I, like many people, have an M365 E5 Developer tenant I use to learn and develop my skills and ideas. I, like many others, have been taking part in creating Copilot Agents as part of Microsoft’s Copilot Agent Academy.
At several points, particularly in the Operative missions, you need to publish your agent. However, with the E5 Developer Tenant and only a Microsoft Copilot Studio viral trial license, I wasn’t able to do that without a paid Copilot license… until I came across Copilot Studio Authors.
What is Copilot Studio Authors?
Copilot Studio Authors is a setting in the Power Platform Admin Center that, once configured, grants access to Copilot Studio authoring capabilities for use with the Pay-As-You-Go licensing model rather than restricting it. This setting effectively bypasses the trial license limitation that prevents publishing.
It’s important to note that whilst it bypasses the trial license limitation for publishing, a license is still required to access and use Copilot Studio—the Microsoft Copilot Studio viral trial is sufficient for this.
Why This Setting Matters Now
Prior to September 2025, this setting wasn’t required. However, with ever-changing licensing rules, Microsoft tightened the restrictions around publishing agents with trial licenses. Therefore, if you’re using an E5 Developer Tenant and wish to publish agents to test and develop your skills, you’ll need to configure this setting.
How to Configure Copilot Studio Authors
To implement this setting, you’ll need an Entra ID Security Group. You can create a new group or use an existing one. Here’s how:
- Access the Power Platform Admin Center
- Select Manage from the left menu, then Tenant Settings
- Find and click on Copilot Studio Authors
- Select your desired Security Group and ensure your user account is a member
- Hit Save
Give it some time for the setting to take effect—I’d recommend waiting at least 30 minutes to an hour before attempting to publish your agent.
A Note for Agent Academy Participants
For those enrolling and progressing through the Agent Academy with only an E5 Developer Tenant, you will absolutely need to toggle this setting to complete the Operative missions where agent publishing and linking are required.
One important consideration: if you do have Pay-As-You-Go enabled in your tenant (E5 Developer Tenants typically don’t have this configured by default), you may be charged based on usage. Please keep this in mind when using this setting and check your tenant’s billing configuration if you’re unsure.
