How to Use AI in Power Apps (Copilot)

June 28, 2023
8 min read

In this article, I'll show you how AI empowers Power Apps allowing you to easily create your solution just by describing what you want to do with your Power App, and AI will generate a first template for you.

Prerequisite

Microsoft is rolling out this new AI feature aka Copilot right now, if you want to play with this capability, which is in preview, you have to create a new environment targeting Preview (United States) in the Power Platform Admin Center.

https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments

Screenshot showing that if you want to use the preview of Power Platform with Copilot, choose the Preview Environment and the region named Preview (United States).
Figure 1: Power Platform US -- Preview (United States) environment.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

How to Use Copilot in Power Apps

Alright, now that we have an environment in the preview, we can open the browser to this URL: 
make.preview.powerapps.com 

Finally, we'll land on the new Home page of Power Apps with Copilot (Figure 2):

Screenshot showing the Power Apps Home page with Copilot. At the top is a sort of dialog box where you briefly describe types of apps you want to build, or you can choose from collect RSVPs, track sales leads, list inventory, or manage inspections.
Figure 2: New Power Apps Home page with Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

On top of the Home page, we have this new functionality powered by AI Copilot that will allow me to ask for a new app (see the top of Figure 2). AI will produce and create a template of my Power App so I will not start from scratch, but I will start from a solid structure. 
In the section called Other ways to create an app I have additional functionality like for example “Start with data,” “Start with a page design,” and “Start with an app template.” 
In the first application, let me ask Copilot to create an app that will take care of an inventory. I'm going to click on the link suggested on top "List inventory" and then I'm going to confirm my request by clicking on the Go button (see the orange circle in Figure 3):

Screenshot zoomed in to the dialog box at the top of the Power Apps with Copilot home page. Giuliano has clicked the List inventory option and the Go arrow is highlighted.
Figure 3: New app with Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

After a few minutes, Copilot creates a Dataverse table called Inventory. It also adds a bunch of columns here like ID, Name, Quantity, Price, Type, and Status (Figure 4).

Screenshot in Dataverse showing a table named Inventory with 6 columns: ID, Name, Quantity, Price, Type and Status.
Figure 4: Dataverse table named Inventory created by Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size

If you watch the video with this article or look at Figure 5, you can see on the right side of the screen Copilot with my previous request "List inventory", now without moving my mouse and performing a manual operation, I can ask Copilot to create an additional column. For instance, I can type “Please can you create another column ”Category" with the following options: Service, Hardware, and Software." I will send the request to Copilot (bottom right area, not included in Figure 5, see the video at 02:40). I wait a moment and then see that Copilot will create an additional column on my table. I don't have to tell it the name of the Inventory table. It knows from the conversation. 
Look at this, I have a new column added named Category with options that I asked for before:

Figure 5 is a zoomed out version of the previous dataverse view of the Inventory table with the Category column in a red oval. On the right side of the screen, Giuliano shows the Copilot dialog that produced the list inventory table and he circled in red the request he typed into Copilot to remove the Category column.
Figure 5: Modifying table data with Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size

How cool is this! 
You can ask Copilot to delete or modify columns and Copilot will do that work for you. 


Copilot Creates a Responsive App

Clicking on the button named Create app (see the video at 03:00) will bring to the starting page where I have a first draft and template of my app. Another cool thing here to know is that this app is responsive; below you can see what it would look like on an iPhone in Figure 6 or a tablet in Figure 7. And of course, in Figure 8 you see the same inventory app running on a desktop. 
 

Figure 6 shows a screenshot of a phone view of the Inventory list app created by Copilot. To the right of the image shows a list of other phone emulators that you could choose.
Figure 6: A phone view of the inventory app created by Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |    View Full Size
Figure 7 shows a screenshot of a tablet view of the Inventory list app created by Copilot. To the right of the image shows a list of other tablet emulators that you could choose.
Figure 7: The tablet view of the inventory app created by Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size
Figure 8 shows a screenshot of a desktop view of the Inventory list app created by Copilot.
Figure 8: The desktop view of the inventory app created by Copilot.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size

It doesn't matter where you are because the solution is already responsive.


Copilot Creates a Requests App

Let's go back to the homepage of make.preview.powerapps.com in order to create another app. I am going to ask to Copilot to generate and create a "Travel Requests" app, which could manage all travel requests for my organization. In Figure 9, I indicate what kind of app to create and click Go.

Figure 9 shows the same zoomed in dialog box on the Power Apps with Copilot home page with Guliano's Travel Requests app suggestion typed in.
Figure 9: Using Copilot in Power Apps to create a travel requests app.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size

If Copilot is not able to handle your requests, you will see a message that it is not possible to process your request; but this is not the case because Copilot creates a new table named "Travel request" on Dataverse (see Figure 10) with the following columns: ID, Name, Destination, Start Date, End Date, Purpose, Status, and Cost. 
Next I want to ask directly to Copilot to modify this table by deleting the column named Status. Let me type "please delete the column Status" and when I click send, voilà the status column is gone.

Figure 10 shows the zoomed out view of the Travel Request table that was created by Copilot in figure 9 with a red X where the column named Status was removed. To the right side of the screenshot, you can see the commands issued to Copilot to delete the Status column.
Figure 10: Copilot created the Travel request table. Here I'll use Copilot to delete a column.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

Other Ways to Create a Power App Using Copilot

We have other ways to create a new app in the new brand Home Page in the "Start with data" button (Figure 11) I can upload an Excel file if I have or start with a blank table or select an existing table or connect to an external data (Figure 12).

Figure 11 shows the Power Apps home page with Copilot and the option named Start with data is pointed to by the cursor.
Figure 11: Using Power Platform with Copilot and using the “Start with data” option.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size
Figure 12 shows the drilled into page of the Start with data that was selected. It shows more granular choices including upload an Excel file, start with a blank table, select an existing table, and connect to external data.
Figure 12: In the “Start with data” options you can use Excel, a table, or connect to external data.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

The second option available is "Start with a page design," which offers the starting points shown in Figure 13, including: Gallery connected to a table, Gallery connected to an external table like SQL, Excel, or Azure, Blank canvas app (which targets a tablet or a smartphone), View and form, Blank page with navigation, an image or Figma file, Split screen, Sidebar, Header main section footer, and finally the last one Dashboard.

Figure 13 shows the drilled in options for creating a power app if you select a page design to start your app. It shows 10 choices.
Figure 13: Power Apps with Copilot can let you start with several page design choices.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |   View Full Size

You can also use Power Apps with Copilot and create an app by choosing "Start with an app template," which provides options for Data-centered mobile apps from sources you may be familiar with, or many other types of app templates (Figure 14).

Figure 14 shows many templates you could choose from to start creating a Power App using Copilot.
Figure 14: You can start a Power App with templates as well.  |  Used with permission from Microsoft.  |  View Full Size

We have explored this new Home page of Power Apps Studio which makes it really easy to start creating new apps.

Giuliano De Luca

Giuliano De Luca

Giuliano is an Office Development MVP and specialist in Microsoft technologies for software design and development. He loves to collaborate with the community, Giuliano has passed several Microsoft certification exams and achieved the following certifications: MCSD SharePoint Applications, MCSD Web Applications, MCP, Microsoft Specialist Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Specialist.
In his free time, Giuliano loves to play and explore new technologies.

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