STOP Building Cloud Flows! Use Agent Flows Instead
Update: 2025-11-12
Description
🔍 Key Topics Covered 1) The Hidden Price Tag of Cloud Flows
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Substack
- Why “build an Automated Cloud Flow” often means “start a licensing tab.”
- Premium connector ripple effect: add Dataverse/SQL/Salesforce and everyone touching the flow may need premium.
- API call quotas & throttling: the invisible brake on your “set it and forget it” automations.
- AI Builder double-pay: automation fees here, AI credits there—two currencies, one outcome: sprawl.
- Lives in Copilot Studio; billed by messages/actions, not by who uses it.
- Premium & custom connectors included under consumption.
- AI capabilities (classification, extraction, summarization) aligned to the same credit pool.
- Triggers from conversation, intent, or signals—automation that interprets before it executes.
- Use Agent Flows for chat/intent-driven, personal, or AI-assisted tasks where usage is bursty and user-specific.
- Keep Cloud Flows for shared, scheduled, multi-owner orchestration across teams.
- Migration path: make the Cloud Flow solution-aware → switch plan to Copilot Studio → it becomes an Agent Flow (one-way).
- Governance parity: drafts, versions, audit logs, RBAC—now inside Copilot Studio.
- Cloud Flows = “buffet priced per person.” Great if maxed; wasteful if idle.
- Agent Flows = “à la carte per action.” Costs scale linearly with actual work.
- Transparent cost tracing by flow, connector, and hour; predictable quotas; no surprise overages.
- Optimization matters: consolidate actions, reduce chat hops, and you literally pay less.
- Cloud Flows built the highways; Agent Flows drive themselves along them.
- Consolidate small, conversational automations into Copilot Studio to reduce double-licensing.
- Treat every automation as a service inside an intelligent platform, not a one-off per-user asset.
- Roadmap reality: AI-native orchestration becomes the default entry point; Cloud Flows remain the backend muscle.
- Cloud Flows automate structure; Agent Flows automate intelligence.
- If it starts in Copilot/chat, is personalized, or spiky in usage—move it to Agent Flows.
- If it’s shared, scheduled, cross-team infrastructure—Cloud Flows still shine.
- Message-based billing converts licensing drama into straight arithmetic.
- Make “solution-aware” your default; design with governance, versioning, and quotas in mind.
- Power Platform makers tired of hitting premium walls.
- IT leaders/CFOs chasing cost control and clean licensing.
- Automation architects moving to AI-native orchestration.
- Ops leaders who want predictable spend and audit-ready governance.
- Trigger is conversational or AI-driven? → Agent Flow
- Needs premium connectors but limited users? → Agent Flow (consumption)
- Shared, scheduled, cross-department approvals? → Cloud Flow
- Long-running batch or high-visibility orchestration? → Cloud Flow
- Desire tight cost tracing & quotas? → Agent Flow in Copilot Studio
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