Add an agent node to an agent flow or workflow

The agent node lets an agent flow or workflow hand a step over to an AI agent that can reason, call tools, and pull from knowledge sources before returning a result. Use it whenever a step needs judgment, multi-step orchestration, or information from outside the flow or workflow itself.

You can either pick an existing published agent, or build a brand-new agent directly inside the node without leaving the flow or workflow designer. Inline agents are the fastest way to add AI to an agent flow or workflow. Give the node an instruction, optionally attach tools and knowledge, and you're done.

By using the agent node, you can:

• Call an existing agent, or create a new agent that lives with the agent flow or workflow.
• Give the agent a natural-language instruction, including dynamic content from earlier steps.
• Equip the agent with tools (Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and connectors) so it can take action.
• Ground the agent in knowledge (SharePoint sites, public websites) so it can answer from your content.
• Choose how the agent returns its result—free-form text or structured data your agent flow or workflow can branch on.

Add an agent node

Workflows

1. In Copilot Studio, go to Flows and open an existing workflow, or create a new one.

   • New workflow: You land on the designer to configure a trigger.
   • Existing workflow: Open the workflow and go to the Build tab.

2. Select the Agent icon on the Add panel. The configuration panel opens for the agent node.

Agent flows

1. In Copilot Studio, go to Flows and open an existing agent flow or create a new one.

   • New flow: You land on the Designer page to configure a trigger.
   • Existing flow: You land on the Overview page, and you have to go to the Designer page..

2. Select the Insert a new action icon at the point in the flow where you want to call an agent.

3. In Add an action, under AI capabilities, select Run an agent. A Run an agent node appears in the flow.

Choose an existing agent for the agent node

Workflows

In the agent node editor, under Agent, select one of two options:

• An existing agent: Select a published agent from a list. The agent runs with whatever instructions, tools, and knowledge it was already configured with.

• New agent for this workflow: Build an inline agent scoped to this workflow. The agent's instructions, tools, knowledge, and output shape are configured in the node itself and travel with the workflow. Use this option when the agent's job is specific to this automation and you don't need to share it elsewhere.

The next section of this article focuses on configuring a new inline agent. If you select an existing agent, skip to Send a message to the agent.

Agent flows

In the run and agent editor, under Agent, you can select one of two options:

• Select an existing agent: Select a published agent from a list. The agent runs with whatever instructions, tools, and knowledge it was already configured with.

• Create a new agent: Select New to create a new agent. This opens a new browser tab with the agent builder experience. Build and publish your agent there, then return to the flow designer to select it from the list of existing agents.

The next section of this article focuses on configuring a new agent. If you select an existing agent, skip to Send a message to the agent.

Configure a new agent for the agent node

Workflows

When you choose New agent for this workflow, the configuration panel expands so you can shape the agent in place.

Instructions

For an inline agent, the Instructions field is both the agent's job description and the per-run prompt. There's no separate Message field. Write what the agent should do, in plain language, and include dynamic content from earlier steps to feed it the data for this run.

Be specific about the task, the inputs the agent can expect, and the format of the response you want back. Clearer instructions mean more reliable runs.

For example, if the workflow trigger is When a new email arrives, your instructions might read: Read the email below and decide whether it's a sales lead, a support request, or something else. Reply with a single word. followed by the Subject and Body tokens from the trigger.

To pick the model that powers the agent, use the model dropdown in the upper right of the instructions box. Select a more capable model when the task involves multi-step reasoning or careful interpretation. Select a faster model when the task is simple and runs at high volume.

Work IQ

Turn on Work IQ to let the agent use the running user's recent work activity, including mail, Teams, calendar, OneDrive, and SharePoint context, to ground its responses. This is helpful when the workflow is acting on behalf of a person and personal context (recent threads, upcoming meetings, recently edited documents) makes the answer better.

Tools

Tools give the agent the ability to do actions such as send a message, query a record, run a search, or call an API. Without tools, the agent can only read and reason. With tools, it can also act.

To attach a tool:

1. In the Tools section, select the plus sign (+).

2. In Add tool, browse or search for the tool you want.

3. Select the tool to add it. You can add multiple tools to a single agent.

You can attach two kinds of tools:

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers: Prebuilt servers that expose a curated set of capabilities.
• Connectors: Any Power Platform connector action.

The agent decides at run time which of its attached tools to call, in what order, and with what arguments. You don't wire tools together. This iswhat makes the agent node different from chaining individual workflow actions.

Knowledge

Knowledge gives the agent something to read. When you ask the agent a question, it can ground its answer in the sources you attach instead of relying only on what the model already knows.

To attach a knowledge source:

1. In the Knowledge section, select the plus sign (+).

2. In Add knowledge, choose the source type:

   • Public websites: Index one or more public URLs so the agent can cite content from those sites.
   • SharePoint: Connect to a SharePoint site, library, or specific document so the agent can answer from internal content (policies, playbooks, product documentation, contracts).

3. Provide the URL then save.

Attach knowledge whenever the right answer depends on content the model wasn't trained on, like internal policies, product specifications, customer agreements, the latest pricing page on your website.

Output

Use the Output dropdown to control the shape of what the agent returns. The shape determines how downstream workflow steps consume the result.

Output type	What you get	When to use it
Text response	A single string.	The downstream step just inserts the agent's answer (for example, into an email body or a Teams message).
Structured output	A predefined object with named fields.	You want consistent fields without writing a schema. For example, a summary plus a sentiment label plus a recommended next action.
Custom structured output	An object that matches a JSON schema you define.	The downstream workflow needs strict, machine-readable fields to branch on, write to columns, or send to an API.

