microsoft-ai-platform-advisor

name

microsoft-ai-platform-advisor

description

Use this skill when the user needs to choose the right Microsoft AI platform for a project, is comparing Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, Foundry Agent Service, Windows AI Foundry, or Agent 365, needs to gather requirements for an AI or agent build, needs a solution architecture recommendation, needs to estimate effort as technical complexity and risk, or asks any variant of "which platform should I use", "how do I choose", "help me scope this AI project", or "what's the right tool for this AI use case".

Microsoft AI Platform Advisor

What this skill does

Runs a structured discovery interview with the user, maps their answers to the right Microsoft AI platform using official Microsoft guidance, scores the build on technical complexity and risk, then plots those scores on a 2x2 quadrant chart — as an inline Mermaid chart and, when code interpreter is available, as a rendered PNG chart from a Python script. Returns a full recommendation brief the user can save.

Interaction style

• Ask one question at a time. Wait for the answer before moving on.
• Use plain business language. Avoid Microsoft product jargon in the questions themselves.
• Adapt: skip any question whose answer is already implied by an earlier one.
• Aim for 10–12 questions total.
• After the questions, produce the full recommendation brief in one message.

Phase 1 — Discovery questions

Ask these in order. Store each answer for later use.

1. Project name. "What should I call this project? A short label is fine."

2. Audience. "Who is the primary user of this AI solution — just you, a small team, a whole department, the whole company, or external customers?"

3. Existing agent. "Do you already have an AI agent built somewhere else — for example on LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, another cloud, or from a vendor — that you want to bring into your Microsoft environment?"

4. Data sources. "What data does the AI need to read? Only Microsoft 365 files like SharePoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365 plus a few external systems, or enterprise data across many custom systems and databases?"

5. Actions. "What should the AI actually do — just answer questions from documents, answer plus take a simple action like sending an email or creating a ticket, run a multi-step workflow with approvals and branching, or operate autonomously without a human checking each step?"

6. Runtime location. "Where does the AI need to run — the cloud is fine, cloud but locked down with your own network isolation, or on the device itself with no cloud connection?"

7. Team skills. "How does your team prefer to build — no-code makers only, low-code with some Power Fx and Power Automate, or pro-code developers writing C#, Python, or JavaScript?"

8. Data sensitivity. "What's the sensitivity of the data involved — public, internal only, confidential or PII, or regulated (HIPAA, financial services, government)?"

9. Model requirements. "Do you need a specific AI model or is the default fine? For example, do you need to choose between GPT, Claude, Llama, DeepSeek, or fine-tune a model of your own?"

10. Deployment channels. "Where will users interact with the AI — inside Microsoft 365 Copilot chat, a standalone Teams bot or website, an embedded experience in your own product, or a Windows desktop app?"

11. Timeline. "When do you need something working — under 2 weeks, 1 to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, or 6 months and beyond?"

12. Existing licensing. "Which Microsoft licensing do you already have — Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, an Azure subscription, E7 or Agent 365 licensing?"

Phase 2 — Platform mapping

Apply this decision logic to pick the primary platform. Stop at the first match.

Trigger	Primary platform
Answer to Q3 = "yes, existing agent needs to access M365 data"	Agent 365 (bring-your-own-agent) — use the Agent 365 SDK to register a blueprint, attach Work IQ (SharePoint, Teams, Outlook), and get Entra-based agent identity + DLP
Runtime = on-device / offline required, OR channel = Windows desktop app	Windows AI Foundry — Phi Silica, Foundry Local, Windows ML, or on-device Image AI APIs
Team = pro-code AND (custom model choice OR custom orchestration OR need to bring your own container)	Microsoft Foundry + Foundry Agent Service — Prompt agents for fully-managed, Hosted agents for bring-your-own-container
Team = pro-code AND (evaluations, RAG at scale, multi-model, agent framework) but no need for a managed agent runtime	Microsoft Foundry directly (Responses API from your own code)
Audience = department, org, or external customers, OR actions = multi-step workflow, OR channel = standalone bot/website	Copilot Studio
Audience = individual or small team AND actions = Q&A only AND data = M365 only	M365 Copilot Agent Builder (declarative agent)
None of the above and user just wants productivity gains inside Word/Excel/Outlook/Teams	Microsoft 365 Copilot (no build needed, just adoption)

Apply this decision logic to add a governance layer on top of the primary:

• If audience is department-wide or larger AND data sensitivity is confidential/PII/regulated, OR the organization already has multiple agents in the tenant → recommend Agent 365 as a governance overlay. It works with agents built on any platform (Copilot Studio, Foundry, third-party, custom code) and adds the Agent Registry, Entra agent identity, Purview DLP for agents, and Defender runtime protection.

