Introduction
Automation is no longer reserved for large industries. With Microsoft's Power Platform, and specifically Power Automate, any company can automate its digital workflows. The recent addition of AI features (AI Builder) multiplies these possibilities tenfold.
Power Automate: The Conductor
Power Automate allows connecting hundreds of applications (Microsoft 365, Dropbox, Twitter, SQL, etc.) together. A "flow" can be triggered by an event (receipt of an email, modification of a file) to execute a series of actions.
For example, when an email arrives with a specific subject in Outlook, Power Automate can automatically extract attachments, save them in SharePoint, create a task in Planner for the concerned team, and send a notification in Teams. All this without a single line of code.
The Contribution of AI with AI Builder
AI Builder is the artificial intelligence component of the Power Platform. It allows integrating AI models into your flows without writing code, making advanced capabilities accessible to business users.
Invoice processing is a great example. A flow retrieves invoices received by email, uses AI Builder to extract key information (number, amount, supplier, date, line items), validates this data against business rules, and automatically inserts it into your accounting software. What previously took 10 minutes of manual entry now happens in seconds with better accuracy.
Sentiment analysis allows automatically analyzing customer feedback or support tickets to detect dissatisfaction and alert a manager before the situation escalates. For a customer service team, this means proactively addressing problems rather than discovering them through escalations.
Image classification can automatically identify products or defects on photos taken by field technicians. A maintenance company can use this to automatically categorize equipment issues and route tickets to the right specialist team.
Document understanding goes beyond simple OCR. AI Builder can extract structured information from contracts, purchase orders, or identity documents, understanding context and relationships between fields. A legal department can automatically extract key clauses, dates, and parties from hundreds of contracts for compliance review.
Governance and Security
Adopting "low-code" requires strict governance to avoid "shadow IT". Power Automate offers powerful administration tools. DLP (Data Loss Prevention) Policies control which connectors can be used and by whom, ensuring that company data doesn't leak to unauthorized services. Administrators can prevent, for example, business data from being sent to personal Dropbox accounts while allowing corporate OneDrive.
Environment management enables separation between development, test, and production. This ensures new automations are thoroughly validated before affecting business processes. Detailed audit logs track every flow execution, crucial for compliance in regulated industries.
Connection management is centralized, so when an employee leaves, their personal credentials can be replaced by service accounts without breaking existing automations. This ensures business continuity and security.
Conclusion
Intelligent automation is a growth accelerator. By freeing your employees from administrative tasks, you give them back time for innovation and customer relations. The ROI is typically measured in weeks, not years, as manual processes costing hours daily become fully automated.
houle helps you identify eligible processes, prioritize based on impact and complexity, and build robust and sustainable automations. We ensure your Power Platform deployment follows best practices for scalability, maintainability, and governance, transforming automation from tactical wins into strategic capability.