Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate is a cloud-based automation service from Microsoft, positioned at the center of the company's Power Platform family of low-code business tools alongside Power Apps, Power BI and Power Virtual Agents. It lets business users and professional developers build automated workflows — called 'flows' — that connect hundreds of applications, services and data sources, trigger actions from events such as a new email, a form submission or a file upload, and route approvals, notifications and data updates without writing traditional code. The service grew out of Microsoft Flow, which Microsoft introduced in 2016 as a direct competitor to third-party workflow automation tools, and was renamed Power Automate in 2019 as Microsoft consolidated its low-code offerings under the Power Platform banner. Power Automate spans a spectrum from simple personal productivity flows to enterprise-grade automation. Desktop flows (formerly called UI flows) bring robotic process automation capabilities, allowing organizations to record and replay interactions with legacy desktop applications that lack APIs. Business process flows and approval workflows support structured, multi-step processes, while AI Builder and prebuilt connectors add document processing, form reading and predictive capabilities. Because it is part of the Microsoft Power Platform, Power Automate is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, SharePoint, Teams and Dataverse, and it is governed through the Power Platform admin center with data-loss-prevention policies, environments and analytics. Commercially, Power Automate is sold through per-user plans and 'seeded' rights bundled into Microsoft 365 subscriptions, with premium connectors and desktop-flow capacity requiring standalone Power Automate licenses. It is used across industries for invoice processing, employee onboarding, approval routing, IT helpdesk automation and data synchronization. Microsoft positions it as a citizen-developer tool that reduces manual work and complements professional development, and it is a core part of Microsoft's broader enterprise automation and AI strategy, increasingly paired with Copilot and generative-AI features. The brand is owned and operated by Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and is available in markets worldwide.

Microsoft's workflow automation ambitions took shape in 2016, when the company launched Microsoft Flow as part of its business application strategy. Flow was designed to let users connect SaaS applications and Microsoft services through visual, trigger-based workflows, competing with established third-party automation platforms. It was introduced alongside PowerApps (later Power Apps) and was closely tied to the Microsoft Graph, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 ecosystems. Over the following years Microsoft expanded Flow's connector library and governance features, and in 2019 the company rebranded the service as Power Automate, aligning it with the Power Platform naming family that also includes Power Apps, Power BI and Power Virtual Agents. The rename signaled that automation was a first-class pillar of Microsoft's low-code strategy rather than a companion utility. A major expansion came with robotic process automation. Microsoft introduced UI flows, later renamed desktop flows, which allowed organizations to automate legacy Windows applications through recorded UI interactions. This moved Power Automate into direct competition with dedicated RPA vendors and made it part of Microsoft's broader 'hyperautomation' pitch. Microsoft also added AI Builder, process advisor/process mining capabilities and deeper approval and business-process-flow features. Power Automate became increasingly embedded in Microsoft 365 and Teams, with templates and triggers for SharePoint, Outlook, Forms and Dataverse, and it was positioned as a citizen-developer tool governed through the Power Platform admin center. In the 2020s Microsoft layered generative AI and Copilot capabilities onto the platform, allowing natural-language assistance in building and understanding flows. Today Power Automate is one of the most widely used enterprise automation services, sold through standalone plans and bundled Microsoft 365 rights, and remains a core product of Microsoft's Power Platform business.

• 2023

  Microsoft integrates Copilot and generative-AI assistance into Power Platform products including Power Automate.

• 2020

  UI flows (later desktop flows) bring RPA capabilities into Power Automate.

• 2020

  AI Builder and process advisor capabilities are added to the platform.

• 2019

  Microsoft Flow is rebranded as Power Automate, aligning with the Power Platform family.

• 2016

  Microsoft launches Microsoft Flow as part of its business application and low-code strategy.

Low-code workflow automation and RPA for business users and enterprises, tightly integrated with the Microsoft cloud stack.

• Cloud flows

  Trigger-based automated workflows connecting cloud apps and services.

• Desktop flows (RPA)

  Recorded UI automation for legacy desktop applications.

• Business process flows

  Structured multi-stage processes with defined stages and steps.

• AI Builder

  Prebuilt and custom AI models for document processing and prediction inside flows.

• Connectors

  Hundreds of prebuilt connectors to Microsoft and third-party services.

1. 1Microsoft Power Automate official sitepowerautomate.microsoft.com
2. 2Microsoft Power Platformmicrosoft.com
3. 3Keeper launches Microsoft Power Platform secrets connectoritbrief.co.nz
4. 4Keeper Security Launches Certified Microsoft Power Platform Connector for Secrets Manager, Bringing Zero-Knowledge Credential Management to Azure Logic Appsprnewswire.com