Integrate voice agents with Teams Phone Agent (preview)

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Important

  • This is a preview feature.
  • Preview features aren’t meant for production use and might have restricted functionality. These features are subject to supplemental terms of use, and are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

When you integrate Teams Phone Agent with Copilot Studio, organizations can create custom voice agents to handle specialized workflows like billing, prescription refill, order status, and more. This functionality is beyond what built-in appointments and Q&A tools provide. Customers experience a seamless handoff between Teams Phone Agent and Copilot Studio custom voice agents.

Note

Only basic voice agents are supported for this channel. Real-time voice agents are not supported. Changing an agent's voice type is an irreversible action.

Important

This feature is in preview. This article contains Microsoft Copilot Studio preview documentation and is subject to change.

Preview features aren't meant for production use and might have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that you can get early access and provide feedback.

Tenants must be explicitly enabled for the Copilot Studio and Teams Phone Agent integration. Contact Microsoft support to request enablement for your tenant.

If you're building a production-ready agent, see Microsoft Copilot Studio overview.

Prerequisites

To use Copilot Studio with Teams Phone Agent, you need the following licenses and access:

  • Copilot Studio tenant license: These entitlements are needed to run the agents and publish the agents to a channel.
  • Copilot Studio user license: Required for creating and using Copilot Studio applications.
  • Tenant access to the Copilot Studio and Teams Phone Agent integration preview: This feature is gated. Your tenant must be explicitly enabled by Microsoft support before the Teams Phone channel option appears in your environment.
  • Teams Phone licenses: Depending on your scenario, certain Teams Phone licenses are required. Learn more in Reference - Technical Prerequisites and Licensing Requirements for Teams Phone Agent, Auto Attendant, and Call Queue.

Supported Copilot Studio regions

When creating a new Copilot Studio environment, ensure that you create it in one of the following supported regions:

  • Asia
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • Europe
  • Korea
  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • US
  • United Kingdom
  • United Arab Emirates (UAE)

To minimize latency, choose the region closest to you.

Copilot Studio voice agents aren't supported in:

  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Japan
  • South Africa.

However, you can still use Copilot Studio voice agents even if your tenant is based in these countries/regions.

Power Platform Admin Center environments

Environments used for this experience must have the following configurations:

  • Get new features early is set to No.
  • Add a Dataverse data store is set to Yes.

Tags

Tags are a way to pass dynamic transfer information from Teams to Copilot Studio, so you can simplify and scale your Copilot Studio agent. Tags help Copilot Studio agents identify next steps and transfer targets (call queues, auto attendants, and so on) without hardcoding values in the agent.

Set up a Copilot Studio voice agent

Create and configure a Copilot Studio voice agent, then publish it for use with Teams Phone Agent.

Create a Copilot Studio voice agent

  1. Create and customize your voice agent. Learn more in Voice overview - Microsoft Copilot Studio.

  2. Under Settings > Generative AI > Orchestration, select classic orchestration.

    Important

    Generative orchestration is currently not supported. Selecting this option might introduce performance issues and heavy latency, such as 5-6 second delays.

Publish the voice agent

  1. Go to Settings > Security > Authentication.

  2. Set authentication to No authentication. This step is required to allow anyone to call your Teams Phone Agent and receive the Copilot Studio agent experience if invoked.

  3. Select Save.

  4. Go to Channels and select Teams Phone Agent.

    Note

    If you don't see this option, this experience isn't enabled for your environment. See the preview note at the beginning of this article to learn how to request tenant enablement.

  5. Select Add channel and wait until the confirmation message appears.

  6. Select Publish.

    Tip

    If publishing doesn't work, you likely have a licensing issue.

  7. Go to Teams Admin Center > Voice > Templates & Resources and select the Agents and Queues section. Your Copilot Studio agent should now be listed.

  1. In Teams Admin Center, open your Teams Phone Agent.

  2. Go to your call flow and select Assign a dial key.

  3. Select Agents and Queues as your destination.

  4. Enter a Voice command and Description.

  5. Optionally, link a Tag Template.

  6. Select the Copilot Studio agent you created.

  7. Submit your changes.

  8. Call your Teams Phone Agent to confirm that it transfers to your Copilot Studio agent.

Use tags in Copilot Studio

After you set up your tag template in Teams Admin Center and attach it to your Copilot Studio agent in the menu options, configure your agent to act on the tag values.

  1. Open your agent.

  2. Go to Topics and select Add a topic > From blank.

  3. Add a trigger for User says a phrase and add the phrases that indicate the caller wants to transfer (for example, "transfer" or "escalate").

    Note

    If you don't see User says a phrase, make sure generative orchestration is turned off.

  4. Select + under the trigger and select Ask a question.

  5. Enter a question or statement such as "Choose your department."

  6. For the options, add the tag names from your tag template. These options indicate where the call redirects.

  7. Delete all the extra conditional branching steps that are automatically added after the question.

  8. Select + after the question step and select Send a message.

  9. In the text box, enter "You have chosen" and insert the variable Var1 : choice by selecting the {x} option.

  10. Select + after the message step and select Topic Management > Transfer conversation.

  11. Set Transfer type to Transfer to agent.

  12. In the text box, insert the variable Var1 : choice by selecting the {x} option.

  13. Select Save and name your topic.

  14. Publish your Copilot Studio agent again.

Your Copilot Studio agent can now transfer calls to the targets defined in your tag template.

Best practices

  • Since Copilot Studio agents are custom voice agents that your organization creates, thoroughly test the agent before deploying it to callers. Make sure it acts the way you expect and put the proper guardrails in place. How you build your agent significantly shapes the customer experience.

  • Use Classic orchestration under Settings > Generative AI > Orchestration to avoid unexpected charges and reduce response latency.

  • Scope your Copilot Studio agent to the specific processes it supports. Overly broad agents can produce unexpected responses.

  • Last updated on