Analyze the decision criteria
Choosing the right Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility option depends on your goals, your data, your users, and your technical environment. In this unit, you’ll explore the key decision criteria you can use to evaluate which extensibility path is the best fit for a given scenario.
Choose your starting point
Based on your users' needs and technical requirements, you should generally follow this progression to choose your Copilot extensibility option:
Copilot connectors: Start by evaluating Copilot connectors to integrate external data into Microsoft 365 Copilot and agent experiences. Use prebuilt connectors if available, or build a custom connector if needed.
Declarative agent: If connectors alone aren't sufficient, consider building a declarative agent to customize Copilot’s behavior or connect to specific data sources. Compare and contrast the technical benefits and limitations of building your declarative agent in SharePoint, the lite version of Copilot Studio, the full version of Copilot Studio, or the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit.
Custom engine agent: For advanced scenarios, build a custom agent. Decide between low-code (Copilot Studio) or pro-code (Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, Teams SDK, Microsoft 365 Agent SDK) approaches based on your solution’s complexity. Identify required data sources and actions, and consider if complex workflows require a custom orchestrator.
Consider the following core factors as you explore and compare development options.
1. Business objective
What are you trying to achieve? Are you enhancing Copilot’s knowledge for better retrieval of relevant information, automating a business process, or building a highly customized agent experience?
After you define the problem or business need that you need to address, identify how you can extend Copilot to solve or mitigate the problem. What do your users need Copilot to do? Use the information in the following table to guide your thinking.
| Business need | Copilot extensibility approach |
|---|---|
| Improve decision-making, summarizations, or recommendations | Enhance Copilot's reasoning abilities. |
| Integrate organizational knowledge from databases, documents, or APIs | Enable Copilot to access and use external data. |
| Reduce manual tasks by building automated flows | Create automated workflows to streamline repetitive tasks. |
2. User experience, data, and integration
Determine the requirements that your extensibility solution needs to meet. Consider the following factors:
User experience requirements
Where will your users interact with Copilot? This might be within the context of Microsoft 365 apps (Copilot, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams), or third-party apps or websites.
Data sources
Does Copilot or your solution require internal or external data, such as documents, applications, APIs, or databases? For example, do you need to:
- Integrate external data into Microsoft 365 apps for contextually relevant responses?
- Interact with real-time data for business workflows?
- Interact with other applications to retrieve or update data, run commands, or trigger workflows?
Data source integration options
For each data source you need to integrate with Copilot, identify whether a Copilot connector, Power Platform connector, or REST API is available. If an existing data source integration isn't available, decide whether you want to build a Copilot connector or an API to enable the integration.
Agentic and automation requirements
Identify triggers, scheduled workflows, and automation needs.
3. Consider costs
Consider the cost implications of your solution design, from both the user and hosting perspectives.
- Cost considerations for Copilot Extensibility
- Copilot Studio licensing
- Plan and manage costs for Microsoft Foundry
4. Address RAI and compliance considerations
Regardless of the solution you choose, you need to be sure that it meets RAI and compliance requirements. Consider the following:
- Agents built in Copilot Studio (lite and full) and SharePoint come with prebuilt governance and deployment. Agents are deployed using Copilot Studio’s built-in management tools, reducing complexity for IT teams.
- For more custom solutions, you'll need to make sure that your solution applies Responsible AI principles, data governance, and store publishing (for ISVs) requirements:
Compare declarative agent development requirements
If you're planning to build a declarative agent to extend Microsoft 365 Copilot, the following table can help you compare development options:
| Tool | Requirements | Tool Access | Publishes Agents To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Studio (lite) | Microsoft 365 subscription | Select the Create agent option in Microsoft 365 Copilot or Teams. | - Users with Microsoft 365 subscriptions (with limited capabilities) - Users with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses or metering enabled |
| SharePoint | - Microsoft 365 subscription - Site admin or owner permissions |
Install SharePoint. | SharePoint sites |
| Copilot Studio (full) | - Microsoft 365 subscription - Copilot Studio license |
Install Copilot Studio. | - Users with Microsoft 365 subscriptions (with limited capabilities) - Users with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses or metering enabled - Mobile apps, messaging platforms |
| Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit | - Microsoft 365 subscription (with sideloading enabled) - Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio - Azure subscription (optional) |
Install Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit. | - Users with Microsoft 365 subscriptions (with limited capabilities) - Users with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses or metering enabled |
The rest of the module walks you through these options.
Reflection:
Which criteria are most important for your organization or project? Are there specific business objectives, data sources, or user experience needs that stand out?