🚀Agent Academy: Operative is now live

We are excited to announce we've released Agent Academy: Operative, the next-level learning path for builders who already understand the basics of Copilot Studio and want to go deeper into designing and building agents.

What is Operative?

Agent Academy: Operative focuses on the skills you need after your first agent works, including:

• Writing clear, effective agent instructions
• Selecting and evaluating AI models
• Advanced prompt patterns, agent flow integration, and MCP
• Incorporating feedback loops, telemetry, and AI safety
• Designing and architecting multi-agent systems

👉 Start the Operative path here:
https://aka.ms/agent-academy-operative

🎓 Badges and completion

Learners who complete the Operative curriculum are eligible to request a digital badge through our partnership with the Global AI Community.

Once you’ve completed the path:

• Create a new Operative Completion Issue in this repo, ensuring that ALL required information is carefully filled out. Failure to do this will result in closing of the issue and you will have to create a new issue and new form submission.
• Submit the badge form
• Wait patiently as the team processes the badge. You will receive an email when the badge is ready with instructions on how to claim it.

⚠️ Badge processing and expectations

Badges are not issued automatically.

Each badge request is manually reviewed to verify that the required material was completed. This includes checking submitted information and screenshots to ensure badges reflect real progress through the curriculum, not just form submissions.

Because this review process is handled by a small team and done alongside other responsibilities:

• Badge processing is not instant
• Processing time can vary depending on volume
• Requests are handled in the order they are received

To help us manage this process effectively:

• Please do not contact team members directly (LinkedIn, email, or other channels) about badge status
• If you have a question, comment on your GitHub issue so it can be visible and tracked

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to issue badges accurately and fairly.

🧭 Platform updates

Alongside the Operative launch, we’ve refreshed the Agent Academy experience based on learner feedback:

• Cleaner, easier-to-navigate UI
• Improved browsing as the curriculum grows
• Dark mode support

These changes are intended to make the curriculum easier to use as it expands and becomes more advanced.

❓ FAQ

1. Do I need to complete the Recruit curriculum first?

Yes, Recruit is strongly recommended before going through Operative, but not required if you already have equivalent experience building agents in Copilot Studio. Operative assumes you understand the basics and jumps straight into deeper design and architecture topics.

2. My Copilot Studio trial is expiring, what should I do?

In most cases, if your trial is expiring, it can continue to be renewed in 30-day increments. Please review this learn documentation for more details.

3. I'm unable to publish my agent, what gives?

This is most likely a problem if you are using a Trial environment. There was a recent change to Trial environments which blocks publishing agents. You can still complete the majority of the Operative curriculum, including the learning content and design exercises. Publishing is not required to work through the material or to get a badge.

4. I found a bug in the documentation, what do I do?

If you spot any issues in the documentation (grammar, formatting, screenshots not matching, steps not matching, etc), we want to hear about it. Please submit a new Feedback Issue in the repo to report the bug.

5. My issue has been marked "badge issued" but I do not have a badge, what do I do?

If we have marked your issue as "badged issued" but you don't see a badge, first re-check your email for a message from "Agent Academy". Be sure to look in your spam or quarantine as occasionally these emails might fall into one of those filters. If you still do not see the email, comment on the issue to let us know and we will investigate and get back to you.