How to Install and Customize a Microsoft Managed Agent in Copilot Studio

Important note:

A managed agent is a prebuilt solution that Microsoft maintains and makes available through Copilot Studio. It can shorten setup time, but it is not automatically approved for production. Your organization still owns the deployment decision, connected data, permissions, legal and regulatory review, testing, user access, monitoring, and incident response.

Before selecting Install

• Confirm the correct Power Platform tenant and environment; do not experiment in production by default.
• Identify an accountable business owner, technical owner, data owner, and support contact.
• Review required licenses, capacity or billing, connectors, connection references, data-loss-prevention policies, regional availability, and admin restrictions.
• List the users and data the agent must access. Use least-privilege accounts rather than a broadly privileged maker's personal connection.
• Define prohibited tasks, human-approval points, fallback behavior, logging, retention, and rollback criteria.
• Read the agent and add-on documentation for preview status, known limitations, supported languages, and update behavior.

Install and validate the agent

1. In Copilot Studio, open Agents and browse the managed-agent catalog available to your environment.
2. Open the agent's details and review its purpose, prerequisites, connections, and terms before selecting Install.
3. Complete every connection and configuration prompt using approved resources.
4. Test with separate maker, normal-user, and restricted-user accounts to verify that source-system permissions are respected.
5. Exercise successful requests, ambiguous requests, missing data, denied access, tool failures, unsafe input, and out-of-scope questions.
6. Publish or expand access only after the owner accepts documented results and support procedures.

Microsoft's current managed-agent installation guide explains that supported customizations are installed as agent-specific add-ons. Microsoft also states that organizations are responsible for assessing safety, legal, regulatory, and suitability requirements.

Customize without losing governance

Open the installed agent, select Customize, review the available add-on, and install only the action, connection, or extension required for a defined use case. Re-run permission and failure tests after every add-on or material configuration change. Document the version, connection owner, input and output data, user-visible change, and rollback path.

For related design choices, see TipsMake's guide to Copilot connectors vs. Power Platform connectors, the IT Helpdesk agent template, and its comparison of enterprise agent platforms.

Managed agents are designed to help you get started with a custom agent. You are responsible for evaluating all safety and legal issues associated with using a managed agent and customizing it to suit your business.

Organizations must assess specific legal and regulatory requirements when using managed agents, as they may not be suitable for all industries, scenarios, or use cases. Additionally, AI services must not be used in ways prohibited by applicable terms of service and related codes of conduct.

You can customize these agents using add-ons that allow them to become even more specialized in a specific area. Add-ons are packages that provide unique connectivity and capabilities for each managed agent solution.

You can see which managed agents are available for your current environment on the Agents page, under Install a managed agent. Select an agent to learn more about its capabilities and requirements.

Note:

Read and understand the requirements of a managed or custom agent before installing it. Some managed or custom agents will guide you through the configuration process during installation, or may require you to create components or configure settings in other services. You can find these requirements in the agent's catalog page.

Install a managed agent in Copilot Studio

• In Copilot Studio, select the appropriate environment, then go to the Agents page.
• In the Install a managed agent section, select the agent you want.
• Select Install and complete the installation steps.
• Once the agent has finished installing, select Open.

Note: You can close the installation window while the agent is being installed. A banner will appear to notify you when the installation is complete.

• Find your new agent on the Agents page.

Agent customization is managed using add-ons

Add-ons are unique to each managed agent. They allow you to tailor managed agents to the specific needs of your organization through actions, connections, etc.

To install an add-on for a managed agent:

1. On the Agents page, select your agent.

2. On the Overview page, select Customize.

3. Select the customizations you want to add.

4. Select Install.

Before the installation process begins, a list of services whose connection specifications will appear. These services will have warnings requesting authentication information to complete the connection.

5. Authenticate any connections that have warnings. To authenticate, select the three dots (…) for each connection, then select Add new connection. After providing the details, select Create. You can also add multiple connections, then select the connection that the custom should use for a service.

6. When all connections have a checkmark, select Next. The custom setup process will begin.

7. After the installation is complete, select Open.

Note:

You can close the settings window while the customization is being installed. You can find and open the customization in the agent's Overview page.

You can also check the agent's installation status. Go to Microsoft Power Apps, then open the Solutions tab. The list includes all managed agents that have started installing for the selected environment.

Review and manage installed add-ons

After installing a custom setting, you can view and manage its details, configuration, and content by selecting that custom setting in the agent's Overview page.

The customizable screen displays the installation status and package version.

Configuration and connection checks

Some managed agents allow you to quickly access and manage related configurations within connected services.

To open the configuration, select Manage in the Configuration and connection checks tab.

Content, permissions, and testing

The content includes streams, knowledge, and topics that you add to the featured agent. You can filter the list by content type.

Note: Currently, you cannot modify additional content. By default, all content is in the On state.