Custom AI Copilot Development on the Microsoft Stack
Quick Answer
i3solutions builds custom AI copilots on the Microsoft stack: Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Search for retrieval-augmented generation inside your tenant, Microsoft Copilot Studio for agents that act in your systems, Teams and Microsoft 365 as the surface, and SharePoint or Dataverse as governed knowledge sources that honor the signed-in user’s Entra ID permissions. Senior, U.S.-based teams; Microsoft Partner; 1,500+ Microsoft platform implementations, including AI platforms delivered inside Department of Defense environments.
What We Build
Custom copilots and agents. Agent logic, custom skills, prompt design, and knowledge integration in Microsoft Copilot Studio, taken from prototype to production through dev, test, and production environments promoted via Managed Environments rather than living in a maker’s sandbox.
Retrieval-augmented generation in your tenant. RAG built on Azure OpenAI with Azure AI Search, with your data kept inside your tenant, retrieval filtered by Entra ID group membership, citations returned with every answer, and answers that refuse when no grounded source exists.
Domain-specific agents. Personas, knowledge ingestion from documents and SOPs, and guardrails tuned to the workflows the agent serves, with human-in-the-loop checkpoints on any step that writes or sends.
Systems integration. Connectors into CRM, ERP, HRIS, and ITSM platforms with on-behalf-of authentication through Entra ID, so the copilot acts as the signed-in user and never as an over-privileged service account.
Governed by Construction, Not by Promise
The governance is the differentiator, because it is the part a generic AI shop cannot retrofit. SharePoint and Dataverse knowledge sources honor the signed-in user’s Entra ID permissions on the underlying records, while a public website source honors nothing, and an architecture has to respect that difference. Connectors run least-privilege, scoped by role. A Power Platform DLP policy is in place before the first agent ships, not after the first incident. Every prompt and response is captured in Microsoft Purview, with alerting through Microsoft Sentinel. Sensitivity labels on knowledge sources are honored at retrieval time. Azure AI Content Safety filters the generated side, and output inherits Purview labels and DLP. For customers who need it, customer-managed keys and Customer Lockbox close the loop. The control set maps to CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171, the HIPAA Security Rule, and SOC 2 Type II, and the build is documented so your assessors can verify it rather than take it on faith.
Build a Custom Copilot or Buy Microsoft 365 Copilot?
These are different purchases solving different problems. Microsoft 365 Copilot, a $30 per user per month add-on at Microsoft’s published mid-2026 pricing, reasons over what the Microsoft 365 index already holds: mail, files, meetings, chats. Build custom when the knowledge lives outside that index, in a line-of-business database, a Dataverse table, or an external API, or when the copilot must take actions rather than summarize. Copilot Studio consumption is prepaid in packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month under Microsoft’s mid-2026 pricing, which changes the cost model from per-seat to per-usage. If you are earlier in the journey, start with Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness or the Copilot licensing guide; if the platform question is still open, our custom AI consulting and integration services team evaluates fit across Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI, Power Platform, Fabric, and custom integration before anything is built.
Proof From Regulated Delivery
This is not our first AI platform; it is the same discipline applied with newer models. For a U.S. defense command, i3solutions built a custom AI data-fusion platform unifying 300TB of structured and unstructured data from over 250 global sources into a single pane of glass, with AI and machine learning handling data mining, pattern recognition, and metadata auto-tagging. For a U.S. Army geospatial organization, we developed and trained over 20 machine learning models and applied generative AI, large language models, and retrieval-augmented generation across hundreds of thousands of news articles, files, and documents. And we operate governed platforms at enterprise scale: a Power Platform estate for a federal defense agency supporting roughly 10,000 personnel across about 180 locations. Read the data fusion case study or the machine learning case study.
How an Engagement Runs
Engagements follow the Expert Delivery Model, a four-phase methodology of discovery, architecture, build, and knowledge transfer. A small-scale prototype can be delivered in 4 to 6 weeks; full-scale production deployments may take 3 to 6 months depending on integration depth and governance requirements. Senior specialists typically embed with your team within two to four weeks of engagement start, and delivery runs on 100% US-based senior-level delivery teams, which matters when the knowledge sources are export-controlled or the tenant is a government cloud. And because an agent is a system you operate rather than a project you finish, the model also answers who maintains and supports these agents after they go live.
If a copilot is on your roadmap, the scoping conversation settles the three questions that decide the build: where the knowledge lives, what the agent is allowed to do, and what your auditors will need to see. You leave with a platform recommendation across Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Azure OpenAI, and a build estimate against the engagement ranges published on this page. If the decision needs to survive a governance or budget committee, that documented recommendation is built to go into the room with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
i3solutions builds custom AI copilots on Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Copilot Studio for regulated enterprises: agent logic, custom skills and prompts, knowledge integration, and prototype-to-production delivery, with retrieval grounded in SharePoint and Dataverse sources that honor the signed-in user’s Entra ID permissions. Delivery is by senior, U.S.-based teams; i3solutions is a Microsoft Partner with 1,500+ Microsoft platform implementations.
Buy Microsoft 365 Copilot when the knowledge your people need already lives in the Microsoft 365 index: mail, files, meetings, chats. Build custom when the data lives outside Copilot’s index, in a line-of-business database, a Dataverse table, or an external API, or when the copilot must take actions in your systems rather than summarize content. Many enterprises run both, and the two are licensed differently, so the decision is architectural first and financial second.
A small-scale prototype can be delivered in 4 to 6 weeks, while full-scale production deployments may take 3 to 6 months depending on integration depth and governance requirements. Senior i3solutions specialists typically embed with a client team within two to four weeks of engagement start.
It is when governance is built in rather than bolted on. In i3solutions builds, retrieval honors the signed-in user’s Entra ID permissions on the underlying records, connectors run least-privilege and scoped by role, a Power Platform DLP policy is in place before the first agent ships, prompts and responses are logged in Microsoft Purview with alerting through Microsoft Sentinel, sensitivity labels on SharePoint knowledge sources are honored, and answers refuse when no grounded source exists. The control set maps to frameworks including CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171, the HIPAA Security Rule, and SOC 2.
Microsoft consulting engagements at i3solutions typically range from $25,000 to $250,000+ depending on size and duration; a Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness engagement typically runs $18,000 to $35,000. On the licensing side, Microsoft 365 Copilot is a $30 per user per month add-on, while Copilot Studio consumption is prepaid in packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month. A scoping conversation prices your specific build against those ranges.
Not for every build path, as of September 2026. A declarative agent built in Agent Builder is included in the Microsoft 365 Copilot license and runs on Copilot’s orchestrator and model with no additional hosting, and Microsoft calls its Copilot Studio approach ideal for building custom engine agents “without relying heavily on development resources.” A dedicated development team is needed in practice for a pro-code custom engine agent, which brings your own orchestrator, models and hosting. In a DoD tenant, Microsoft’s service description for Microsoft 365 Copilot, updated August 2026 and read in September 2026, lists declarative agents as not currently available.
The agent runs in a separate test environment and is promoted only through change control; i3solutions delivery includes ALM practices, environment separation strategies, and change control processes. Each test case carries a written expected answer, including questions the agent must refuse and data the asking user must not see. Copilot Studio agent evaluation compares the agent’s responses against expected responses, and Microsoft notes that “Evaluations run as the currently signed-in user,” so runs under test accounts with different permissions show what each role can reach. Your security team reviews that evidence, not code. The build stays in your tenant: i3solutions engineers work as Microsoft Entra B2B guest accounts with scoped Dataverse security roles.
