Introduction
Welcome back to another episode of TJ’s Technology Tuesday. Today we pick up where we left off last week. We looked at what Microsoft presented at Ignite. One of the topics Microsoft introduced at Ignite was Power Apps. Power Apps itself is nothing new, but what they unveiled is the ability to simply enter a command and have everything built automatically — right up to what you can see on my shared screen here: “Enter Enterprise Solutions.” The idea is that I define my vision once, enter it with one, two, or three prompts, and an application is then built for me — something you might have heard referred to as Vibe Coding. The term “VIBE” means I can build things myself from components, structuring the data behind them and assembling building blocks. That is what Microsoft presented last week — one of those building blocks for implementing Frontier Companies.
Strategy by humans, execution by agents
You may recall that Microsoft made it very clear: Frontier Companies are firms that explicitly say that strategic decisions are made by humans, while design and implementation are handled first by agents and programmes that people can build themselves. In practice, as I know from experience, there is still a gap between what is shown in a keynote and what is actually possible today — which is why I would like to break down for you what is already achievable in most Microsoft 365 environments. The first thing I did, of course, was go into my Power Apps account. Power Apps is included in your Microsoft 365 subscription. Let me zoom in a little so you can see it more clearly when I bring it up on screen. So Power Apps is already included in Microsoft 365, and there is already the option to do things with a few prompts. You can see: “Try the new experience — introducing Vibe.PowerApps.com.” The button is right there. However, you will currently receive a notice that this is not yet available outside the United States.
There is of course the option of logging in via a US VPN — workarounds do exist — but it is not yet generally available. One reaction to that might be to do nothing and wait, or you could look at the existing possibilities of Power Apps. Because Power Apps is a platform that is excellent for building internal apps — form-based workflows that you can deploy on smartphones or on regular PCs. Very powerful, and you can already create things here. There is also the option to start with Copilot. In practice, this is still similar to Power Automate — not quite 100% production-ready yet, but it keeps improving. You can start with data — with the structure — which is how I would normally begin; or you can start with a page design or a blank canvas. You can connect everything to agents — Copilot agents — and you can connect it to flows. Flows are the automated processes in Power Automate, the automation tool, and all these components are interconnected.
So if you look at the Microsoft 365 universe, it is worth understanding that with Copilot you have AI functionality, with Power Automate you have process automation, and with Power Apps you can build interfaces all the way to full apps. For example, if we look at Power Automate — an area we have explored before — it is a very good idea to start with the templates and simply browse: what is available? For instance, approval workflows: when a file is uploaded or a form is submitted, you can trigger an approval workflow. That is exactly the kind of thing where I often hear: “Thorsten, I need an AI solution” — and once I dig deeper, we very quickly end up with Power Automate solutions. The good news is that AI solutions are already integrated here. There is the AI Hub, and in the AI Hub there are pre-trained AI models from Microsoft. They are very capable and easy to handle.
For example, in one of our current projects we said: “We receive purchase orders from a major customer as PDFs.” We simply uploaded five sample PDF orders, and on that basis the AI downloads the PDF files, reads all the data, and enters it into a SharePoint list. It also reads the requested delivery date from the accompanying email. The system can do that now. So Power Automate already has AI integrated — AI models you can embed directly. And there are many templates to guide you. When I click “Create,” what are the options? There are automated cloud flows — following the “if this, then that” principle: when an email with a PDF arrives in an orders folder, read it and process it. An instant cloud flow, which you trigger manually — such as submitting a leave request. A scheduled cloud flow is one that runs every Friday at 3 p.m., for example. I have that with one client right now: every Friday a SharePoint list is exported as an Excel file and sent to a major customer as a status overview.
Desktop flows are something different. You download Microsoft’s software locally and then have an RPA — a Robot Process Automation — component. There is also Copilot Studio, which includes the ability to add so-called tools: connect Teams, send emails, and similar actions. You can connect additional agents there, and you can later see exactly what was used and how. In the “Topics” section you can define which flows should be used as starting points and change the triggers — for example, replacing a chat trigger with a voice trigger so you can speak to the chatbot. Those are the possibilities in the Microsoft universe: the upcoming new Agent Builder, and already available now — Power Apps for application interfaces, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio for building agents.
What possibilities and automations does ChatGPT offer compared to Copilot?
