Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio and Foundry: which one fits?

Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI where employees work

Microsoft 365 Copilot brings assistance into the Microsoft 365 work experience. Think of drafting, understanding information and working with organisational content according to the user's permissions and licensed capabilities. Agent Builder lets people create focused agents within that experience. It is a useful starting point for a team knowledge assistant, but having a chat interface does not automatically provide a complete business process or permission to change ERP records.

Copilot Studio: build a business agent

Copilot Studio provides a visual environment for creating agents, connecting knowledge and tools, defining conversation behaviour and adding flows. It suits teams that need a repeatable business interaction with managed integrations. An agent can be published to Microsoft 365 Copilot or other supported channels. The employee may experience it in Copilot even though a maker builds and maintains it in Studio. A public website agent and an internal employee agent also have different identity and billing considerations.

Microsoft Foundry: engineer a custom AI application

Foundry is the Azure platform for developing AI applications and agents with model choice, evaluation and deployment capabilities. It is relevant when engineers need greater control over application code, model integration and operational behaviour. That flexibility brings responsibility for access, monitoring, cost and release engineering. Foundry is not required merely because an agent uses AI, and it does not replace Business Central's business logic.

Why have three places?

They serve different builders and levels of control. Start with the employee task, then choose the simplest environment that meets its integration, governance and reliability needs. Our illustrative progression is a policy-answering assistant in Microsoft 365, a structured request-and-approval interaction in Studio, and a custom document-processing service in Foundry. These can cooperate; they do not have to be three separate solutions. Building in one place and using the result in another is normal.

Where to sign in and what to check

For Microsoft 365 Copilot, start at m365.cloud.microsoft with your work account. For Copilot Studio, use copilotstudio.microsoft.com and select the correct tenant and environment. For Foundry, start at ai.azure.com and select the appropriate project. Ask your administrator to confirm licences or consumption billing, maker or project roles, and permitted data connections. Microsoft 365 Business Basic alone does not grant every paid Copilot, Studio or Foundry capability. Portal access is not the same as permission to publish or consume every model.

Microsoft sources and further reading

• Microsoft: Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Microsoft Learn: Copilot Studio overview
• Microsoft Learn: What is Microsoft Foundry?
• Open Microsoft 365
• Open Copilot Studio
• Open Microsoft Foundry