Microsoft 365 Copilot knows what’s in Microsoft Graph: your emails, Teams chats, and some SharePoint files. But the data that actually runs your business, your SOPs, CRM records, inventory systems, and line-of-business applications, lives outside that boundary. Extending Copilot to reach that data is where agents come in.

The challenge? Microsoft offers two primary tools for building agents, Copilot Studio and the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit (ATK) for VS Code, and their documentation rarely gives you a clear side-by-side comparison. Which one fits your team? Which one fits your scenario? What are the real tradeoffs?

In this full-day workshop, Microsoft MVPs Mark Rackley and Andrew Connell answer those questions by building the same agent with both tools, live, throughout the day. You’ll see every decision point, every capability difference, and every tradeoff as it happens. This isn’t a pitch for one tool over the other. It’s an honest comparison designed to help you make the right call for your organization.

We’ll start with how Microsoft 365 Copilot actually works and what customization options exist. Then Mark and Andrew will work through the same scenarios in parallel: adding custom instructions, connecting knowledge sources, integrating external data through actions and connectors, and extending Copilot’s capabilities for real business use cases. We’ll also cover the practical realities that matter for planning: licensing requirements, cost implications, and the skills your team needs for each approach.

This workshop is designed for a broad audience. Whether you’re a developer evaluating pro-code tooling, a power user building agents in Copilot Studio, or a project manager charting your organization’s Copilot extensibility strategy, you’ll walk away knowing what’s possible, what each option requires, and which approach fits your situation.

Assumed Knowledge:

You should know that you can create custom agents for M3365 Copilot and basic of your agent creation options.

Practical Takeaways:

Solid understanding of custom agent creation options, when to pick Copilot Studio vs. the ATK to create agents, and the implications of each choice.

Out of Session Scope:

We will NOT cover agent governance or creating agents with Microsoft Foundry.