The AI Recorder leverages cutting-edge Generative AI to interpret voice, mouse movements, and screen sharing to create a desktop flow. It's like having a digital assistant that understands your process and automates it for you, making it an invaluable tool for any user looking to build automations.

Before this feature, sometimes when you asked Copilot a question, it provided a hallucinated answer. For example, when you asked how to write an expression, Copilot might have provided an answer with a function that doesn't exist. With this feature, Copilot answers your questions with improved accuracy, leveraging better documentation grounding methods.

To do so from Power Automate for desktop, open the console, navigate to the My flows tab, and locate the flow that you want to create a description. Then, go to flow properties and under the general flow properties tab, press the Let Copilot create description button. Copilot will then analyze your flow and generate the flow description.

You can also generate a flow description from the portal. To do so, locate the desktop flow that you want to create the description for and press on the details item from the flow menu. Then, press on the edit button in the details section of the flow and finally select the Let Copilot create description button.

Prior to this feature, sometimes when you chat with Copilot in the designer, Copilot misinterprets your intent. For example, when you ask a question, Copilot shouldn't update your flow. With this feature, you get improved accuracy for Copilot to understand your question and intent.

The following list includes more benefits:

• You get a ChatGPT-parity chat experience in cloud flow Copilot. You can have a real conversation with more proactive follow-ups. Copilot can explain things to you in much more detail, with step-by-step guidance.
• You get a ChatGPT-parity quality on Q&A answers provided by Copilot.
• Copilot has a deep understanding of flow details. For example, it understands your parameters' values when you ask it questions.
• Copilot can suggest flow optimization and best practices to you.
• Copilot supports adding scope and parallel branches to your flow.

This feature is automatically turned on for makers with access to Copilot.

You don't need to know technical aspects to use this feature. When you want to add an action at a certain place, you see an option to describe to inline Copilot what actions you want in natural language. Then, inline Copilot creates these actions for you automatically.

Without contextual Copilot, you must describe to Copilot where exactly you want those new steps being added to in the chat window, which can be very time consuming.

With Copilot's generative answers functionality, you can easily find the information you need to create and manage your flows and any other aspect of Power Automate for desktop. The generative answers are integrated into the Power Automate for desktop UI in both the console and the designer, making it easy to access and use. Just type your question in natural language, and Copilot provides you with the most relevant information from our documentation. To use it, select the copilot icon in the console or designer UI and start getting answers to your questions.

Prior to this feature, you were given a flow recommendation by Copilot after you described what you wanted. You had to either accept it or update your query to regenerate. With this feature, you don't need to update your query. Instead, you can select Regenerate to force a new variation to be generated. You can choose from different variations to select the one you like the best.

This feature is automatically turned on for makers who have access to Copilot.

You don't need to know technical aspects to use this feature. You see the auto-generated summary at the top of the page. You can expand it to read more details or select the download button to download it as a PDF file.

This feature saves you time by automatically creating flow documentation for members without access to the flow. Also, other members might not know how to read a raw flow definition.

The next best action suggestion feature has been designed to streamline the automation process, making it easier for you to create and automate workflows without requiring extensive flow creation knowledge.

With this new addition, you will be able to create more complex workflows with ease. The feature will suggest the next action that makes sense based on the context of the current workflow and the actions that have already been added.

Natural language to Code is a new AI capability that we are adding in Power Automate for desktop that allows you to quickly generate code that is used in the scripting actions by just describing it. This feature is available in the "Run PowerShell," "Run VBScript," "Run DOS command," "Run Python," and "Run JavaScript" actions. You can simply describe what you want to achieve, and the tool will generate the script for you. This feature makes it easy for users who are not familiar with scripting languages to automate their tasks.

Troubleshooting Copilot can assist users with a new feature that can rectify errors in your cloud flow. These corrections are based on issues that arise during authoring and debugging and can be implemented to amend your flow within the Power Automate designer.

Administrators, CoE teams, business users and makers with access to flow run histories can query past runs in natural language across their environment. They can ask, for example, how many flows ran yesterday, on which machines or groups, what did the success rate look like, and how do they compare to last month. Ask questions about recent runs, their durations, volumes, failures, failure frequency, machines, machine groups, parent flows and much more.