In ChatGPT these are called GPTs; here in Microsoft they are called Agents, and I can link them very smartly to the other components. From my perspective, that is the big advantage of the Microsoft universe: with Microsoft 365 most components are already included, and if you are consistent about keeping all your data in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem — not on network drives, but stored in SharePoint libraries and Teams, which is also technically SharePoint — then you have enormous automation potential. For those of you who are thinking: “Wait, I’m a decision-maker. I don’t need to know how all of this works in detail.” Correct. But before you throw a lot of money at a project, when the components already exist in Microsoft 365 and you are already paying for those licences, it is a good idea to know they are there. I encounter many executives who do not know what Power Automate, Power Apps, or Copilot Studio are. With just those three components, in a Microsoft 365 environment, you can automate a very large number of processes and recurring administrative tasks.
And then AI and automation really make sense: as Christoph Burkert always says so well — “Don’t be a robot” — let the machines handle what machines do, and free yourself up for more value-adding activities, such as looking after real people with real people. Let us look at one more tool that most of you have probably heard of: Lovable. A Swedish tool, by the way. And currently it is the tool that makes it easiest to build things. You enter a prompt and an app comes out. Here is an example: I was a speaker at a conference, and I took a photo of the paper programme and said: “Build me a creative, responsive Progressive Web App for the conference.” I specified the data sources and afterwards added what else I wanted.
I wanted agenda views. And when I look at what came out: a schedule with time, room, speakers, search, and favourites. If I open that in a new tab now, you can see an event app — the kind you might know from other conferences — where you can browse speakers: there was Professor Dr Werner Sinn, and there was me, with a keynote called “Switch on Brain First Land Technology” and a masterclass session. Let me switch to that view so you can see it. So that was Lovable — now compare it with what we had earlier with Power Apps: the Power Apps overview, the flows, Copilot Studio — and what we are looking at now is where I said: “I have a prompt and from that prompt I get an app.” Here is the simplest form. I was with my friend Kai von Fournier, took a company analysis tool, and said: “Here is the questionnaire, here is the output, this is how it should look.”
Just build me a web app that lets me do a company analysis — questionnaire based on image one, evaluation based on image two with the colour coding of each area. Even the first version was good enough that I did not need to change much. I made some minor refinements in a second pass, but the result was an analysis tool where I can click through and immediately see a graphical evaluation, with the option to download the whole thing as a PDF. Now that is a fairly simple use case. I have also tested more complex systems, and when you look at two different approaches, you see what this is really good for. Here, for example, I asked: “What if I built a CRM application?” With a CRM, it helps to know what a CRM should contain. What I did here was to start at the top — let me scroll right to the beginning.
The prompt there was a bit longer — not just one line. I said: “Build a model CRM with these and these features.” So it was already quite a detailed prompt. And the question arises: how do you write something like that? You could type it all in yourself, or — this is my top recommendation — use Claude. Claude, the AI system, is very advanced in the area of programming. What I did: I took my existing CRM, “Daylight,” with which I am very happy. I said to Claude: “You know this? Create a prompt for Lovable that integrates these specific Daylight features into the Lovable CRM: groups, categories, links.” And Claude built exactly that prompt for me. It knows “Daylight.” I gave it the link and specified the features I needed, and it created an excellent prompt. This also illustrates something: I do not think AI replaces programmers one-to-one in the way most people imagine — where you just throw in a prompt and say “give me a CRM.”
I have implemented CRMs myself — I rolled one out at Tchibo Coffee Service, at Vitality, and I supported Coca-Cola in implementing Salesforce. So I know the topic of CRM very well. I have one in use myself and know exactly what the important factors are. That knowledge went into the brief. The combination of Claude — used with solid background knowledge — plus Lovable for implementation, is one approach. Another approach: you have probably all heard of N8n — the Berlin-based company whose tool lets you build wonderful automations. Even for me, someone reasonably familiar with it, it is not straightforward to build these things from scratch. But here too you can use Claude beautifully. For example: I used Claude and said: “Build me an N8n workflow and output it as JSON.” The important thing is to know: what is N8n? It is the automation tool. And you need to know that you can import these workflows as a JSON file.
