Deeper Copilot integration, AI-powered app creation, smarter process mining, and unified admin controls here’s everything IT teams and developers need to know.
Microsoft continues to ship at a relentless pace. The March 2026 Power Platform update is one of the more significant monthly drops in recent memory bringing Microsoft 365 Copilot directly into model-driven apps, launching an AI-first app builder for developers, and delivering a wave of admin governance tools that IT managers have been requesting for years. If your organisation runs on the Microsoft Stack, this update touches nearly every role: makers, developers, IT admins, and business users alike.
1. Microsoft 365 Copilot comes to model-driven apps
This is the headline feature of the March release and arguably one of the most impactful updates Power Apps has seen in the past year. Microsoft 365 Copilot is now available in public preview directly inside model-driven Power Apps, surfaced through a persistent Copilot side pane.
M365 Copilot in model-driven apps (Public Preview)
Users can now ask Copilot to summarise table data, visualise what’s active or pending, recap a record’s full history, and reference related content surfaced through Work IQ all within the app’s Copilot side pane. Because it runs on M365 Copilot, users can also @mention first-party agents like Researcher and Analyst, or invoke custom agents built in Copilot Studio.
What this means for your business
Your sales or service teams no longer need to switch context between apps and Copilot.
They can draft a follow-up email, create a PowerPoint summary, or schedule a meeting
all directly from within the CRM or operations app, grounded in actual app data.
For organisations already on M365 Copilot licences, enabling this is purely a configuration exercise.
To get started, admins and makers need to complete a one-time setup via the app settings panel. Microsoft has published dedicated guidance covering admin setup, maker configuration, and end-user experience separately which is a welcome level of documentation maturity for a preview feature.
2. vibe.powerapps.com — AI app creation from a prompt
Microsoft has launched a new public preview at vibe.powerapps.com that takes AI-assisted app development to a new level. Developers can describe what they want to build in natural language, and the platform generates a full-code Power App including the data model, app structure, and logic without requiring VS Code or manual code authoring.
vibe.powerapps.com — AI code app builder
The unified experience handles plan generation, data schema creation, and app publishing in a single workflow. Developers can iterate on the output, edit directly, and publish without leaving the browser. It’s positioned as the “vibe coding” experience for the Power Platform ecosystem, mirroring trends seen in tools like Cursor and Replit, but purpose-built for the Microsoft data stack.
Who benefits most
SharePoint developers and IT admins who build internal tools repeatedly leave request apps, asset trackers, approval workflows can prototype and ship in a fraction of the usual time. This doesn’t replace pro-code development for complex scenarios, but it dramatically lowers the cost of the first working version.
This feature sits alongside the existing Plan Designer capability in Power Apps, which uses AI agents to help makers plan entire business solutions. Together, they represent Microsoft’s bet that the future of app development is conversation-first, iteration-second.
3. Modern controls refresh for canvas apps
Less glamorous than AI features, but arguably more impactful for teams with production canvas apps, Microsoft has shipped a comprehensive quality update across all nine modern controls in canvas apps.
Nine modern controls updated
The updated controls include Text, Number Input, Date Picker, Text Input, Tab List, Combo Box, Radio, Link, and Info Button. The changes address longstanding maker feedback around inconsistency between controls, unreliable OnChange firing behaviour, and poor mobile defaults. Controls now share a unified property model with standardised names and typed enum values which means better IntelliSense and fewer formula errors.
Migration guidance
If you have existing apps using previous versions of these controls, Power Apps will surface an in-app notification with a “learn more” link when you open the app. Dedicated per-control migration guides walk through every property rename. Microsoft has deliberately made this opt-in you control when to upgrade existing apps.
4. Power Automate: Object-Centric Process Mining goes GA
Process Mining in Power Automate has received a significant analytical upgrade with the general availability of Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM). This is a fundamentally different approach to process analysis compared to traditional case-centric methods.
Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM)
Traditional process mining forces every event into a single case for example, grouping everything under an Order ID. The problem is that real business processes routinely involve multiple interconnected objects: a single invoice touches an order, a delivery, a payment, and a customer record simultaneously. OCPM models this reality directly, allowing a single event to belong to multiple objects and object types, and rendering object-centric process maps with colour-coded object-flow edges.
Best suited for
Order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and supply chain processes where cross-object dependencies drive outcomes. If you’ve been using case-centric process mining and finding that your metrics feel artificially clean, OCPM is likely to surface the real bottlenecks.
Process Intelligence experience — next-gen analysis interface
Alongside OCPM, Microsoft has shipped the Process Intelligence experience a replacement for the fixed process overview with a flexible, card-based dashboard. Users can create multiple tabs for different analytical perspectives, apply dynamic filters across all visualisations, and share dashboard configurations with colleagues. This is a meaningful UX step up from the previous interface.
5. Admin & governance: Power Platform Inventory now GA
For IT managers and tenant administrators, the March update delivers several governance tools that have been in preview for months and are now ready for production use.
Power Platform Inventory
Tenant administrators now have a unified view of cloud flows, Copilot Studio agent flows, and Workflows agent workflows across every environment in the tenant. This is the single pane of glass that large organisations need to enforce compliance policies, identify orphaned resources, and understand which automations are driving the most activity.
Coming next
Microsoft has indicated that connectors, actions, and key usage data are on the roadmap for the Inventory view, which will make it significantly more powerful for compliance and security reviews.
Licensing capacity reporting
Licensing capacity reporting is now fully available in the Power Platform admin center under Licensing → Power Automate → Usage. Admins can now see exactly which users are over capacity and which flows are responsible a feature that will save significant time for anyone managing Power Automate Premium licences at scale.
New usage page (Public Preview)
A modern usage dashboard is now in public preview, showing adoption trends and resource-level analytics across Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio. For Power Automate, it already includes flow run data so admins can track execution patterns across the tenant.
6. Power Pages: Agent API and AI site building
Power Pages received two notable updates this month, both centred on AI integration.
Agent API for Power Pages
Site creators can now build custom chat and user experiences that connect seamlessly to Copilot Studio agents. This moves beyond the standard embedded chatbot and allows genuinely custom conversational interfaces within Power Pages sites useful for customer portals, citizen services, and partner-facing applications.
Microsoft has also released a public preview of the Power Pages plugin for GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code. Describe the site you want in natural language and the plugin handles scaffolding, Web API integrations, permissions configuration, and deployment all platform-aware, meaning it understands Power Pages-specific concepts like table permissions, web roles, and site settings.
Release summary at a glance
The March 2026 update reflects Microsoft’s clear strategic direction: making AI the default layer in every part of Power Platform not an add-on, but the primary interface for building, analysing, and administering. For organisations already invested in the Microsoft Stack, the switching costs to stay current have never been lower, and the productivity upside has never been higher.
Ready to unlock these features for your organisation?
PeafowlIT specialises in Power Platform implementation, SharePoint modernisation, and Copilot enablement for businesses across the Microsoft Stack.
