I’m excited to head back to the European SharePoint Conference (ESPC) Amsterdam, Netherlands in November/December 2026 presenting a full-day tutorial & breakout session!
But you’re interested in the workshop & session… so, here you go!
Full-day Workshop: Extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with Custom Agents: Copilot Studio and the Agents Toolkit Side-by-Side
Andrew Connell
Microsoft MVP, Full-Stack Developer & Chief Course Artisan - Voitanos LLC.
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.
Breakout Session: Coming soon!!!
Check back in soon… I’m delivering a breakout session on a topic I’m eager to share once I’m allowed to! ;)
Microsoft MVP, Full-Stack Developer & Chief Course Artisan - Voitanos LLC.
Andrew Connell is a full stack developer who focuses on Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365. He’s a 22-year recipient of Microsoft’s MVP award and has helped thousands of developers through the various courses he’s authored & taught. Whether it’s an introduction to the entire ecosystem, or a deep dive into a specific software, his resources, tools, and support help web developers become experts in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, so they can become irreplaceable in their organization.