When you pick a structured output, each field becomes its own dynamic-content token that downstream actions can reference directly.

Agent flows

When you select New, you build the agent in the agent builder experience that opens in a new browser tab. In the agent builder, you configure the agent's instructions, knowledge, and capabilities.

When you're done building the agent, publish it, return to the flow designer, and select it from the list of existing agents.

Send a message to an existing agent

When you pick an existing agent, the node shows a Message field. This is how you tell the agent what to do for this run. The agent's instructions, tools, and knowledge are already set on the published agent.

In the Message field, write the prompt for this run. Use the dynamic content picker to insert tokens from earlier steps so the agent reasons over real run-time data. For example, in a workflow that triggers when a calendar event is created, the message might be Prepare a brief for followed by the Required attendees token.

Note

Inline agents don't use a separate Message field — the Instructions field doubles as the per-run prompt. See Instructions.

Request human assistance when unsure

Workflows

Turn on Request human assistance when unsure to let the agent escalate when it isn't confident enough to act on its own. The agent emails the connection owner for input and waits for a reply before continuing.

Turn this on for high-stakes decisions where being wrong is more expensive than being slow, such as exception handling on financial transactions, edge-case approvals, or judgment calls on customer escalations.

Agent flows

Turn on Request human assistance when unsure if you want the agent to escalate to a human when it can't proceed on its own. When an escalation occurs, the agent sends a request for input by email to the connection owner.

This option is useful when the agent's task might require interpretation that goes beyond its instructions or available knowledge. For example, if an agent is reviewing expense reports and finds an unusual charge that doesn't match any policy, it can flag the report for a person to decide rather than making an incorrect approval.

Use the agent response in your workflow

When the agent node runs, the workflow waits for the agent to complete its task. The agent response then becomes available as dynamic content that you can use in any subsequent step.

To use the agent response in a downstream action:

Workflows

1. Select the next action where you want to use the result (for example, Send an email or Update a row).

2. Open the dynamic content picker on the field you want to fill.

3. Pick the output from the Agent step:

   • Text response output → a single agent response token.
   • Structured or Custom structured output → one token per field you defined.

Common patterns:

• Insert a text response into an email body, Teams message, or document.
• Branch the workflow on a structured field (for example, priority == "high").
• Write structured fields to Dataverse, Excel, or a SharePoint list.

Agent flows

1. Select the action where you want to use the response (for example, a Send an email or Update a row action).

2. In the field where you want to insert the response, open the dynamic content picker.

3. Look for the output from the Run an agent step and select agent response.

Common ways to use the agent response:

• Insert the response into the body of an email or a message.
• Define a condition to branch your workflow based on what the agent returned.
• Save the response to a variable or data source for later reference.

Automation scenarios

An agent node is at its best as one step in a longer workflow. Earlier steps gather and normalize the inputs, the agent does the reasoning, and later steps act on the result across multiple systems.

Triage incoming support tickets

A workflow triggers when a new ticket is created in Dataverse. Earlier steps pull the ticket body, attachments, and the customer's recent case history; the agent node then reads everything, grounds itself in the product knowledge base (SharePoint), and returns a structured output with category, priority, suggested_owner, and draft_reply. Later steps branch on priority to page the on-call engineer for outages, otherwise assigning the ticket and queuing the draft reply for review.

Review expense reports against policy

A workflow triggers when an expense report is submitted. Earlier steps load the line items and convert non-USD amounts so the agent reasons over a single basis; the agent node grounds itself in the policy SharePoint site and returns a per-line compliant flag plus reason. Later steps either autoapprove and post the journal entry to the AP system, or start an Approvals action with the agent's reasoning attached and wait for a finance reviewer.

Prepare a meeting briefing

A workflow runs each morning, lists the day's meetings from Outlook, and loops over each one. For every meeting, an earlier step pulls account context from Dynamics 365; the agent node then uses Work IQ to scan recent mail and Teams threads with the attendees and returns talking points, open risks, and recommended questions. Later steps format that output into an HTML briefing emailed 30 minutes before the meeting and post it as an adaptive card on Teams.

Frequently asked questions

When should I use an inline agent and when should I use an existing agent?

Use an inline agent when the agent's job is specific to one workflow and you want everything, including instructions, tools, knowledge, and output, to travel with the workflow. Inline agents are faster to set up and easier to reason about because the configuration is right next to the steps that use it.

Use an existing agent when the same agent is shared across multiple workflows or surfaces (for example, also chatted with in Teams), or when the agent is owned by a different team and you just want to call it.

When should I use an agent node and when should I use a prompt node?

Both add AI to a workflow, but they're built for different jobs.

Capability	Agent node	Prompt node
Tool orchestration	Full access to all agent tools	Code interpreter only
Knowledge sources	All supported knowledge sources	Dataverse only
Human review	Yes	No
Task complexity	Complex tasks. The agent orchestrator can take multiple turns.	Simple tasks that can be carried out in a single turn

Use the agent node when the step needs reasoning, tool orchestration, or grounded knowledge. Use the prompt node when you just need the model to transform or generate text.

Can the inline agent be reused outside this workflow?

No. An inline agent is scoped to its workflow. If you find yourself building the same inline agent in multiple workflows, promote it to a published agent and call that agent from each workflow instead.

Related content

• Edit and manage your workflow in the designer
• Use prompts to make your agent or agent flow perform specific tasks
• Agent flows and workflows overview