This feature allows you to use natural language to create a flow from scratch when the Workflows app in Teams doesn't have a template that supports your specific scenario. It uses AI to generate and suggest a flow based on your input. You can edit your prompt to generate a new flow suggestion if needed. Use this feature to take the guesswork out of creating a flow from scratch when you don't know where to start.

The automation center is available in the Power Automate portal and offers a comprehensive automation monitoring experience infused with the power of AI.

Copilot can answer cloud flow run history questions like:

• How many runs last month were triggered by another cloud flow?
• Who initiated flow runs during the last month?
• How many flows failed yesterday?

Copilot in the automation center delivers a versatile experience, allowing you to inquire about cloud flow and desktop flow activities, manage work queues, and explore various Power Automate features.

Copilot can answer questions such as:

• Which flows had the highest run count last week?
• What are yesterday's top five flows based on completed runs?
• How are flow run statuses distributed?

Copilot in the automation center offers a versatile experience, allowing you to inquire about cloud flows, desktop flows, work queues, and other Power Automate features.

Copilot can answer work queue-related questions such as:

• How many items are on hold?
• How many items are at risk of breaching SLA?
• What is the average handling time per processor and queue?

The automation center in the Power Automate portal delivers a comprehensive monitoring experience enhanced by AI. Copilot within the Automation Center allows users to inquire about cloud flows, desktop flow activities, work queues, and various Power Automate features.

Copilot can assist with questions such as:

• How do I add a condition in Power Automate Desktop?
• Can cloud flows manage approvals and decision-making processes?
• Where are deleted flows located in Power Automate?

The Shadow DOM support in Power Automate for desktop introduces advanced functionality to handle encapsulated DOM structures effectively. Key features include:

• Enhanced element detection: Accurately locate and interact with elements within shadow roots using advanced selectors.
• Dynamic Shadow DOM handling: Automate dynamic or runtime-generated Shadow DOM components without interruptions.
• Nested Shadow DOM support: Traverse and interact with deeply nested shadow trees.
• Cross-domain iframe compatibility: Handle Shadow DOM elements embedded in cross-origin iframes for seamless automation.
• Recorder and playback updates: Effortlessly capture interactions inside Shadow DOMs and replay them accurately.

Record with Copilot in Power Automate for desktop allows you to build desktop automations by sharing your screen and describing the task you want to automate—just as if you were explaining it to someone. During the recording, record with Copilot captures your voice, mouse, and keyboard inputs. It then processes and converts these inputs into a desktop flow that you can review, edit, and save before running. This makes automation accessible to everyone, regardless of technical expertise, and significantly speeds up the process of creating desktop flows.

VM (virtual machine) image capture allows you to reuse the custom VM image for provisioning other hosted machines or hosted machine groups. It performs the following:

• Snapshot: Point-in-time capture of the VM's disk.
• Generalization: Removes machine and user specific information from the VM so that it can be reused.
• Storage in your Azure Compute Gallery: Allows the VM image to be stored and usable by Power Automate services.

Work queues in Power Automate can play a crucial role in improving the efficiency, scalability, and resiliency of automation and help prioritize work.

This is how you can configure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for work queues:

• Type of SLA
  • Time to live (TTL)
  • Business hours
• SLA engine
  • Prioritize work queue items that are nearest to the SLA deadline.
  • Identify work queue items at risk.
  • Monitor the state of SLAs for work queues.

This feature provides support for joining hosted machine group bots to both on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID when using custom virtual networks (VNETs).

• A custom virtual network (VNET) is configured using Azure Virtual Network. Access to the domain controller is required from the custom VNET.
  • A custom VNET allows you to access on-premises resources when running your automation.
• Microsoft Entra hybrid join is configured as part of Power Automate network connection setup.
  • Microsoft Entra hybrid allows your hosted machine group bots to enroll in both your on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID.

