AI agents and automation

Turn repeatable work into governed digital capacity.

Centered Networks finds the workflows worth handing to an agent, builds production agents and automations on the Microsoft platform, connects them to approved knowledge and systems, and puts human judgment where the work requires it.

Take the three-minute Opportunity Finder

Three minutes, no email.

Get your 90-Day AI Roadmap

About two weeks, from $7,500.

Microsoft solution area: AI Business Solutions

Microsoft conversations Build and innovate Agentify processes

Build around work, not demos

The question is not “where can we use an agent?”

The better question: which work is repetitive enough, valuable enough, and governable enough to deserve one?

We prioritize workflows where an agent can create meaningful capacity without introducing more complexity than it removes.

Good candidates often have

  • Repeatable inputs
  • Clear source information
  • Defined outputs
  • Known business rules
  • Measurable cycle time or workload
  • A clear human owner
  • A sensible approval boundary

Common agent patterns

Six patterns that show up across organizations.

Most agents assist and prepare work for people. Some act within defined controls. The default progression is assist → prepare → act with controls, not autonomy for its own sake.

In your organization, that might look like:

Nonprofits
Grant research, board reporting, constituent intake, donor follow-up, program reporting, and policy questions. Five free nonprofit agents →
Foundations
Institutional knowledge, applicant and grantee questions, research briefs, and board reporting. Agent kits →
Rural hospitals
Automations for scheduling, patient communication, revenue cycle, and supply chain work, scoped to your HIPAA obligations. Rural hospital automations →

Knowledge agents

Retrieve, synthesize, and explain trusted organizational information for staff, boards, partners, or customers.

Intake and triage agents

Classify requests, gather context, route work, and prepare the next action for a person or system.

Research and preparation agents

Collect information, summarize evidence, prepare drafts, and reduce the time before a human decision.

Workflow agents

Coordinate multi-step work across Microsoft 365, Power Platform, approved APIs, and line-of-business systems.

Reporting agents

Assemble recurring operational information, identify exceptions, and prepare leadership-ready updates.

Specialized role agents

Support a specific department or function with a tightly scoped purpose, data boundary, and owner.

An agent is a software system with a job description.

  1. Define the job

    Document the business outcome, owner, inputs, outputs, success measures, and actions the agent is allowed to take.

  2. Define the knowledge boundary

    Identify the Microsoft 365 content, structured data, APIs, and tools the agent can use, and what it must never access.

  3. Build and connect

    Use Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Microsoft Foundry, Azure, and approved integrations based on the workflow.

  4. Evaluate

    Test quality, grounding, permissions, edge cases, failure behavior, and business acceptance before production deployment.

  5. Add human checkpoints

    Require approval for high-impact, external, financial, sensitive, or irreversible actions where the process demands it.

  6. Deploy and measure

    Launch with an owner, environment, telemetry, support path, and criteria for expansion or retirement.

Microsoft platform

Build agents where identity, data, security, and work already meet.

Centered Networks uses the Microsoft platform to minimize unnecessary seams. Technology choice follows the workflow, governance needs, and operating model, not a desire to force every problem into the same tool.

  • Microsoft Copilot (formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot)
  • Copilot Studio
  • Power Automate
  • Power Apps
  • Microsoft Teams
  • SharePoint
  • Microsoft Graph
  • Microsoft Foundry
  • Azure AI services
  • Microsoft Fabric
  • Line-of-business systems and APIs

Microsoft Solutions Partner with five designations, including Data & AI. We helped design and build the National Mall Gateway on Microsoft Azure for the Trust for the National Mall.

  • Data & AI (Azure)
  • Digital & App Innovation (Azure)
  • Infrastructure (Azure)
  • Modern Work
  • Security

Human-in-command by design

More autonomy should be earned, not assumed.

Three classes of agent, and where you should start. Three equal-width cards labeled I, II, and III. Card I Retrieval agents (start here, marked as the current step in burnt orange), policy lookup, board document finder, grant-guideline FAQ, internal knowledge search, built in Microsoft Copilot Studio. Card II Task agents (graduate to), intake form processing, donor outreach drafting, board report assembly, denial-appeal drafting, built in Copilot Studio with connectors and Dynamics 365 agents. Card III Autonomous agents (build toward), full case management, adaptive donor engagement, autonomous program routing, built in pro-code on Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft Agent 365. Most nonprofits and rural hospitals should start with retrieval and graduate to task as governance matures. Autonomous agents require the identity, data classification, and responsible-AI foundations.

Three classes of agent, and where you should start.

  1. I Retrieval agents Start here

    Examples Policy lookup, board document finder, grant-guideline FAQ, internal knowledge search.

    Built in Microsoft Copilot Studio (no-code).

  2. II Task agents Graduate to

    Examples Intake form processing, donor outreach drafting, board report assembly, denial-appeal drafting.

    Built in Copilot Studio with connectors, and Dynamics 365 agents.

  3. III Autonomous agents Build toward

    Examples Full case management, adaptive donor engagement, autonomous program routing.

    Built in Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft Agent 365 (pro-code).

Most nonprofits and rural hospitals should start with retrieval and graduate to task as governance matures. Autonomous agents require the identity, data classification, and responsible-AI foundations.

Agents can prepare, recommend, retrieve, convert, and in some cases act. The right degree of autonomy depends on the consequences of a mistake.

The objective is not maximum autonomy. It is the right autonomy for the risk and value of the workflow.

We design controls around the work

  • Read-only vs. write access
  • Internal vs. external communication
  • Reversible vs. irreversible actions
  • Sensitive-data exposure
  • Financial authority
  • System-of-record changes
  • Required approvals
  • Logging and auditability

After the first build

The first successful agent creates the next governance question.

Once agents multiply, organizations need inventory, ownership, identities, policy, cost controls, runtime protection, lifecycle, and performance management.

That is why every production build should have a path into Managed Intelligence rather than becoming another abandoned automation.

Explore Agent Governance & Operations

Three starting points, one path in.

You know the workflow

Bring the process, the pain point, and the desired outcome. We will determine whether an agent is the right mechanism, then build one governed production agent around it.

See Agent Launchpad

You know you want agents but not where

Start with a workflow opportunity assessment inside the 90-Day AI Roadmap. A paid engagement of about two weeks.

Get your 90-Day AI Roadmap

You already have several agents

Skip “build another one.” Start by bringing the current estate under command.

See Managed AgentOps

Other products on this path

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Find the workflow where an agent can earn its place.

The Opportunity Finder points to the workflow worth starting with in three minutes. The 90-Day AI Roadmap turns it into a written plan: the dependencies to handle first and the controls each build should carry.

Take the three-minute Opportunity Finder Get your 90-Day AI Roadmap

The Finder takes three minutes and asks for no email. The Roadmap is a paid engagement of about two weeks.