🧰 Mission 05: Using a Pre-Built Agent
🎥 Watch the Walkthrough
🎯 Mission Brief
Welcome to your next mission in the Copilot Studio Agent Academy. You're about to explore the world of pre-built agents—intelligent, purpose-driven agents created by Microsoft to accelerate your deployment and reduce time to value.
Rather than building from scratch, pre-built agents (also called agent templates) give you a head start by providing ready-to-use scenarios that you can customize and deploy in minutes.
While you prepare the Contoso IT helpdesk agent, another requirement arrives: employees also need help preparing for business travel and finding travel policies. This is related to employee support, but it has a distinct purpose and knowledge domain. Instead of expanding the IT helpdesk agent beyond its core responsibility, you can use a focused agent for the travel scenario.
In this mission, you’ll step away from the main helpdesk build to deploy the Safe Travels template. You’ll see how a pre-built agent can satisfy a new requirement quickly while keeping each agent focused on a clear responsibility.
This mission uses the classic Copilot Studio experience
If your Copilot Studio screen looks different from the screenshots in this mission, turn off New Experience in the upper-right corner to switch back to the classic experience used here.
🔎 Objectives
In this mission, you’ll learn:
- Why pre-built agents accelerate common business scenarios
- How to deploy the Safe Travels agent template
- How to customize an agent’s knowledge
- How to test and publish a pre-built agent
🧠 What Are Pre-Built Agents?
Pre-built agents are turnkey AI agents created by Microsoft that:
- Address common business needs (like travel, HR, IT support)
- Include fully functioning topics, trigger phrases, instructions and sample knowledge.
- Can be edited, extended, and grounded with your own data
These agents are perfect for getting started quickly or learning how agents are structured.
🧪 Lab 05: Quickly get started with a pre-built agent
In this lab, you’ll respond to the new travel-support requirement by selecting and customizing a pre-built agent. The Safe Travels agent is a standalone, focused agent rather than an extension of the Contoso IT helpdesk agent.
Let's begin!
5.1 Launch Copilot Studio
Navigate to https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com
Sign in with your Microsoft 365 work or school account
5.2 Choose the Safe Travels Agent Template
Select the Agents tab in the left-hand menu.
Scroll down to the Start with an agent template section. Find and select the Safe Travels template.
Notice that the template comes pre-loaded with a description, instructions and knowledge.
Select Create.
This will create a new agent in your environment based on the Safe Travels configuration.
5.3 Customize the Agent
Now that the agent is created, let’s tailor it to your organization:
Now we'll equip the agent with an additional knowledge source so it can answer questions about Europe travel. To do this, scroll down to the knowledge section and select Add knowledge
Select Public websites
In the text input, paste https://european-union.europa.eu/ and select Add
Select Add to agent
5.4 Test and Publish
Select Test to open the test pane.
Try phrases like:
“Do I need a visa to travel from the US to Amsterdam?”“How long does it take to get a US Passport?”“Where is the closest US embassy in Valencia, Spain?”
Confirm the agent responds with accurate and helpful information and observe the Activity Map to see where it retrieved the information.
When ready, select Publish.
Select Publish again in the dialog box
Optionally, add the agent to Microsoft Teams using the built-in Channels feature.
🧳 Bonus Objective
Try grounding the Safe Travels agent with a SharePoint site or FAQ file to make it more relevant to your company’s travel policies.
✅ Mission Complete
You've now successfully:
- Template selection: Chose a pre-built agent for a focused business requirement
- Agent deployment: Deployed the Safe Travels template
- Knowledge customization: Added a public website as a knowledge source
- Testing and publishing: Tested and published your customized agent
You used a focused agent to address the travel-support requirement without adding unrelated responsibilities to the Contoso IT helpdesk agent. In the next mission, you’ll return to the main course scenario and build that custom helpdesk agent from scratch.
Next, continue to Mission 06: Build a Custom Agent.