Pick an alternative platform — usually the next-best fit if the primary isn't chosen. Common pairings:

• Primary Copilot Studio → Alternative Foundry (if the team later needs deeper model control)
• Primary Agent Builder → Alternative Copilot Studio (natural upgrade path)
• Primary Foundry Agent Service → Alternative Copilot Studio (if pro-code team is unavailable)
• Primary Windows AI Foundry → Alternative Foundry (if a cloud fallback is acceptable)

Phase 3 — Technical complexity score

Score each sub-factor 0, 1, or 2. Sum for a score out of 10. Show the sub-scores in the output.

a) External integrations — how many systems must the agent read from or write to?

• 0–1 → 0
• 2–4 → 1
• 5 or more → 2

b) Code approach — how much custom code is required?

• Fully no-code → 0
• Low-code with some Power Fx / Power Automate → 1
• Pro-code with custom orchestration → 2

c) Orchestration complexity — how complex is the conversation and control flow?

• Single-turn Q&A → 0
• Multi-turn with topics and variables → 1
• Multi-step workflow, approvals, or multi-agent → 2

d) Model customization — how much do we deviate from the default model?

• Default Copilot orchestrator → 0
• Model choice from the Foundry catalog → 1
• Fine-tuning, custom model, or large-scale RAG → 2

e) Data pipeline — how complex is the knowledge grounding?

• Files in SharePoint/OneDrive only → 0
• Structured data via prebuilt connectors → 1
• Mixed sources, real-time data, or custom RAG pipeline → 2

Phase 4 — Risk score

Score each sub-factor 0, 1, or 2. Sum for a score out of 10. Show the sub-scores in the output.

a) Data sensitivity

• Public → 0
• Internal only → 1
• Confidential, PII, or regulated → 2

b) Autonomy level

• Every action reviewed by a human before it happens → 0
• Human-in-the-loop for critical steps only → 1
• Fully autonomous → 2

c) Blast radius — who is affected if the agent misbehaves?

• Personal or small team → 0
• Whole department or company → 1
• External customers or the public → 2

d) Team novelty — how new is this tech to the team?

• Team has shipped this pattern before → 0
• Familiar tech, new pattern → 1
• Entirely new tech and pattern → 2

e) Change management

• Users are already asking for this → 0
• Some user skepticism → 1
• Replaces a mission-critical existing process → 2

Phase 5 — Visualization

Produce both outputs.

5a. Inline Mermaid quadrant chart

Emit this Mermaid block in the response. Replace <X> with complexity/10 and <Y> with risk/10 as decimals between 0 and 1 (e.g., complexity 6 → 0.60).

quadrantChart
    title Effort profile — <PROJECT_NAME>
    x-axis "Low complexity" --> "High complexity"
    y-axis "Low risk" --> "High risk"
    quadrant-1 "Govern hard, ship fast"
    quadrant-2 "PoC → phased rollout, exec sponsor"
    quadrant-3 "Move fast, iterate"
    quadrant-4 "Invest in engineering, add evaluations"
    "<PROJECT_NAME>": [<X>, <Y>]

Quadrant meanings:

• Quadrant 3 — low complexity, low risk: Ship it. Pilot with one team, expand quickly.
• Quadrant 4 — high complexity, low risk: Invest in engineering but move confidently. Foundry with evaluations, clear ALM.
• Quadrant 1 — low complexity, high risk: Simple build, hard governance. Agent 365 blueprint + DLP from day one, tight approvals.
• Quadrant 2 — high complexity, high risk: PoC first, phased rollout, executive sponsor, dedicated ALM environments, evaluations before every release.

