Microsoft Copilot Studio’s Human‑in‑the‑Loop Preview: Agents That Pause for People

New Feature / Update: Human‑in‑the‑Loop (HITL) in Microsoft Copilot Studio (preview)

I want to tell you about a very practical update from Microsoft’s Copilot Studio rolled out after Ignite 2025: human‑in‑the‑loop or HITL for Copilot agents, now available in preview for makers and organisations. This is not fluff. It makes agent automation safer and actually usable for everyday tasks like approving invoices, editing campaign briefs, or validating CRM updates[3].

What is it?

• Human‑in‑the‑loop lets an AI agent pause mid‑workflow and request structured input from a named human reviewer before continuing[3].
• The agent sends the request as an Outlook form to the reviewer, waits for the response, then resumes using the reviewer’s answers as parameters for the next steps[3].
• This feature arrives alongside other Copilot Studio upgrades from Ignite 2025 including model choice across GPT‑5 and third‑party models, expanded connectors and tooling, and stronger governance for enterprise agents[3].

Why does it matter?

Because it makes automation trustworthy and practical. Instead of an agent running end to end and hoping for the best, you get a controlled handover point where a real human can review, correct or supply missing context. That simple change reduces costly mistakes and makes teams comfortable using agents for higher value work.

Real world use cases

• Accounts payable at a mid‑sized retailer: An agent extracts invoice data and proposes a payment schedule. Before the payment runs, the agent sends an Outlook form to the finance manager with the parsed amounts, vendor name, and suggested pay date. The manager corrects a line item and the agent resumes, syncing the approved transaction to Netsuite or Dynamics[3].
• Marketing campaign briefs: An agent drafts a campaign brief from a product PR deck and historical performance. It pauses to ask the marketing lead to pick tone, budget band and target KPIs via a short form. Once the lead submits, the agent finalises messaging, generates brief assets, and posts tasks to Asana or Microsoft Planner[3].

Quick practical notes

• HITL in Copilot Studio uses Outlook forms for reviewer input so implementation ties into existing enterprise mail flows rather than adding another app[3].
• It ships with broader Copilot Studio improvements from Ignite 2025 such as model choice, expanded connectors, agent evaluations, and governance features for admins making scale safer and easier[3].

How I’d try it tomorrow

• Wire up a simple invoice approval agent in Copilot Studio that extracts line items from PDFs, proposes a payment, and uses HITL for final approval. Test with one vendor, one approver, and a 48 hour SLA to observe behaviour and error rates[3].
• Use HITL for content review: connect the agent to SharePoint draft folders, have it create a campaign brief, then require a marketer to pick tone and budget before publishing to the CMS or posting to Slack[3].

Too real detail to be fake: I once saw a finance team’s automation pay the wrong vendor because a scanned invoice had a smudged ‘0’. A simple pause with a form would have saved three hours of reversal paperwork and a very grumpy accounts payable person. That is exactly the kind of pain HITL is built to stop.

Where to read more

• Microsoft’s Copilot Studio update blog covers HITL and the Ignite 2025 feature set in detail and shows how HITL ties into governance and agent management in Copilot Studio[3].

Short, practical, and worth testing if you run automations that touch money, legal language, or customer‑facing comms. Try one small workflow with a single human checkpoint and iterate from there.