The two types of Copilot agent that you can create

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Explaining the two different types of Copilot Studio agent Part one of a three-part series of blogs
Copilot allows you to create chat bots called "agents", but these can be either simple conversational tools or sophisticated bots depending on which type of Copilot agent you're talking about! The two types of Copilot agent that you can create (this blog) Creating simple Copilot agents Creating Copilot Studio agents (chatbots or virtual agents)

Explaining the two different types of Copilot Studio agent

Part one of a three-part series of blogs

Copilot allows you to create chat bots called "agents", but these can be either simple conversational tools or sophisticated bots depending on which type of Copilot agent you're talking about!

The two types of Copilot agent that you can create (this blog)
Creating simple Copilot agents
Creating Copilot Studio agents (chatbots or virtual agents)

Posted by Andy Brown on 02 September 2025

Microsoft have done it again! Fresh from giving two completely different products the same name in Power Automate, they've now created the name Copilot agent to refer to two different types of AI tool. In this blog I've used the term simple agent to refer to a custom GPT style tool which acts like a normal Copilot session, but which focuses on a particular task:

An example of a simple agent helping users to choose a Wise Owl training course.

By contrast I've used the Microsoft term Copilot Studio Agent (formerly Power Virtual Agent) to refer to a tool which is more like a chatbot:

A small part of a Copilot Studio agent which asks you questions about the training course you want to enquire about, and which (hopefully) leads to a booking which can then be logged in a suitable database.

Read on to discover how to create each type of agent, and what the differences are between them.

Parts of this blog
The two types of Copilot agent that you can create (this blog) Creating simple Copilot agents Creating Copilot Studio agents (chatbots or virtual agents)

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