A nudge is a little tap on the shoulder. A computer notices something, then sends the right person a short message with a button to press.
A nudge turns something a system notices into a short message for a person, ideally with a choice to make. Power Automate and Teams can do this today. Cowork can run tasks when an email arrives. Autopilot, which is still in private preview, is designed to follow things up on its own.
Four patterns: scheduled check and notify (Recurrence trigger, Teams message), ask and wait (adaptive card with wait-for-response, logged), approval (Approvals connector), and delegated follow-up (Cowork event-driven tasks now; Autopilot in private preview). Each nudge should carry the evidence, a bounded choice and a deadline.
What I mean by a nudge
In this section, a nudge is an automation that turns something a system notices into an action for a person: a task, a question or a decision. The register says who owns a risk. The nudge makes sure they hear about it when something moves.
A good nudge carries three things: the evidence ("the weekly sample found 4 errors, the limit is 2"), a small set of choices ("pause the agent, keep running and investigate, or accept"), and a deadline. A nudge that only says "something happened" creates work without helping anyone decide.
Pattern 1: scheduled check and notify
A scheduled cloud flow in Power Automate runs on a timetable, such as once a day or once a week. It reads something, compares it with a limit, and sends a message if the limit is crossed.
Typical uses are overdue review dates, an unlogged weekly sample, or spend nearing its cap. It's the simplest pattern and the one I'd build first.
Pattern 2: ask and wait
Power Automate's Teams connector includes actions that post an adaptive card to a user or a channel and wait for a response. Microsoft's documentation says the flow doesn't continue until the recipient responds, and that only the first response to a card is used. The response is available to later steps, so the flow can write it back to the register.
This is the pattern I'd use for real decisions, because it records who chose what and when. For example, a card that says "The escalation agent's error rate is above its limit this week. Pause it, keep it running and investigate, or accept the rate for one more week?" with three buttons.
Pattern 3: formal approval
Where a decision needs a formal sign-off, Power Automate's Approvals feature sends an approval request and records the outcome. I'd use it for changes to thresholds or controls, where an audit trail matters more than speed.
Pattern 4: delegated follow-up
Copilot Cowork, which Microsoft lists as generally available, can run event-driven tasks that start when a matching email or Teams message arrives. Microsoft says Cowork asks for approval by default before sending an email, posting a message or changing a shared system. That makes it suitable for drafting a follow-up that a person then sends.
Autopilot goes further. Microsoft describes it as a persistent agent that can follow up on threads and chase stakeholders without waiting for a prompt. In Microsoft's September 2026 announcement it was expanding to private preview, so I'd treat it as a pattern to plan for and not one to rely on yet.
A worked example
This example is illustrative. The customer service team's register has a weekly sample of 20 AI-written call summaries.
| Step | Tool | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 09:00 | Scheduled flow | Checks whether last week's sample result is logged in the SharePoint list |
| If not logged | Teams message | Reminds the sample owner, with a link to the list |
| If logged and errors exceed 2 | Adaptive card, wait for response | Asks the risk owner to pause, investigate or accept, with the error count and examples |
| After a response | Flow | Writes the choice, the person and the time back to the register |
Together, the steps get a rising error rate to someone who can act within a day, with a record of what they decided.
Keep nudges rare
A nudge that fires every day becomes noise. I'd tie each one to a register row and a limit, and retire any that never lead to action, as in A nudge is a small decision too.
What I'm still checking
Adaptive cards that wait for a response can be left unanswered. I haven't settled on a standard for what a flow should do if nobody responds within a set time: escalate, repeat or default to the safe option. My current view is to default to the safest choice and tell the owner's manager.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, Run flows on a schedule, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Overview of adaptive cards for Microsoft Teams, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Get started with approvals, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Official Microsoft Blog, Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot, 25 September 2026, accessed 11 October 2026.