Buying Microsoft gives you several ways to build and use AI.
Your agent still needs access to the exact records and actions the workflow requires, including those in a legacy billing system or an internal app.
Copilot brings AI into employees' work. Copilot Studio builds agents and workflows. Microsoft Foundry gives developers a platform for AI applications. Fabric handles data and analytics. Monarch discovers how your connected systems work, makes verified operations available to agents, and orchestrates complex workflows across them. Coverage follows the connected account's permissions and what discovery verifies.
If your Microsoft setup already completes the workflow, there may be little reason to add another platform. Monarch becomes useful when the remaining work is teaching agents how your particular applications function and keeping that access usable.
Start with the part of the stack you actually need
“We already have Microsoft” can mean employees have Copilot, developers use Azure, or a data team runs Fabric. Those investments solve different problems.
| Product | Main role | Where it fits in a business workflow |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | AI assistance in the employee's work environment | Help people use work content, draft material, analyze information, and access agents |
| Copilot Studio | Build and manage agents and workflows | Define tasks, connect tools and knowledge, and publish an agent where people work |
| Microsoft Foundry | Develop and operate AI applications | Choose models, build agents, evaluate behavior, and manage application infrastructure |
| Microsoft Fabric | Data integration and analytics | Prepare and govern data, analyze it, and deliver reports or conversational insights |
| Monarch | Discover applications and orchestrate workflows | Map verified operations, then run cross-system agentic workflows with your rules and approvals |
These roles overlap. A useful evaluation follows the workflow through them instead of treating every Microsoft product as a separate alternative to Monarch.
Copilot is the employee experience
Microsoft 365 Copilot supports work inside applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. Work-data grounding and integration depth depend on the license and tenant configuration. Copilot Chat and the full work-grounded experience should therefore be evaluated separately. Microsoft's Copilot overview explains those distinctions.
For a team that needs help preparing documents, understanding conversations, or analyzing a spreadsheet, this is a sensible place to start. It puts AI where employees already spend their day.
A task that also changes a record in a custom application needs an action path to that application. The employee experience alone doesn't establish whether that particular operation is available.
Copilot Studio builds the agent and workflow
Copilot Studio provides low-code tools for building agents and workflows, connecting organizational systems, and publishing to channels including Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. It supports prebuilt and custom connectors. Microsoft's Studio overview describes the authoring and management model.
Microsoft also offers computer use in Copilot Studio. An agent can interact with websites and desktop applications on a configured Windows computer, including tasks without a direct API connection.
That matters for this comparison. Microsoft has ways to reach beyond standard connectors. Your decision depends on which path works for the application, how much setup it needs, and what your team must maintain as the process changes.
Foundry gives developers control of the AI application
Microsoft Foundry, previously Azure AI Foundry, brings models, agents, and tools together with evaluation, tracing, and monitoring. It supports portal-based development and code through SDKs. Microsoft's Foundry overview lays out the platform.
Foundry fits a team building a custom AI application with engineering ownership. That team can choose how the application reasons, which tools it calls, and how it is tested and deployed.
Application access remains part of that design. A developer still needs a usable operation for the specific customer object, approval state, or billing adjustment the agent must handle. Monarch's application mapping is relevant to that part of the project.
Fabric handles the data side
Fabric combines data ingestion, transformation, storage, analytics, and reporting around OneLake. Its broader platform also includes real-time actions and the Fabric IQ preview. Microsoft's Fabric overview describes the workloads.
A Fabric data agent provides conversational access to configured data sources and enforces read-only connections. That specific component helps answer questions about data; other components are needed to carry out an update in an operational application.
For buyers, the distinction is concrete: finding a billing discrepancy and correcting the source record involve different access requirements.
What Monarch adds to a Microsoft estate
The Product Graph maps how an application can be used: its APIs, undocumented endpoints, schemas, UI paths, permissions, and business rules. Monarch turns discovered and verified routes into reusable actions agents can call.
This is especially relevant to internal applications and customized systems where the operation your team needs may sit outside a standard connector's exposed actions. A public API can be part of the route. An internal endpoint or a behind-login path may also matter.
The scope is specific to the connected account and what discovery captures and verifies. The Product Graph gives the next workflow application knowledge it can reuse, including prerequisites and completion checks. It also supports maintaining that knowledge as application behavior changes.