The workflow for generating podcasts
Claude can build those workflows and export them as JSON, and then you import them. So what did I say? I said I wanted to automate my podcast production workflow. I wrote out all the details — how should this work? Claude created it. Then I asked: “How does the whole thing work?” and it gave me setup instructions. Then I noticed that it was using DALL-E for image generation. I said no, I want to use NANO Banana Pro. Again a good example: you need to know that DALL-E is not as advanced in image generation as NANO Banana Pro, which is currently the best model in that area. When I mentioned that, Claude said: “I cannot access it directly, but I can reach it via Flux.” I said: “Perfect, please use Flux.” So the context matters. And again: if you cannot answer the follow-up questions the AI asks, it will always be difficult. You do need some basic understanding. Then I said: “Please adjust the trigger and add a form for me.” Done. I could watch the whole thing being built step by step. Then I said: “After the video is optimised, please add Auphonic as a tool for the audio.” Added. Then I asked: “How could I further optimise this workflow?” — which is always important: do not just accept the first answer, but ask how it can be improved. Claude gave me suggestions, I said: “Great — start with the top three recommendations, begin with the first one,” and I iterated from there. I also got help on how to install HandBrake and how to set up Auphonic on Hostinger, where I host my N8n licence. Even I cannot easily deal with raw JSON of a certain complexity — I can still read it at a basic level, but beyond that it gets difficult.
At the end there is an export result, but it takes multiple iterative steps. I simply imported that exported result — three dots here, then “Import from file.” And the result that comes out is a workflow with exactly these elements, where only fine-tuning is still needed. You can get a feel for how it is actually a fairly straightforward workflow. And of course, it matters that you know what a Notion database is, which image model you are using, and what HandBrake is — a wonderful tool for compressing videos. But you do not need to be able to programme. What matters is being an advanced user. And for those of you who are thinking: “This is too technical for me,” let me give you one very simple solution that still lets you build a huge number of automations: Zapier. For example, when I receive a call from “Hello Petra” — my telephone AI — the call data arrives via webhook, which is an interface that Zapier also provides, and the trigger fires: a note is created in Daylite and a task is created in Daylite.
Manual work will be replaced by automation
Or, another thing that works wonderfully for this: a contact is entered in one of my platform systems and is then automatically added to my CRM. The idea behind Zapier is that you have millions of systems you can connect to each other. You can also work with Copilot here, and you can choose from millions of triggers. You can see 7,000+ apps and tools that you can connect. So that when someone registers in your webinar tool, they are entered in the CRM — just one of the Zaps I use. What I have tried to show you today is the core of what is available for automation in your company today, without requiring extensive programming experience. The Microsoft 365 universe with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot. You can build real small web apps with Lovable. You can do excellent automation with N8n. You can use Claude to help you with both. And you can use Zapier to connect systems that have no direct interface with each other. Because that is when IT becomes productive — when I interconnect things so that what used to be endless copy-and-paste manual work is done by the machines, giving you time to work more on your business rather than in it. That is when IT makes sense.
Conclusion
If you need support — whether for consulting or implementation guidance — please feel free to reach out. I regularly help companies implement these things with their own resources, in the spirit of “help to self-help”: I show you what resources you may already have in-house and how you can use them productively. Because then IT not only increases complexity — it also increases productivity. And that is what Digital4Productivity is all about.
Your Personal IT Coach for Executives, Thorsten Jekel.
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft 365 already includes three powerful automation and app-building tools — Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio — that many companies are not yet actively using.
- Power Automate enables form-based approval workflows, scheduled processes, and automatic extraction of data from PDFs using built-in AI models into SharePoint lists.
- Copilot Studio allows you to build agents with custom tools (e.g. Teams, email) and adjustable triggers — for instance, a voice trigger instead of a chat trigger.
- Lovable is a Swedish no-code tool that generates a responsive web app from a single prompt — demonstrated here with a conference app and a company analysis tool.
- Claude excels as a prompt architect: it formulates precise prompts for Lovable and generates ready-to-import N8n workflows as JSON files.
- N8n (Berlin-based automation platform) can be populated via Claude-generated JSON workflows and refined iteratively — without any programming knowledge.
- Zapier connects more than 7,000 apps via webhooks and enables simple trigger-action automations, e.g. automatic CRM entries after a phone call.
- Vibe Coding describes the approach of building applications through natural-language prompts — but it requires domain knowledge about data models, tools, and processes.
