Power Apps and Cowork: build around the work you know

Give one repeated request a clearer path

If your team keeps copying the same request between a message, a spreadsheet and an app, sketch how that request should move from start to finish. Which information already exists? Who makes the decision? That is a useful starting point for Microsoft's latest business app-building tools.

On October 27, Microsoft introduced an AI building assistant inside Power Apps canvas studio, its visual app editor, in preview. On October 28, it showed a separate Dataverse connection for Copilot Cowork. Dataverse is Microsoft's service for storing and managing business records. Cowork is its AI assistant for tasks that involve several steps.

Both updates let people describe what they need in everyday language. They have different access rules and do different jobs, so choose the route around your existing work. Microsoft's November 2 overview brings these connections together; it does not make every feature newly available today.

Read the announcement: Microsoft: In-studio Power Apps authoring preview, October 27.

Work beside the app you already have

The Power Apps assistant works in new or existing canvas apps, the kind you create by arranging screens and controls. You describe a change, review its plan and approve it before it builds. The result remains an ordinary canvas app you can edit by hand.

This in-editor experience is new. The separate tool for building canvas apps from an external coding assistant was already available in September.

Microsoft limits the new preview to the United States and English. An administrator must enable it, and each builder connects a GitHub account, an account for software collaboration. GitHub bills that account for the assistant's usage. Your requests and information about the app are processed and stored under the applicable GitHub terms.

The assistant cannot add or edit the app's records, add images, or save, publish or share the app. Microsoft says the preview is not intended for production use. Practise on a separate test app and review what it produces.

Let the app use the records you trust

The Dataverse connection in Cowork tackles another part of building. Microsoft's October 28 demonstration starts with an event-registration request. Cowork creates tables for events and registrations, links them to existing contact records and adds clearly marked sample entries. It then builds and publishes an app.

The example includes a waiting list once an event reaches capacity. Microsoft demonstrates the fourth registration going onto that list when three places are taken. This is a published vendor demonstration, not a test we have run.

Each change is presented for approval, and actions use the signed-in person's Dataverse permissions. The demonstration's app runs in Copilot Managed Runtime, Microsoft's preview service for hosting business apps. Building apps in Cowork currently requires Frontier, Microsoft's early-access programme.

Before trying it, ask your Microsoft account administrator to confirm access, allowed information and the charges for building and running the app. The US-only restriction above belongs to the canvas studio preview; these are separate experiences.

Practise with a request you can check

You can prepare even if neither preview is available to your account. Choose a request your team already understands and write down what should happen when information is missing or a decision changes. Those details help both AI and a person building with you.

For an equipment-request practice app, for example, a second request for the same item might need a warning. Decide that rule before asking for screens. Use invented records while learning, then compare the app's behaviour with your written rule.

1. Write who submits the request, who reviews it and what a completed request should contain.
2. List the existing records the app should use and who may read or change them.
3. Choose an awkward case, such as a duplicate request or missing approval, and describe the expected result.
4. Check the preview, data terms and spending allowance with the account owner before connecting a tool.
5. In a separate practice app, try the ordinary request and the awkward case, then record what needs changing.

Build understanding alongside the tool

Our perspective is that building assistants make your knowledge of the work more useful. You can spend a lesson explaining the rules and checking a result, alongside learning how to change the screen.

If you build with a partner, ask them to show how an approved request reaches the right record and what happens when it cannot finish. That explanation gives you something concrete to learn and a clearer basis for deciding whether the tool is ready for everyday use.