Logic Apps Automation release, what is it, and how it works?

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Microsoft just added Logic Apps Automation to the mix. Technically, it’s a new SKU, but it brings so much more.

Here’s the thing: after going through the public Logic Apps Labs content, one nuance became very clear. Logic Apps Automation is new, but agentic Logic Apps is not. Conversational agents, autonomous agents, MCP integration, and even deployable chat experiences already show up across the broader Azure Logic Apps story.

Currently this feature is in preview, so treat it as such.

Quick overview

So here is a quick 3-min summary of Logic Apps Automation

New SKU but the same engine of logic apps, so still access to 1400+ connectors
AI-first design means different design principles and a different way to build AI solutions
New management objects/structure to even better govern your logic apps
New Automation portal (https://auto.azure.com) with a completely new designer
0-N scaling to even better support small to medium solutions
Sandboxes for AI testing

What the Logic Apps Labs site makes very clear is that Microsoft is building a broader agentic story across Logic Apps, not only inside Automation. The labs already cover conversational agents, autonomous agents, multi-agent patterns, A2A, MCP tools, and Logic Apps acting as MCP servers.

Here is what is still missing as of today (still in preview)

No CICD/deployment options
No way to export the code of whole solution, versioning exists as a built-in feature, but it’s on the workflow level
Conversational workflows are not supported in Automation today, but they are already documented in Logic Apps Labs for Consumption and Standard
I know the intention is for this to have VNET integration, but it is missing in the preview state

New marketplace option

Now when creating a new Azure Logic App from the marketplace, you will see a new option in the UI

Note: for this option to appear, you need to be enrolled in the preview.

New structure

Logic App Automations is a bit different. Below diagram presents it’s current structure.

What I’ve noticed

Sandboxes are new, this is for AI testing scenarios
Extra hierarchy, Apps are now bundled in projects (more on this in the following section)
Rest is mostly the same

Ref: https://auto.azure.com/docs/features/projects-and-applications/

Resource Matching

In this table you can see how the new structure maps to the current one.

Level	Consumption	Standard	Automation
Project	❌ Resource Group (technically?)	❌ Resource Group (technically?)	Automations Project Azure resource
Group of workflows	❌	Logic App (Standard) Azure resource	Application Azure child resource
Workflow	Logic App (Consumption) Azure resource	Workflow JSON code in wwwroot	Workflow JSON code

With new level of hierarchy it will be easier for you to manage a group of projects in Azure Automation. What are the use-cases, of course time will tell.

Things that I’ve tested and stood out to me

The code of workflows is not visible in ARM template of logic apps automation
Export Template tool fails in Azure Portal, it’s not yet supported
Code can be copy-pasted from automation portal
There is no code definition of entire automation project, most likely will come in the future

New Portal

New Logic App portal is available at https://auto.azure.com/. This doesn’t replace current Azure Portal, it’s just a new portal for Logic App Automation.

Resources in portal.azure.com vs auto.azure.com

If you open https://auto.azure.com and navigate to projects you can see projects you’ve created.

And in Azure portal resource group, each project is a separate resource.

New Developer Experince (UI)

This UI reminds me of N8N, so it’s a good choice that has proven its value. Experience overall is very fluid.

Differences in typical workflow

This is a simple HTML api which sends and email

LA Standard	LA Automation
	or horizontal (defailt)

Key things I’ve noticed

Automations supports both horizontal and vertical layouts
UI is different, but options are mostly the same
I’ve built a few logic apps and everything worked the same way

This is a simple agent workflow

LA Standard	LA Automation

Key things I’ve noticed

Agent workflow look a bit different too, but mostly the same
Previews of parameter values are amazing, big props!
Not all models are supported yet, my workflows failed with GPT 5.1, but worked with 4.1, where in Logic App standard they worked fine

Run history

Logic App Standard history example

Logic App Automation history example

Key things I’ve noticed

Logic app automation has realtime history, which is amazing!
Experience overall is much smoother in automation, but it isn’t bad in standard either
History looks more compact across workflow, much better AI support

Contrasting with current logic apps SKUs

So what’s different?

Hosting and scaling

Here are top things from the perspective of hosting new agents

Area	Consumption	Standard	Automation
Runtime model	Multitenant Logic Apps runtime	Single-tenant Logic Apps runtime	Single-tenant Logic Apps runtime
Compute management	Microsoft-managed shared infrastructure	Customer-provisioned hosting capacity	Microsoft-managed hosting capacity
Runtime isolation	Shared	Dedicated runtime boundary	Dedicated runtime boundary
Scale-to-zero	Yes	No	Yes
Automatic scale-out	Yes	Yes (1–N)	Yes (0–N)
Multiple workflows per resource	No (1 workflow per Logic App resource)	Yes	Yes
VNET/private networking	Limited via connectors	Yes	Yes, but available yet in preview

Pricing model

Cost for automation isn’t finalized, but here is a high level overview

Area	Consumption	Standard	Automation
Billing approach	Per executed action	Provisioned capcity + autoscaled instances	Based on scaled units uptime
Pay per action/trigger	Yes	No	No
Pay for reserved capacity	No	Yes	No
Pay when completely idle	No	Yes	No
Cost predictability	Lower at high scale	Highest	Moderate to high
Cost efficiency for sporadic workloads	Excellent	Poor	Excellent
Cost efficiency for sustained workloads	Can become expensive	Excellent	Depends on workload profile

Decision guidance

Might change in the future, I’m a bit trying to guess here based on the direction

Scenario	Recommended SKU
Simple event-driven automation	Consumption
AI workloads	Automation
Low-volume departmental workflows	Consumption or Automation
Highly variable workloads needing isolation	Automation
Workloads with long idle periods and traffic bursts	Automation
Enterprise integration platform	Standard
SAP, EDI, B2B integration	Standard
High-throughput API orchestration	Standard
Central Integration Services platform	Standard
Predictable 24x7 workload	Standard

This is the useful mental model: Logic Apps Automation is not “AI finally arrived in Logic Apps”. It is Microsoft packaging agentic workflow capabilities into a new, more opinionated, AI-native SKU. Standard and Consumption are still very relevant, and Logic Apps Labs proves that a lot of the agent story is already there today.