Still spending hours writing long instructions for your Copilot Studio agents?
There's a better way, and is going to show you.
AJ is Chief Operating Officer at DSWi and a Microsoft MVP now in his 10th year. He's leading a community session at Convergence AI+D365 2026 in Miami, and his focus is what he calls the most revolutionary change in Copilot Studio: skills.
In this short session spotlight, AJ explains why skills are replacing those long, hit-or-miss instructions, and why they're now at the center of the agents people are building. In Miami, he'll walk you through building practical, easy-to-use skills that turn ordinary agents into really smart ones.
This video also kicks off our Convergence community session spotlights, so you'll hear a little about what's planned this year, including the partner pre-day and the hands-on Microsoft workshops on Friday.
If you're building agents, or planning to, I encourage you to add AJ's session to your agenda. and say hello to AJ while you're there.
Watch the full interview below.
Interview with AJ Ansari from DSWi
Bobby Small: This is the first of our community session drops. We're excited to bring Convergence back to Miami, and we've got 25 great community-led sessions. A lot of Convergence is about Microsoft talking to and working with the community, but we still wanted to carve out space for the great community folks who can show us how to extend the use of the software. We've got one of those folks right here, one of the legends in our industry, AJ Ansari. AJ, introduce yourself and tell us about your session.
AJ Ansari: I am delighted to be back at Convergence. I'm AJ Ansari, the Chief Operating Officer at a Microsoft partner called DSWi. I'm also a Microsoft MVP. It's my 10th year now: nine years completed and the 10th year started, as Microsoft counts it. I know, I know, I got the second blue disk. My areas of passion, as I like to call them, are Copilot Studio, which is Microsoft's leading AI agent platform, and Business Central, a wonderful ERP system.
My session at Convergence is going to be about Copilot Studio. The product has gone through a monumental transformation. So much has changed. I'll tell you the one most revolutionary change is the addition of skills.
Bobby, in the past a lot of people would spend a ton of time writing these long instructions. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, and you'd run out of space. A lot of the things we do now with agents, whether it's Copilot Studio agents, Cowork agents, or OpenClaw agents, are all built around skills.
I'm going to teach our friends how to build skills: practical, easy-to-use skills, the kinds of things that are going to make your agents go from agents to really smart agents.
Bobby Small: I'm excited to see you there, and I'm excited to see everybody else who is able to join us this December 8th through 11th. There is a pre-day if you're a partner, and there are Microsoft workshops on Friday. There are going to be about 12 of them across all of the tracks: BC, CE, and F&O, as well as AI and Copilot. AJ, looking forward to seeing you, buddy.
AJ Ansari: Absolutely.