Are you waiting on your manager to approve something? For many organisations, a major bottleneck remains the manual approval process, which isa series of repetitive, time-consuming tasks that can delay critical projects and drain employee productivity. That’s all about to change with AI Approvals in Microsoft Copilot Studio.

AI Approvals in Copilot Studio

Microsoft’s new AI approvals in Copilot Studio offers a transformative solution, introducing a new era of intelligent, automated decision-making.

This powerful capability is built into the platform’s multistage approval workflows, allowing AI to automatically evaluate requests and make approval or rejection decisions based on pre-defined business rules and criteria.

Unlike traditional rule-based systems, which can be rigid, AI approvals leverage advanced AI models to analyse unstructured data, interpret complex documents, and apply nuanced logic. This frees up employees from tedious, low-value work, allowing them to focus on more strategic, high-impact tasks.

Key Features and Benefits of AI Approvals

The integration of AI into approval workflows provides significant advantages:

  • Increased Speed and Efficiency: AI can process requests in seconds, 24/7, eliminating delays that often occur when waiting for human review. This is particularly valuable for time-sensitive tasks like invoice approvals, which can help organisations secure early-payment discounts and avoid late fees.
  • Reduced Human Error: By following pre-defined rules precisely, AI minimises the risk of human error in routine approvals. This ensures consistency and promotes better outcomes across the organisation.
  • Improved Employee Productivity: Automating repetitive decisions reduces the burden on teams, such as finance or HR, who can then reallocate their time to more strategic work, like forecasting or contract negotiation.
  • Enhanced Decision-Making: AI approvals integrate directly into existing workflows, allowing businesses to easily add automated decision points. The AI can evaluate requests, apply your specific rules, and provide a clear rationale for its decision, ensuring transparency and accountability.

How It Works

Implementing AI approvals in Microsoft Copilot Studio is designed to be user-friendly, allowing both technical and non-technical users to build sophisticated workflows. The process generally involves three simple steps:

  1. Define Your Decision Criteria: Provide clear instructions to the AI, such as “reject all expense reports over £500 without a manager’s pre-approval.”
  2. Provide Relevant Inputs: Supply the AI with the necessary data to make a decision, which can include documents, images, text, or organisational knowledge bases.
  3. Let AI Decide: The AI evaluates the request based on your instructions and inputs, returning an approve or reject decision with a clear explanation.

This process ensures that while the AI handles the bulk of the work, human oversight remains in place for critical decisions, maintaining a “human-in-the-loop” approach. This powerful blend of automation and human review is what makes AI approvals a game-changer for businesses looking to streamline their operations and accelerate growth.

Microsoft Copilot Studio with AI approvals is not just about automation; it’s about empowerment. It empowers employees to do more meaningful work, saves organisations countless hours and resources, and fosters a more agile and responsive business environment.

For any company looking to optimise its workflows and stay ahead in the digital age, embracing this new technology is a clear step forward. At Bridgeall we are Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio experts, we help organisations implement real change using low-code solutions to solve business challenges.