Agent flows overview

Article
2025-03-31

Agent flows are a powerful way to automate repetitive tasks and integrate your apps and services. Agent flows can be triggered manually, by other automated events or agents, or based on a schedule.

Agent flows consume Copilot Studio capacity for each agent flow action they execute.

Benefits of agent flows

Agent flows offer several benefits.

Consistent execution: Agent flows are deterministic—they execute actions or tasks following a rule-based path. The same input always produces the same output, making them reliable and predictable.
Simple workflow creation: You can design, edit, and automate workflows directly in Copilot Studio, using AI-driven suggestions for triggers, actions, and agent flows.
End-to-end process visibility: Design workflows, monitor their performance, and get actionable insights to improve your automation projects, all in the Flows panel in Copilot Studio's unified interface. You can also view details of an agent flow, such as the flow name, description, and status.

Create agent flows

You can create an agent flow in Copilot Studio in two ways:

Natural language: Create a flow by describing what you need using everyday language in one or more conversations. Copilot Studio interprets your intent and creates a flow based on your description. You can edit the flow in the designer to add more actions. Learn more in Build an agent flow with natural language.
Designer: Build an agent flow by dragging and dropping components on a canvas in the visual designer. You can add actions, conditions, and loops to create sophisticated automation scenarios. You can also use expressions to manipulate data and perform calculations in your flows. Learn more in Edit and manage your agent flow in the designer.

You can also convert a Power Automate flow to an agent flow.

Triggers and actions in agent flows

An agent flow consists of a trigger and at least one action. A trigger is an event that starts a flow. Triggers can be instant (manually run on demand) or based on a schedule, or they can happen in response to other events. An action is a task that an agent flow performs. Let's say you want to get a notification in Microsoft Teams when your manager sends you an email. Receiving an email from your manager is the trigger that starts this flow. Sending a message in Microsoft Teams is the action that happens in response.

Agent flows that have the Run a flow from Copilot trigger can be actions in other agents, allowing them to be used as part of larger agent-based automation scenarios. Learn more in Add an agent flow to an agent.

Work with agent flows in solutions

Agent flows are included in solutions, where you have access to advanced capabilities, such as drafts and versioning, export, import, and customization. You can manage solutions in the Power Platform admin center.

Manage agent flow capacity usage

Because every action your agent flows execute consumes Copilot Studio capacity, it's a good idea to monitor their capacity usage. In the Power Platform admin center > Billing > Licenses > Copilot Studio, review the Agent flow actions used by each flow.

Testing an agent flow in the designer doesn't consume Copilot Studio capacity. However, even in test runs, actions that call features such as AI Builder that have separate billing rates still incur usage of those features.

Here's how to calculate the capacity that's used when a flow is run as an action in an agent:

When a flow is run from a topic, one Classic answer plus the agent flow actions are consumed.
When a flow is run using generative orchestration, one Autonomous action plus the agent flow actions are consumed.
When a flow is run from the agent's embedded test chat, either from a topic or as a generative action, only the agent flow actions are consumed. The direct messages in the test chat don't count toward capacity consumption.

Convert a Power Automate flow to an agent flow

If you already have a Power Automate cloud flow that does what you want, you can convert it to an agent flow. Converting it allows you to manage the flow in Copilot Studio and consume Copilot Studio capacity instead of Power Automate billing. You can still access the flow from Power Automate.

Converting the flow requires that Copilot Studio capacity, either prepaid or pay-as-you-go, is available in the environment. Conversion is a one-way operation. It can't be reversed due to the change in the flow's billing.

Open the cloud flow's detail page in the Power Automate portal.
Make sure that the flow is in a solution.

If the Solutions tile is present on the right side of the detail page, it is. If the Solutions tile isn't present, add the flow to a solution before continuing.
Make sure that the flow is in the Power Platform environment that you want to consume Copilot Studio capacity from.

If Copilot Studio capacity isn't allocated to the environment yet, reach out to your Power Platform administrator for assistance.
Select Edit.
Change the flow's plan to Copilot Studio.
Select Save.
When prompted, confirm that you want to convert the flow.

Share via