Applies To

Note: Channel Agent for Teams channels is currently in public preview, and features are likely to change. To learn more about Microsoft's public preview program, see Get early access to new features in Microsoft Teams.

Channel Agent can answer questions directly in the Teams conversations you added it to, like its channel, meetings, and group chats.

To answer questions, Channel Agent retrieves information from its channel's messages, meeting summaries, its planner board, and the web. To learn more about what information these agents can retrieve, see How Channel Agent works.

Ask a question to Channel Agent

  1. Navigate to a Teams conversation that the agent is a member of.

  2. In the conversation’s compose box, @mention the agent and ask your question. You can also select a suggested prompt.

    1.  Prompt: @TeamFunAgent, what are all the ideas we generated for a fun, team-building activity during this meeting?

    2.  Prompt: @TeamFunAgent, please find all the outstanding questions for Maria?

    3.  Prompt: @TeamFunAgent, who is Justin's manager, and what is his manager's email?

    4.  Prompt: @TeamFunAgent, which tasks are assigned to me?

  3. Select the  Send icon Send button.

    1. The agent will spend some time researching and generating a response for you. You can see the agent's chain of thought as it develops an answer.

    2. Once the agent is finished thinking, it responds in the conversation’s thread with an answer.

  4. Ask more questions to the agent, and the agent will keep the conversation going with context of your previously asked questions and its responses.

Limitations of asking questions to Channel Agent

  • Only members of the agent’s channel can ask questions to the agent.

    • If someone who isn’t a member of the agent’s channel tries to ask it a question, they’ll receive a message that they need to be a member of the agent’s channel.

    • However, non-channel members will still be able to see the questions and answers from others to Channel Agent.

  • Channel Agent can’t answer questions in channels or conversations that have external users present.

    • If there are external users in the channel with the agent, the agent can’t be used at all.

    • External users must be removed from the channel or the other Teams conversations Channel Agent was added to in order to get answers from Channel Agent.

  • Even though Channel Agent can be added to group chats, it can’t retrieve information from group chats to answer questions.

  • For Channel Agent to access the web to answer questions, your IT admin needs to allow web search for Copilot.

    • If your IT admin has turned off web search for Copilot, Channel Agent can't search the web to answer questions.

More ways to work with Channel Agent

Get started with Channel Agent for Teams channels

How Channel Agent works

How to generate a status report using Channel Agent

How to schedule channel meetings using Channel Agent

How to create project tasks using Channel Agent

How to create and send emails using Channel Agent

Frequently asked questions about agents in Microsoft Teams