Building a business application used to mean weeks of development, design reviews, and deployment pipelines. With Copilot in Power Apps, you describe what you need in plain English and the AI generates a working app — tables, screens, formulas, and navigation included. Then you customize it visually until it fits your exact requirements.
This guide covers how to create apps with Copilot, add AI-powered features to canvas apps, connect to enterprise data sources, and govern AI usage across your organization.
What Copilot brings to Power Apps
Copilot is embedded throughout the Power Apps experience:
- App generation — describe your app in natural language and get a working prototype with a data model, screens, and navigation.
- Copilot control — add a conversational AI assistant directly inside your app that users interact with.
- Formula assistance — write Power Fx formulas by describing what you want instead of remembering syntax.
- Edit with Copilot — modify existing apps by telling Copilot what to change (“add a status filter to the gallery”, “make the header blue”).
Building your first app with Copilot
Step 1: Describe your app
- Go to make.powerapps.com.
- In the home screen, you’ll see the Copilot prompt: “Describe the app you want to build”.
- Type a description, for example:
"Create an app to track equipment maintenance requests.
Each request has an equipment name, location, priority
(low/medium/high), description of the issue, assigned
technician, status (open/in progress/completed), and
date submitted."Step 2: Review the generated table
Copilot creates a Dataverse table based on your description — with columns, data types, and sample data already populated. You can:
- Add or remove columns.
- Change data types (text, choice, date, number).
- Edit the sample data to better reflect your real content.
- Ask Copilot to modify the table: “Add a column for estimated repair cost”.
Step 3: Generate the app
Click Create app and Copilot generates a full canvas app with:
- A gallery screen listing all records with search and filter.
- A detail screen showing the full record.
- A form screen for creating and editing records.
- Navigation between screens already wired up.
- A Copilot control embedded in the app for users to ask questions about the data.
The Copilot control
The Copilot control is an AI chat component you can add to any canvas app. It lets end users interact with the app’s data conversationally:
- “Show me all high-priority requests from this week” — Copilot filters the data and displays results.
- “How many open tickets does each technician have?” — Copilot generates a summary.
- “Create a new request for the HVAC unit in Building 3” — Copilot pre-fills a form.
The control is data-aware: it understands your Dataverse tables and can query, summarize, and present information without you writing any formulas.
Adding the Copilot control to an existing app
- Open your canvas app in the editor.
- Go to Insert → AI → Copilot.
- Place the control on your screen.
- In the control’s properties, set the data source to your Dataverse table.
- Configure allowed actions: read-only (queries only) or read-write (can also create/update records).
Formula assistance with Copilot
Power Fx — the formula language behind Power Apps — has a learning curve. Copilot helps by translating natural language into formulas:
| You say | Copilot generates |
|---|---|
| “Filter the gallery to show only open requests” | Filter(Requests, Status.Value = "Open") |
| “Sort by priority: high first, then medium, then low” | SortByColumns(Gallery1.AllItems, "Priority", SortOrder.Descending) |
| “Show the count of requests per technician” | GroupBy(Requests, "Technician", "Count", CountRows(Requests)) |
| “Change the header color to red if overdue” | If(DateDiff(Today(), ThisItem.DueDate) < 0, Red, Color.DarkBlue) |
Click the Copilot icon in the formula bar, describe what you want, and it generates the Power Fx expression. Review it, then accept or modify.
Connecting to enterprise data
Generated apps start with Dataverse, but most business scenarios need data from multiple sources:
- SharePoint — connect to lists for document libraries, task tracking, and team data.
- SQL Server / Azure SQL — pull data from your relational databases.
- Dynamics 365 — access CRM, ERP, and business application data.
- Custom APIs — connect to any REST API via custom connectors.
- Excel / OneDrive — use spreadsheets as lightweight data sources for prototyping.
Power Apps supports 1,000+ connectors out of the box. For data that doesn't have a connector, build a custom connector by providing the API's OpenAPI specification.
Model-driven apps vs. canvas apps
| Aspect | Canvas apps | Model-driven apps |
|---|---|---|
| Design approach | Pixel-perfect, drag-and-drop layout | Data model defines the UI automatically |
| Best for | Custom UIs, mobile apps, specific workflows | Complex data models, CRM-style applications |
| Copilot support | Full (generation, editing, formulas, control) | Table generation, form customization |
| Data source | Any connector (Dataverse, SQL, SharePoint, APIs) | Dataverse only |
| Responsive | Manual configuration required | Built-in responsive layout |
For most scenarios with Copilot, start with a canvas app — it gives you full control over the user experience. Use model-driven apps when you have complex relational data with many entities and relationships.
Real-world scenarios
Inventory tracker with barcode scanning
Ask Copilot to generate an inventory management app. Add the barcode scanner control to let warehouse staff scan items with their phone camera. Connect to a SharePoint list where inventory data lives, and add a Power Automate flow that sends low-stock alerts.
Field service inspection app
Build an app where technicians log inspections with photos, GPS coordinates, and checklists. The Copilot control lets them ask: "Show me all failed inspections in Zone B this month." Add an AI Builder model to auto-classify inspection photos (pass/fail).
Employee onboarding dashboard
Generate an app that tracks new hire onboarding tasks. Each task has an owner, due date, and status. The Copilot control lets HR managers ask: "Which new hires haven't completed compliance training?" Connect to Microsoft 365 to pull employee profiles automatically.
Governance and security
- Environment strategy — use separate environments for dev, test, and production. Promote apps through managed solutions.
- DLP policies — control which connectors can be used together to prevent data leakage.
- Copilot controls — administrators can enable or disable Copilot features per environment via the Power Platform admin center.
- Sharing — share apps with specific security groups. Users only see data they have permission to access in the underlying data sources.
Next steps
- Try the Copilot app builder at make.powerapps.com — generate an app from a description in under 5 minutes.
- Add the Copilot control to an existing canvas app and connect it to a Dataverse table.
- Explore the formula bar — use Copilot to generate a complex filter or conditional formatting formula.
- Read the docs: learn.microsoft.com/power-apps
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