Users can now seamlessly integrate a hosted machine group (HMG) with their own VNet. This integration enables users to run desktop flows and execute RPA jobs that require access to on-premises networks. By leveraging their own VNet, users can ensure secure and reliable connectivity between the hosted machines and the on-premises networks.

Copilot in Power Automate for desktop offers an interface that simplifies the automation creation process. With natural language and Power Fx syntax capabilities, you can create desktop flows by providing instructions in natural English language or using Power Fx syntax. This eliminates the need for algorithmic or pseudocode knowledge. With Copilot, you can generate automations with ease, saving valuable time and resources.

The new Copilot side panel feature in Power Automate for desktop enhances user experience by providing detailed explanations of automation flows and subflows. Users can easily navigate to the Copilot side panel, select the appropriate skill from the skill picker, and ask questions like "What does the subflow do?" or "What do actions from 3-12 do?". This feature delivers clear insights into automation processes, streamlining troubleshooting and maintenance of complex automation. This empowers teams to quickly identify and resolve issues, ensuring consistent operational efficiency and SLA compliance.

In the Power Automate for desktop console, you can switch between the default color mode and dark mode. This setting allows the console and flow designer to use a dark theme based on your preference. The functionality is available in the console settings.

Endpoint filtering in Power Automate for desktop offers an added layer of control and security for your automation tasks. As an admin, apply endpoint filtering using the existing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) feature in Power Automate. Create an allow list of applications and websites that your automation scripts can interact with, or a deny list of those that should be restricted.

This feature targets UI and Browser automation actions, ensuring that your automation adheres to your organization's policies. Endpoint filtering is checked the same way DLP policies are currently verified in Power Automate for desktop. Leverage endpoint filtering to tightly manage which endpoints are accessible, enhancing the precision and security of your automation workflows.

• Desktop flows have versions. Each time you open a flow, you can make changes and save drafts until you decide to publish it.
• Version history in the flow designer for Power Automate desktop shows who made the changes and when.
• Compare changes between the current version and a previous version or between any two versions you select.
• In the console for Power Automate desktop, the context menu has a version history option. This shows version information in the properties window of the desktop flow.
• Some of this functionality will also be available in the portal.

You can now share desktop flows containing connection references with co-owners. This feature introduces embedded connection references in desktop flows. On the details page of desktop flows, you can choose which connection references to embed. This provides enhanced control over what you share with co-owners and ensures seamless execution.

The following connectors are now directly available in Power Automate for desktop flows, in addition to those previously available:

• Adobe Acrobat Sign
• Asana
• Azure Container Instance
• Azure Data Explorer
• Azure Data Factory
• Azure DevOps
• Azure Monitor Logs
• Azure Resource Manager
• Azure VM
• Box
• Content Conversion
• Docusign
• Dropbox
• Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
• Dynamics 365 Customer Voice
• Excel Online (OneDrive)
• Fin & Ops Apps (Dynamics 365)
• GitHub
• Google Calendar
• Google Drive
• Google Sheets
• Google Tasks
• Microsoft 365 message center
• Microsoft Bookings
• Microsoft Entra ID
• Microsoft To-Do (Business)
• MSN Weather
• Office 365 Groups
• Office 365 Groups Mail
• Office 365 Users
• Outlook.com
• Planner
• Power Apps for Admins
• Power Apps for Makers
• Power Automate for Admins
• Power Automate Management
• Power BI
• Power Platform for Admins
• Power Query Dataflows
• Project Online
• Project Roadmap
• Salesforce
• Shifts for Microsoft Teams
• Smartsheet
• Trello
• Viva Engage
• Webex
• X

The upcoming phase aims to unlock all connectors for direct use within desktop flows. This enhancement reduces logical loops, minimizes flow creation time, and ensures all action capabilities are fully supported for Power Platform connectors.

Power Fx is a low-code language for expressing logic across Microsoft Power Platform. It's a general-purpose, strong-typed, declarative, and functional programming language expressed in human-friendly text. Makers can use Power Fx directly in an Excel-like formula bar or Visual Studio Code text window. Its concise and simple nature makes common programming tasks easy for both makers and developers.

