Get started with SharePoint agents
Applies To
Office for business Microsoft OfficeEvery day, about 2 billion documents are added to Microsoft 365. With the fast-growing volume of workplace content, you need a quick and accurate way to sift through it and get the information you need. Microsoft SharePoint enhances security and efficiency in storing, organizing, and sharing your organization's content. But it offers beyond that. You can use AI-powered SharePoint agents to streamline workflows and foster collaboration that suits your team or organization. SharePoint agents can answer questions about the content on any SharePoint site or document library that the asker has permissions with. If you have edit permissions on a SharePoint site, you can even create agents for specific tasks and share them with your team.
Introducing SharePoint agents
There are two types of agents on a SharePoint site:
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Ready-made agent
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Custom-built agent
Ready-made agent
Every SharePoint site comes with a "ready-made agent", automatically scoped to the content on that site. These agents, scoped to the SharePoint site, require no building from site admins or site owners. The ready-made agent appears by default. SharePoint admins can remove the ready-made agent through the restricted content discovery policy as needed. Built-in agents do not have an associated.agent file. Site visitors can chat with this agent to understand content on this site, ask specific questions, and analyze documents.
Here is an example: a sales manager at Contoso Camera can leverage the ready-made agent from the marketing team's SharePoint site to understand the products:
Give me an overview to the Digital Mega-300 video camera, including its technical features and project timeline.
Custom-built agent
Not satisfied with the result of the ready-made agent? With site editing permissions, you can easily create agents by changing content scope, identify, and behavior. With the custom-built agent, the sales manager at Contoso Camera now can include additional SharePoint sites in addition to their team site, such as the Research & Development site, the Mega-200 product site to create a customized agent with wider scope, and specific behaviors tailored for their need:
Create a custom pitch script to compare Mega-300 and Mega-200, communicate the rigor of research and development of Mega-300, and the benefits of Mega-300.
What do you need to experience agents?
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M365 Copilot license holders can create and use SharePoint agents without additional charge.
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Non-M365 Copilot license holders who have pay-as-you-go service enabled for SharePoint agents can create and use SharePoint agents.
Interact with SharePoint agents
When you visit a SharePoint site or a document library, you can interact with an agent about the site and beyond. You can ask an agent to summarize the site or the documents, and chat about the content. Depending on the knowledge sources of the agent, you may ask questions about specific topics, tasks, projects and teams, tailored to the site content and even more.
Create and edit your agent
With site editing permissions, you can create your own agent and edit an existing agent. You can create and edit an agent to:
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Customize its branding and purpose
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Specify sites, pages, and files your agent should get information from.
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Define customized prompts tailored to the purpose and scope of the agent.
Note: You can only edit an agent that is created. You can't edit the ready-made agent that comes with the site.
FAQ and data handling
To learn more about agent, see Frequently asked questions.
For more information on how Microsoft 365 Copilot works, see Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
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