Summary of "EPPC25 Keynote - Ryan Cunningham - Power Platform in the Age of Agents"
Summary of EPPC25 Keynote - Ryan Cunningham - Power Platform in the Age of Agents
Key Technological Concepts and Product Features
Power Platform and Community Foundation
- Power Platform’s success is deeply rooted in its global, vibrant community of millions of users, developers, and business professionals collaborating online and offline.
- The platform enables creative problem solving across industries by empowering users to build apps, flows, and dashboards that transform workflows.
Shift to AI-First and 10x Thinking
- The keynote emphasizes moving beyond incremental improvements (e.g., 10% better) to exponential improvements (10x better) in productivity, customer experience, and industry transformation.
- AI and digital agents are central to this shift, augmenting human workers with “co-pilots” and eventually entire teams of autonomous agents.
Agent Teams and Copilot Studio
- Microsoft’s Copilot Studio is introduced as a hub for building, configuring, and orchestrating autonomous agents.
- Agents are not simple chatbots but digital teammates with natural language instructions, grounded in proprietary knowledge bases, and equipped with various tools to take autonomous actions.
- Agents can interact with systems lacking APIs through “computer use” capabilities (simulating mouse/keyboard actions).
- Support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows agents to collaborate as teams, orchestrating complex workflows.
- Example: Accenture’s supplier discovery agent quickly identifies alternative suppliers during supply chain disruptions, showcasing rapid, enterprise-grade orchestration.
Agent Tools Highlighted
- Custom Prompts: Provide agents with tailored logic and data inputs.
- Agent Flows: Ensure consistent, high-stakes workflows (e.g., supplier approvals).
- Computer Use: Enables agents to interact with legacy or API-less systems.
- Agent-to-Agent Orchestration: Agents can call upon and collaborate with other specialized agents.
Human-Agent Collaboration in Power Apps
- Demonstrated by Heineken’s use case where users interact with a “team of agents” through a modern Power Apps interface.
- Agents assist with data entry (e.g., extracting info from emails), data exploration with natural language queries, and workflow automation.
- The user experience is redesigned around agent collaboration rather than manual data entry, enabling faster and more efficient processes.
Building Agent-Driven Solutions
- Power Platform now includes Plans, a feature that allows users to describe business problems and outcomes in natural language, which then breaks down requirements and roles using a team of agents.
- Developers can start from these plans to build apps, flows, and agents collaboratively.
- Introduction of Generative Pages allows creation of React-based UI components from natural language prompts, blending low-code and pro-code development.
- Transparency in code generation and agent activity supports developers of all skill levels.
Enterprise Scale and Governance
- Ericsson’s example highlights managing over 23,000 apps and 10,000 makers using the Power Platform managed environment.
- New admin center features include:
- Advisor agent: Provides intelligent recommendations on security, licensing, and operational health.
- Environment groups and routing: Automate sandbox and production environment management.
- Advanced connector policies: Restrict connectors to secure data access.
- Deployment pipelines: Enable controlled app/agent promotion from development to production.
- Monitoring hub: Real-time app health and usage insights with admin and maker collaboration.
- Co-pilot hub: Central command center for agent oversight, usage, and cost management.
Bring Your Own Code (BYOC)
- Supports professional developers building apps with code (e.g., in Visual Studio Code) and deploying them to Power Platform.
- BYOC apps gain instant access to Power Platform’s connectors, identity management (Microsoft Entra), and governance features.
- Opens Power Platform to broader pro-dev adoption while maintaining enterprise security and scale.
Integration and Ecosystem
- The Power Platform agent framework is deeply integrated with Microsoft 365, Azure AI Foundry (for custom AI models), and Microsoft’s broader AI ecosystem.
- Supports multiple AI models (e.g., GPT, Claude, DeepSeek) through Azure AI Foundry for customized, post-trained models.
Community and Future Outlook
- Over 56 million monthly active Power Platform users worldwide.
- Partnership announced with Upwork to connect Power Platform experts with customers needing help.
- Encouragement to engage with upcoming expert sessions and future events like EPC in Las Vegas.
Key Reviews, Guides, and Tutorials Provided
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Live Demo of Copilot Studio:
- Building and orchestrating a supplier discovery agent with natural language instructions, knowledge grounding, and multi-tool integration.
- Demonstration of agent flows, computer use, and agent-to-agent orchestration.
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Heineken Use Case:
- Walkthrough of a modern Power Apps interface powered by agents for sales order management.
- Demonstration of natural language data extraction, visualization, and agent-driven workflow notifications.
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Building Agentic Solutions:
- Step-by-step guide on using Plans to define business problems and generate a team of agents.
- Using Copilot Studio to customize and deploy agents.
- Creating generative React pages via natural language prompts.
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Governance and Scaling Demo:
- Admin perspective on managing large-scale Power Platform environments.
- Using advisor agent for security and operational insights.
- Deployment pipelines and environment grouping.
- Maker perspective on app development, sharing, and deployment.
- Monitoring app health and managing permissions.
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Bring Your Own Code Demo:
- Deploying Visual Studio Code-built apps to Power Platform with full governance and integration.
Main Speakers / Sources
- Ryan Cunningham – Corporate Vice President, Microsoft, keynote presenter.
- Dara – Demonstrated Copilot Studio and agent orchestration.
- Clay – Showcased human-agent collaboration in Power Apps and building agentic solutions.
- Pria – Presented admin and governance demos from Ericsson’s perspective.
- Heather – Demonstrated maker experience, app deployment, and bring your own code scenario.
- Customer testimonials and video clips from Heineken, Ericsson, Wells Fargo, T-Mobile, HCL, Pets at Home, and EY were also referenced.
Overall
This keynote emphasized the evolution of Microsoft Power Platform into a comprehensive, AI-first agent platform that empowers organizations to achieve exponential productivity gains through autonomous agents, deep human-agent collaboration, and scalable governance.
Copilot Studio is positioned as the central tool for building and managing these agents, supported by a rich ecosystem of AI models, integration capabilities, and enterprise-grade management features. The session combined visionary insights with practical demos and customer success stories, illustrating how Power Platform is reshaping digital work at scale.
Category
Technology
