Microsoft Virtual Agent
Power Virtual Agents
Microsoft Virtual Agents
Virtual agents are chatbots that can live on your website and interact with your visitors. Chatbots – also known as “conversational agents” – are applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating a conversation or interaction with a real person.
Power Virtual Agents lets you create powerful chatbots that can answer questions posed by your customers, other employees, or visitors to your website or service.
These bots can be created easily without the need for data scientists or developers. Some of the ways that Power Virtual Agents bots have been used include:
- COVID-19 infection rate and tracking information
- Sales help and support issues
- Opening hours and store information
- Employee health and vacation benefits
- Common employee questions for businesses
Power Virtual Agents is available as both a standalone web app, and as a discrete app within Microsoft Teams. Most of the functionality between the two is the same. However, there might be different reasons to choose one version or the other based on the ways you want to use Power Virtual Agents.
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Power Virtual Agents version |
Use cases |
More information |
Web app at https://web.powerva.microsoft.com |
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Microsoft Teams app |
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Important information
Microsoft Power Virtual Agents (1) is not intended or made available as a medical device for the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease, or otherwise to be used as a component of any clinical offering or product, and no license or right is granted to use Microsoft Power Virtual Agents for such purposes, (2) is not designed or intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or judgment and should not be used as a substitute for, or to replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or judgment, and (3) should not be used for emergencies and does not support emergency calls. Any chatbot you create using Microsoft Power Virtual Agents is your own product or service, separate and apart from Microsoft Power Virtual Agents. You are solely responsible for the design, development, and implementation of your chatbot (including incorporation of it into any product or service intended for medical or clinical use) and for explicitly providing end users with appropriate warnings and disclaimers pertaining to use of your chatbot. You are solely responsible for any personal injury or death that may occur as a result of your chatbot or your use of Microsoft Power Virtual Agents in connection with your chatbot, including (without limitation) any such injuries to end users.
Helpful links
There are limitations with the Power Virtual Agents for Microsoft Teams. Unless you upgrade to a full Power Virtual Agents subscription you will not be able to:
- Deploy chatbots to a specific Channel or specific Team.
- Utilize premium connectors in Power Automate
- Access and Update the source code for the bot using the Bot Framework
You can find out more about licensing for Power Virtual Agents at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-virtual-agents/requirements-licensing-subscriptions
Don’t let this dissuade you though! Even with these limitations, users can build exceptionally powerful chatbots with little to no effort with an intuitive interface. Using Power Virtual Agents for Microsoft Teams users can:
- Create and deploy bots to the left rail in Teams that other users in your organization can take advantage of
- Use Power Automate flows to connect to other systems, send emails, and perform other business logic
- Create bots that prompt users with follow up questions, use conditional logic, and help guide the user to perform their tasks
- Review and analyze the performance of the bot, such as what questions are being asked the most, and how effective the bot is at understanding and answering questions