Empower Your Team with AI Agents in SharePoint Online

Microsoft has introduced Copilot agents in SharePoint Online, enabling teams to harness AI for enhanced collaboration and productivity. These intelligent assistants can summarize documents, answer questions, and automate repetitive tasks, all within your SharePoint environment.

What Are Copilot Agents?

Copilot agents are AI-powered assistants integrated into SharePoint Online. They utilize information from your SharePoint sites, pages, and files to provide relevant insights and automate tasks. These agents can be customized to suit your team’s specific needs, offering tailored interactions and responses.

Getting Started

To begin using Copilot agents in SharePoint:

1. Ensure you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.​
2. Navigate to your SharePoint site and follow the steps in the next section.

How to Create and Edit a Copilot Agent

With site editing permissions, you can create and customize Copilot agents directly within SharePoint Online. Here is how:

1. Create an Agent

You can create an agent from several locations:

• From the SharePoint homepage: Navigate to your site and select New > Copilot agent.​

• From the command bar of a document library: Choose Create an agent for all supported files in this library.​

• From the context menu of selected files: Select the files you want, then choose Create an agent from the context menu.​

• From the Copilot chat pane: On any site, page, or document library, select the Copilot icon on the upper right to open the agent. Then select the dropdown next to the current agent and pick Create an agent.​

Once created, the agent is immediately ready, scoped to your selection. You can decide to Try it directly without further adjustments or select Edit to customize its branding, purpose, scope, and behavior. ​

2. Edit an Agent

To edit an existing agent:

• Select the agent from the Copilot chat pane.​
• Choose Edit to begin fine-tuning the agent’s identity, sources, and behavior.

Under Identity, you can:​

• Give the agent a new name.​
• Describe the purpose of the agent and how to use it.​

Under Sources, you can:​

• Modify the selection of files and sites that your agent uses to gather information.​
• Include additional sites and documents outside your current SharePoint site as sources.​

Under Behavior, you can:​

• Create a welcome message for the users of your agent.​
• Provide starter prompts and instructions for the agent to follow.​

Use the test panel on the right to try it out and adjust your instructions and starter prompts as needed. ​

Interacting with Copilot Agents

Once your Copilot agent is set up, you can interact with it directly within SharePoint:​

1. Open the Copilot chat pane:​
   • On any SharePoint site, page, or document library, select the Copilot icon on the upper right.​
2. Select a Copilot agent:​
   • Select the dropdown arrow next to the current Copilot agent to see all available agents.​
3. Start chatting:​
   • Ask questions about the site or documents by selecting from the suggested prompts or writing your own.​

You can ask the Copilot agent to summarize documents, provide information about a project, or even generate content based on the files in your SharePoint library. ​

Permissions and Data Access

Copilot agents only respond to your questions using information from sites, pages, and files that you already have access to and have included as the agent’s sources. To get information from all the sources you want the agent to use, you may need to update permissions for yourself or the people you want to share the agent with. ​

Supported File Types

Currently, you can chat with Copilot agents in SharePoint about the following file types:​

• Office documents: DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLSX​
• New Microsoft 365 formats: FLUID, LOOP​
• Universal formats: PDF, TXT, RTF​
• Web files: ASPX, HTM, HTML​

Support for additional file formats, such as images and videos, is coming soon. ​

Conclusion

AI-powered Copilot agents in SharePoint Online are a game-changer for businesses looking to boost productivity and streamline their workflows. By creating and customizing these intelligent assistants, teams can harness the full potential of AI to automate repetitive tasks, provide quick insights, and make informed decisions faster than ever. Whether you are summarizing documents, answering questions, or enhancing collaboration, Copilot agents offer a powerful solution within the familiar SharePoint environment. With easy setup and seamless integration, adopting these AI agents will improve team efficiency and help organizations stay ahead in today’s fast-paced digital world. So, start exploring and harnessing the power of AI today—your SharePoint experience will never be the same!