and gain clarity on when to adopt, extend, or develop custom agent solutions based on your scenario and objectives.
After completing this module, you should be able to:
- Identify core use cases for the out-of-the-box capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and first-party agents.
- Describe options for customizing and extending Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Identify scenarios where building fully custom AI agents or generative AI applications is appropriate.
- Identify the key Microsoft development tools available for designing, building, extending, and deploying AI agents.
- Evaluate which Microsoft AI agent path best fits a given scenario.
Explore development options for extending Microsoft 365 Copilot with custom data, logic, and actions. Determine the best approach for your scenario.
After completing this module, you should be able to:
- Identify the different extensibility options available for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Compare the strengths and limitations of Copilot connectors, declarative agents, and custom agents.
- Evaluate which extensibility approach best fits a given business scenario.
- Understand the technical and organizational requirements for extending Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Explore development paths for building custom AI agents for internal use or commercial applications. Compare tools and services like Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft 365 Agents SDK, and the Microsoft Teams SDK.
After completing this module, you should be able to:
- Identify the core Microsoft tools and services available for building custom AI agents and generative AI applications.
- Compare the capabilities, strengths, and trade-offs of the available custom agent solutions.
- Evaluate which development approach aligns best with specific business, technical, and user experience requirements.

Syllabus

Introduction to developing AI agents
- Introduction
- AI transformation and agents
- AI agent use cases
- AI agent components
- Module assessment
- Summary
Introduction to Microsoft AI agent solutions
- Introduction
- The Microsoft AI agent ecosystem
- Maximize Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and agents
- Customize and extend Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Build custom AI agents and applications
- Compare AI agent solutions
- Module assessment
- Summary
Choose the best Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility path for your scenario
- Introduction
- Identify extensibility options
- Analyze the decision criteria
- Extend Copilot's knowledge with Copilot connectors
- Build declarative agents in Copilot Studio
- Build declarative agents with Visual Studio Code and Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit
- Deploy custom agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Module assessment
- Summary
Choose a custom AI agent development path
- Introduction
- Identify custom AI agent development options
- Analyze decision criteria
- Build custom agents with Copilot Studio
- Build custom engine agents for Microsoft Teams
- Build multi-channel agent solutions with the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK
- Build scalable, enterprise-grade generative AI solutions on Azure
- Module assessment
- Summary