Microsoft Copilot now lets marketers build their own apps and dashboards

Microsoft is adding a new Code workspace to Copilot that could make it considerably easier for marketing teams to build their own small tools.

Users will be able to describe an app, dashboard, tracker, automation or workflow in natural language and have Copilot build it. Microsoft says Code uses the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, but is designed to make software creation accessible beyond developers.

For marketers, the obvious use cases include internal reporting dashboards, campaign trackers and small workflow tools.

An agency, for example, could potentially create a dashboard around recurring client data without first commissioning a standalone application. Microsoft specifically lists interactive dashboards, desktop widgets and cloud-hosted internal apps among the things Code can produce.

The company has also introduced Copilot Managed Runtime, which provides hosting for applications built through Code, Cowork and Copilot Studio inside an organization’s Microsoft 365 environment.

That matters because generating code is only part of the problem. Internal tools also need somewhere to run, access to company data and controls over who can use them.

Code runs software in a sandboxed environment and Microsoft says applications can be hosted inside a customer’s tenant.

Copilot is becoming more than chat

Code is part of a larger redesign of Microsoft Copilot.

The new Copilot is organized around Home, Code and Autopilot. Home combines Chat and Microsoft’s Cowork system, while Autopilot is a persistent agent that can continue carrying out assigned work without waiting for another prompt. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are also being brought directly into Copilot.

Microsoft is also changing how some of this work is charged.

Normal Copilot tasks such as chat, summaries and drafting remain covered by user subscription licenses. More compute-intensive features including Cowork, Code and Autopilot use usage-based billing. Microsoft is adding controls that allow organizations and individual users to track that spending.

Home and Code are beginning their rollout through Microsoft’s Frontier early-access program, with broader availability following. Autopilot is moving into private preview at the end of September.

Our take

The interesting part for marketers is not that Copilot can write code. AI coding tools have been doing that for some time.

It is that Microsoft is trying to turn small internal software into something an ordinary employee can create, host and share from the same environment where they already work.

For agencies, that raises an interesting question: how many reporting dashboards, campaign trackers and small marketing tools still need to be bought as separate software?

We would want to test Code before answering that. Building a dashboard from a prompt is one thing. Making sure its calculations are correct, maintainable and cheaper than the tool it replaces is another.