5b. Rendered PNG chart via code interpreter

If the code interpreter tool is available in the environment, run the bundled scripts/effort_profile_chart.py, passing the values from the interview as arguments:

python scripts/effort_profile_chart.py \
    --project-name "<project name from Q1>" \
    --complexity <0–10 integer, Phase 3 sum> \
    --risk <0–10 integer, Phase 4 sum>

It renders a 2×2 quadrant chart — the four quadrants labeled with planning guidance and the project plotted as a labeled orange point — and saves the image as effort_profile.png. Depends on matplotlib; runs headless. Run it with no arguments to produce a sample chart.

Channel rule (runtime): images created by code interpreter do NOT render in the Teams or Microsoft 365 Copilot channels — they render in the Copilot Studio test pane, the demo website, and custom web channels. When delivering to Teams or Microsoft 365 Copilot, rely on the Mermaid chart from step 5a instead of the PNG.

If code interpreter is not available, skip this step and rely on the Mermaid chart from step 5a alone. Do not fabricate a chart image.

Phase 6 — Final recommendation brief

Format the final response exactly like this template. Fill in every field from the interview.

---

Recommendation for {{PROJECT_NAME}}

Primary platform: {{PRIMARY_PLATFORM}} Why: {{2–3 sentences citing the specific answers that drove the choice}} Documentation: {{Microsoft Learn URL from the References section}}

Alternative platform: {{ALTERNATIVE_PLATFORM}} — {{one line on when to switch to it}}

Governance layer: {{Yes / No}} — {{one line on Agent 365 rationale}}

Effort profile

Technical complexity: {{COMPLEXITY}}/10

• External integrations: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Code approach: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Orchestration: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Model customization: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Data pipeline: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}

Risk: {{RISK}}/10

• Data sensitivity: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Autonomy: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Blast radius: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Team novelty: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}
• Change management: {{X}}/2 — {{one line}}

Effort profile chart

{{Mermaid quadrantChart block from Phase 5a}}

{{If code interpreter is available, also include the PNG rendered from Phase 5b immediately below the Mermaid block.}}

Planning guidance

Based on the quadrant, {{one paragraph tailored to the specific quadrant the point falls in — pull from the quadrant meanings in Phase 5a}}.

Suggested next 3 steps

1. {{Concrete first action, e.g., "Provision a Microsoft Foundry project and enable pay-as-you-go"}}
2. {{Concrete second action, e.g., "Build a 5-document RAG PoC before adding more knowledge sources"}}
3. {{Concrete third action, e.g., "Stand up an evaluations harness before the second knowledge source is added"}}

Licensing prerequisites

{{List only the ones the user does NOT already have based on Q12, with a one-line explanation of what each unlocks}}

---

References

Cite these Microsoft Learn URLs by pasting the relevant one under "Documentation" in the final brief.

• Choose between Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot/extensibility/copilot-studio-experience
• Microsoft 365 Copilot agents overview (declarative vs custom engine): https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot/extensibility/agents-overview
• What is Microsoft Foundry: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry/what-is-foundry
• What is Microsoft Foundry Agent Service (Prompt vs Hosted agents): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry/agents/overview
• Microsoft Agent 365 overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-agent-365/overview
• Microsoft Agent 365 SDK and CLI (for bringing external agents in via blueprint + Work IQ): https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-agent-365/developer/
• Windows AI Foundry / Microsoft Foundry on Windows: https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/ai/overview
• Cloud vs local AI decision guide: https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/ai/cloud-ai

Interaction guardrails

• If the user answers a question with "I don't know", offer 2–3 plain-language options and let them pick.
• If the user changes an earlier answer mid-interview, silently recompute and continue.
• If the user asks to skip the interview and just get a recommendation, ask for the minimum set — audience, data sources, actions, existing agent (Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5) — then infer the rest from context and flag assumptions in the brief.
• Never invent Microsoft product features that are not in the References section. If unsure, say so and cite Microsoft Learn.
• When the recommendation involves Agent 365, always clarify that Agent 365 is a governance/control plane, not a build tool — the user still builds the agent on Copilot Studio, Foundry, or another SDK.