With top-level automation monitoring, you can gain an end-to-end view of your automation status. The dedicated work queue monitoring area allows you to closely track SLA attainment, average processing time, and work queue throughout.

The automation center includes a multi-skilled copilot enabling users to ask questions about cloud flow and desktop flow activity, work queues, and features of Power Automate.

The optimize desktop flows with intelligent insights and recommendations feature in Power Automate for desktop is designed to provide users with proactive, intelligent recommendations during the creation of desktop flows. This feature leverages historical flow data, usage patterns, runtime performance, error profiles, and established best practices to offer tailored, context-sensitive insights that can significantly enhance the efficiency and reliability of your automations.

In the Error Avoidance category, this feature helps prevent run-time errors by alerting users to potential issues before they occur. For example, it can warn of data loss prevention (DLP) policy violations that could cause a flow to fail, and it offers workarounds where possible. It also identifies elements that violate flow checker policies and suggests automatic remediations. Furthermore, it detects previous selector failures and self-healing events, recommending users to review or remediate these selectors accordingly. This feature also highlights potential flow timeouts by analyzing past run history, and it offers code-scanning recommendations to avoid pitfalls like infinite loops or uninitialized instances.

In the Error Remediation category, this feature assists in fixing design-time errors that might otherwise go unnoticed. It provides suggestions to complete any missing action properties, including variables, and helps correct syntax errors in Robin or Power Fx. This guidance ensures that flows are logically sound and free from common errors, making the development process smoother and more efficient.

The Code Optimization category focuses on improving the performance and maintainability of desktop flows. This feature suggests more performant or understandable actions, identifies logical shortcomings, and proposes possible solutions. It recommends wrapping actions in try & catch blocks to handle exceptions gracefully. It adds comments or regions for better readability, and breaks large subflows into smaller, more manageable units. These optimizations enhance flow performance and make the code easier to understand and maintain. The AI-powered Copilot facilitates these improvements by providing clear remediation steps and linking to relevant documentation. This empowers you to implement best practices with ease and confidence.

In desktop flows, the 'Run desktop flow' action now includes a new toggle property that lets you set the child desktop flow to run in parallel. Existing actions in past flows aren't affected, as the toggle defaults to running the child flow in sequence.

Only one parallel run is allowed. If a second child flow is set to run in parallel, an error occurs, and any potential outputs of the child flow are ignored.

A new action named "Get Credential" in Power Automate for the desktop will allow you to securely retrieve and utilize credentials directly within your desktop flows. During the preview phase, this action will support credentials created via CyberArk, accessible within the specified section of the Power Automate portal. This feature ensures that credentials are handled securely, aligning with best practices for data protection.

Once allowed by users, the feature uses AI to locate elements on the screen at the execution time. The repaired selector is used in future executions. Plus, it's optional and can be disabled if you prefer.

• Self-healing refers to the case that a UI element cannot be found at the execution time.
• Self-healing can be applied only for UI and web automation scenarios, and subsequently for Desktop and web UI elements.
• With self-healing, Power Automate for desktop can detect UI elements on the screen.
• When a UI element and its selector are retrieved, the user must confirm to heal and save.
• This feature can be disabled by the user.

The resolution setting for unattended runs in Power Automate for desktop allows you to configure screen resolution and DPI settings directly within each flow's properties. Define and apply precise resolution settings that match your automation's requirements.

Key Capabilities:

• Per-flow configuration: Set specific resolution and DPI preferences at the automation level, ensuring compatibility regardless of the machine executing the task.
• User-Friendly interface: Access resolution and DPI settings through an intuitive interface, reducing the complexity of traditional configuration methods.
• Persistent settings: These configurations persist through software updates and across machines, eliminating the need for repetitive adjustments.

This feature allows you to share desktop flow connections with a Pipeline SPN, which is essential for customers using pipelines.

1. Create desktop flow connections with a service principal as the run owner (by default, the run owner is the connection owner).
2. Share the connection with the pipeline SPN.
3. The pipeline exports the solution as the owner of all records of the managed solution.
4. The Pipeline SPN imports the solution into the production environment, maintaining the mapping between connection reference and connection ID.