Microsoft’s Copilot Managed Runtime is an enterprise-grade platform which seeks to solve a critical business challenge when it comes to app governance.
Creating an app has never been easier thanks to a growing number of AI-powered tools, which can generate them from a simple prompt. For personal projects, one of these tools may be all you need. For example, if you’re creating a reading tracker, governance and compliance may not be a big issue.
Business applications are different, because companies must consider how to safely govern and secure what could potentially become hundreds of AI-generated apps created by people who aren’t professional developers.
As soon as an app needs to access company data, interact with internal systems, or be used by multiple employees, the business must be able to demonstrate where it’s hosted, what data it can access, who can see the data and how it will be monitored. Then there’s the question of what happens when the app needs updating?
This is the challenge Microsoft is aiming to address with Copilot Managed Runtime, a Microsoft-hosted environment for running code created through Copilot Cowork, Copilot Studio and Copilot’s new Code function, all operating inside the Microsoft 365 tenant boundary.
While the runtime is already powering apps created with the above tools, Microsoft has just announced it’s now in public preview, and has introduced SDK support for third-party development tools, presenting an open, governed platform.
This means organisations can potentially apply the same governance, identity and management model to applications built inside and outside Microsoft’s own AI development experiences. The runtime is governed by IT and inherits all the usability expectations users have such as sharing, live data connections, and easy access to their apps.
INSIGHT
Copilot Code vs Copilot Studio
Understandably, all these names can get a bit confusing, especially when new announcements are coming thick and fast. You can read more about Microsoft’s ‘vibe coding’ app building announcement in our blog here, but since that was published, Microsoft has introduced a new ‘Code’ experience inside Copilot.
Governance model
Microsoft Entra identity provides authorised access, while companies can set which connectors, data, and endpoints apps can use. Developers can benefit from Git-based version control and lifecycle management tools, plus a centralised inventory in the new ‘Apps’ experience in the Microsoft 365 admin centre to review access, usage, health, and policy. IT gets one management model rather than a varied approach for every app-building tool.
David Blyth, Vice President and General Manager, Managed Apps and Agents at Microsoft, said: “Central governance should not require centralised creation. Builders can continue to work in the right experience that fits their job. IT gets a common operating layer for deployment, security, monitoring, and lifecycle management. That separation of open build and managed run is what makes it possible to scale app innovation without scaling operational risk at the same rate.”
Support for apps made with third-party tools
Microsoft has also introduced a Copilot Managed Runtime SDK and CLI, enabling apps created in external development environments to be deployed into the same managed runtime used by Copilot-created applications. Microsoft gave AI-powered app builder Lovable as an example of a tool whose apps can run within a Microsoft tenant using the same sign-in, policies and app inventory model.
In an article announcing the news, Lan Roche, Head of Global Partnerships at Lovable, said: “With the Copilot Managed Runtime SDK, an app made with Lovable can now run inside your Microsoft tenant, the same way everything else does: same sign-in, same policies, same app inventory.”
The SDK acts as a connective layer between code created and the Copilot Managed Runtime host. Developers can run and preview applications during development, then deploy and version them. At runtime, SDK APIs provide a secure bridge between the application and services exposed through the host.
Copilot Managed Runtime is now in preview and will also be accessible inside Code in Copilot.