That changes the evaluation from counting connectors to examining the operations available in your environment. Compare the work needed to discover, validate, and maintain those operations against the Microsoft route you would otherwise build.
Keep Microsoft and expand the work agents can do
Discovery makes more of the business available for agentic work. An enterprise may have its sales data connected while the billing adjustments, internal approvals, and legacy operations are still understood mainly by the people using them. Monarch expands that map, then uses the verified operations to run complex agentic workflows across those systems.
You can retain Azure, Foundry, and Fabric in that design. Azure provides the cloud environment; Foundry can supply models and agent services; Fabric can continue to handle the data work. Monarch discovers and maintains operational access and orchestrates the steps that put it to use. Agree the interfaces, identities, and ownership of each handoff for the selected deployment.
| Build stage | What Monarch adds | What your team establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Map another product | Discover its accessible records, operations, and dependencies, typically in hours | Approved access and the scope to verify |
| Create another workflow | Use inference over the existing application map to build a new sequence, often in minutes | The intended outcome, policy, and approval rules |
| Put the workflow into operation | Coordinate verified actions and maintain the paths as products change | Acceptance tests, exception ownership, and release approval |
Those timings concern mapping and workflow creation. Application complexity, access preparation, and testing affect the full delivery schedule. A useful second workflow might reuse the billing map to investigate a different exception, with its own decision rules and completion checks.
Reusable workflow patterns can bring established practices into that design, such as matching records before acting and verifying the result afterwards. Your team adapts them to its own business. The map provides application understanding; people remain responsible for what the business should do.
Walk through a billing exception
Consider an illustrative workflow: find accounts billed at an outdated contract rate, check whether an exception was approved in an internal portal, and prepare a correction for review in the billing system.
Today, an operator might export three lists and reconcile them in Excel. The spreadsheet contains the analysis, while the employee supplies the application knowledge: which account identifier matches, where exceptions live, and when an adjustment is allowed.
| Workflow step | Microsoft route to evaluate | Where Monarch can add value |
|---|---|---|
| Identify candidate discrepancies | Fabric analysis or an existing reporting process | Discover access to required source records where coverage is difficult |
| Inspect the internal exception portal | A Studio connector, custom tool, or computer-use task | Map the portal's available records, states, and verified action routes |
| Prepare a billing correction | A configured workflow with the required billing operation | Reuse discovered fields, prerequisites, and permitted actions |
| Review and verify the outcome | The approval process and application checks your team configures | Use mapped completion checks to establish the resulting application state |
The table describes design options. The actual implementation needs to prove each handoff and each application operation in your environment.
Start with one account and one exception type. Confirm the record match, the permission boundary, the approval decision, and the resulting state. Then change a relevant field or workflow condition and see how each approach handles it.
Our guide to permission-aware enterprise agents covers why identity and action scope belong in that first test.
Make the decision around the work still left
Stay with your Microsoft implementation when the necessary actions are covered, your team can operate the workflow, and extending it is straightforward. Existing platform knowledge and governance processes have real value.
Evaluate Monarch when application discovery and maintenance consume the effort: legacy systems, internal portals, custom objects, or several applications whose rules must be understood together. The case for adding it should be visible in the verified access and reusable application knowledge the pilot produces.
Keep a named owner for the resulting process. Workflow ownership after the pilot includes the practical questions about changes, exceptions, and support that a successful demonstration can leave unanswered.
Bring Monarch one workflow that still requires someone to move between systems. Map the required records and actions, then compare the implementation and maintenance work with your Microsoft plan.
Frequently asked questions
Can we keep Microsoft and use Monarch?
Yes. Azure, Foundry, and Fabric can remain part of the design while Monarch supplies application discovery, maintained access, and cross-system workflow orchestration. Agree and validate the interfaces, identities, and responsibilities for the selected deployment.
Is Monarch a replacement for Copilot Studio or Foundry?
The platforms can overlap in agent and workflow responsibilities. Studio and Foundry provide agent-building environments; Monarch combines discovery of business applications with the orchestration of work across them. Choose which platform owns each process and retain the services that already meet your needs.
Does a Fabric data agent remove the need for application actions?
A Fabric data agent answers questions through read-only data connections. Correcting a record in a billing or other operational system requires a separate action path, whether implemented with Microsoft tools, Monarch, or another integration.