- AI does not fully replace programmers: anyone who wants useful results must be able to answer follow-up questions and have a basic understanding of the tools involved.
- The goal of all automation is to eliminate recurring copy-and-paste tasks so that executives gain time for value-adding activities.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vibe Coding and how does it work in practice?
Vibe Coding describes the approach of creating software applications through natural-language prompts, without writing traditional code. In practice, you enter your requirements into an AI-powered tool such as Lovable or Power Apps, and the system generates a functional app from them. However, meaningful results require that you can describe your requirements precisely and answer the system’s follow-up questions.
Which automation tools are already included in Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 already includes Power Apps (for app and user interfaces), Power Automate (for automated processes and workflows), and Copilot Studio (for building AI agents) in the licence scope. Many companies are already paying for these tools without actively using them. With just these three components, a very large number of automations can be realised in Microsoft 365 environments.
What is Power Automate particularly well suited for?
Power Automate is particularly well suited to recurring, rule-based processes such as approval workflows, scheduled reports, and the automatic processing of email attachments. A concrete example from this episode: PDFs containing purchase orders are automatically read by an AI model and entered into a SharePoint list, including the requested delivery date from the accompanying email. Templates in the Power Automate portal make getting started much easier.
What can Lovable do and who is it for?
Lovable is a Swedish no-code tool that generates a complete, responsive web app from a prompt. It is suitable for users without programming knowledge who need simple to moderately complex applications such as event apps, analysis tools, or CRM interfaces. For more complex requirements, it is recommended to have Claude draft a structured prompt first and then enter that into Lovable.
How does Claude help with programming without coding knowledge?
According to this episode, Claude is very well suited as a prompt architect and coding assistant: from a description, it can create precise prompts for Lovable or generate complete N8n workflows as JSON files that you can import directly. Claude also knows many third-party tools and can suggest integrations — for example, Flux instead of DALL-E for image generation. A basic understanding of your own requirements remains essential, however.
What is N8n and how can it be used without programming knowledge?
N8n is a Berlin-based automation tool that lets you assemble complex workflows visually. Without deep programming knowledge, you can use N8n by having Claude generate a workflow as a JSON file and then importing it through N8n’s import function. After that, usually only minor configuration is needed — no manual coding.
What is Zapier used for and how many apps can be connected?
Zapier is used to connect different software systems that have no direct interface, via so-called Zaps triggered by specific events. According to this episode, more than 7,000 apps and tools are available for integration. A practical example: an incoming call to a telephone AI automatically triggers an entry in the CRM system.
Will AI soon completely replace traditional programmers?
This episode takes a clear position: AI will not replace programmers on a one-to-one basis. Anyone who wants meaningful results from AI tools must be able to answer follow-up questions and bring basic professional knowledge — for example, knowing which image model is more suitable or what a CRM data structure should look like. AI handles the implementation, but strategy and judgement remain with humans.
What are Desktop Flows in Power Automate?
Desktop Flows are a special type of automation in Power Automate for which you need to download Microsoft’s dedicated software locally. They enable Robot Process Automation (RPA), meaning the control of desktop applications that have no API of their own. This makes it possible to integrate older or non-cloud-capable programmes into automated workflows.
What concrete value does automation bring to executives?
Automation frees executives from recurring manual copy-and-paste tasks, creating time for value-adding activities such as looking after people. The goal, as stated in this episode, is to work on the business rather than in it. Executives should at least know which automation tools are already included in their existing licences, in order to avoid unnecessary investment.
Tools & Resources Mentioned
- Microsoft 365 – includes Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio for automation and app development
- Power Apps – tool for creating form-based internal apps and user interfaces without programming
- Power Automate – automation platform for cloud flows, desktop flows, and AI-powered document processing
- Copilot Studio – Microsoft platform for building custom AI agents with adjustable triggers and tool integrations
- Lovable – Swedish no-code tool for creating responsive web apps from a prompt
- Claude (AI) – AI system recommended as a prompt architect for Lovable and for generating N8n workflows as JSON
- N8n – Berlin-based open-source automation tool for complex workflows, importable as JSON
- Zapier – integration platform for connecting more than 7,000 apps via trigger-action logic
- Auphonic – audio optimisation tool used in the podcast production workflow
- HandBrake – open-source video compression tool used in the N8n podcast workflow
