Introducing the Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT
With the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI-powered chatbots have captured the world’s imagination. They enable users to gain knowledge, understand nuances around complex topics, and be creative using a simple chat interface. We at Power Automate have been very excited about this experience since it aligns so directly with Power Automate’s goal of enabling everyone to benefit from the power of automation.
Today, we’re excited to announce a preview of a dedicated plugin for ChatGPT that lets users leverage the automation capabilities of Power Automate, directly from the ChatGPT experience!
What is the Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT?
Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT enables users to create, list and run flows from ChatGPT. It leverages Power Automate’s natural language to flow authoring experience to help users create flows directly from ChatGPT. In addition, we’re excited to announce the brand new “Skills Connector” and “Run a flow from Copilot trigger” that lets you discover and invoke flows from the ChatGPT interface.
The plugin always ensures that you can review the created flow, or which flow was selected to be run before it is executed. This human-in-the-loop oversight is critical to help users benefit from the power of generative AI responsibly.
Enabling makers to author no-code skills for ChatGPT
With the new Copilot trigger, makers can create custom flows that can then be invoked directly from within ChatGPT, effectively enabling them to increase ChatGPT’s capabilities without writing any code. Now any maker can write flows that use the power of 1000+ connectors, together with desktop automation, and AI-based intelligent automation, and invoke them from the familiar ChatGPT experience. Or they can combine this plugin with other plugins to build even more transformative experiences.
ChatGPT is the first chat-based Large Language Model (LLM) experience that uses this new integration, and we look forward to hearing your feedback for other such integrations that could help you and your organizations combine the value of automation with power of chat-based experiences as well.
Getting Started with the Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT
The Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT is available for all ChatGPT Plus users. Once you have a Power Automate account and a ChatGPT Plus account, follow these steps:
- Log in to your ChatGPT account and go to the Plugins section
- Find and install the Power Automate plugin
- Log in to your Power Automate account and authorize the plugin
That’s it, you’re all set!
Now you can start conversing with ChatGPT, using a prompt such as “Create a flow to post a notification to a Teams channel when a new file is added to a SharePoint folder”.
You can also use prompts such as “Show my flows” or “What are all my flows” to see a list of flows ChatGPT knows about. Only flows that use the new trigger are exposed to ChatGPT.
Create and run your first Flow from ChatGPT
The Power Automate Plugin for ChatGPT can also be used to run flows. Any flow that has the “Run a flow from Copilot” trigger can be invoked from within ChatGPT. We also refer to these Flows as “Skills”. Follow the steps below to author your first Flow-based skill:
- Login to the Power Automate portal, and use the Default environment
- Select Create on the left side menu
- Choose “Instant cloud flow”
- Choose “Run a flow from Copilot” as the trigger
- Add any inputs to the trigger that you want to collect as part of the run. For example, if your flow will perform an approval, what’s the Title, Description, etc.
- Add any actions to the flow, based on what you want the flow to do. All the power of Power Automate is at your disposal! For example, to just create an approval, just add that action to the flow
- Save the flow with a name that signifies what the flow does Ex: “Create an approval”
- Test the flow to ensure it does what you’ve intended using the Test or Run Flow option
You can run this flow from ChatGPT with prompts relevant to the title and description of your flows, for example “Create an approval” or “Start an approval”. ChatGPT will reply with a link to run the flow where you’ll be able to enter and review any inputs to the flow before submitting the flow run.
You can learn more about the Power Automate plugin and the Skills connector in our documentation page. We look forward to getting your feedback at powerautomateplugin@microsoft.com and to seeing what you build!
Happy Automating!