Ignite 2019: Microsoft Flow renamed “Power Automate,” adds new capabilities

At its annual Ignite conference, Microsoft is announcing some key changes for its core business products. One of these involves Microsoft Flow, which has now been renamed as Power Automate.

According to Hames Phillips, Corporate Vice President of Business Applications, Microsoft has opted to rename Microsoft Flow as Power Automate to better align it with the rest of the Power Platform. Alongside this, it will be picking up new features accordingly. This includes new Robotic process automation (RPA) which will help deliver better end-to-end solutions to span AI, APIs, and the UI of the Microsoft Power platform.

Businesses will now be able to use RPA to automate complex processes that span legacy and modern applications. According to Microsoft:

Robotic process automation (RPA) has rapidly become a key technology to address many of these scenarios but generally requires a patchwork of automation services that need integration and management before the real work can get done. Power Automate simplifies these end-to-end scenarios through a unified automation platform that can bridge the gap between API-based automation and UI-based automation.

In addition to the above, Microsoft is also announcing new Power Virtual Agents, security enhancements to Power BI, and tighter integrations between Power Platform and Microsoft Teams. There even is a new set of pre-built models for AI builders. The company explains what these new Power Platform features mean:

• Power Virtual Agents—a no-code approach to creating and deploying intelligent, AI-powered bots that will democratize bot creation.
• A host of new security enhancements for Power BI, that add industry leading data security capabilities no matter where your analytics data is used and accessed.
• Tighter integration between the Power Platform and Microsoft Teams bringing the world’s most popular collaboration app and Power Platform closer together.
• A new set of prebuilt models for AI Builderthat add even more advanced AI models to Power Automate and Power Apps that are available to everyone.

All these new features come as part of Microsoft’s efforts to advance the Power Platform and “enable everyone to analyze, act and automate across their organization to transform businesses from the ground up.” More information on these new features will be available during a keynote at Ignite 2019.