How Channel Agent works

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 is a unique agent created in a Teams channel and is designed to enhance collaboration and productivity for your projects. Acting as an intelligent teammate, Channel Agent knows everything about your project.

How does Channel Agent work?

Create a Channel Agent for your channel

Not every channel has Channel Agent. You must first create a unique instance of Channel Agent for a single channel. Channel Agent for a channel is created in Teams channels.

Learn more at How to create a Channel Agent for a Teams channel.

Add Channel Agent to Teams conversations

Once you've created this agent, you can add your Channel Agent as a member of other Teams conversations, like meetings and group chats.

Learn more at How to add Channel Agent to other Teams conversations.

Approve and reject summaries from Channel Agent

Channel Agent in Teams meetings generates summaries based on the meetings’ transcripts. Approved summaries are added to the agent’s knowledge.

Learn more at How to approve and reject summaries from Channel Agent.

Manage the settings of Channel Agent

Channel Agent has settings you can manage within Teams. These settings include skills’ settings and removing the agent from conversations in Teams.

Learn more at How to manage Channel Agent's settings.

Remove Channel Agent

Once you’ve created and added Channel Agent to Teams conversations, you can remove that agent from conversations or delete the agent entirely.

Learn more at How to remove Channel Agent.

What can Channel Agent do?

Channel Agent has many skills to help your project team collaborate better. Channel Agent can:

Limitations of Channel Agent

While Channel Agent offers many benefits, some limitations currently apply:

Only one Channel Agent can exist per channel.
- However, meetings and group chats can have multiple Channel Agent agents as members.
Channel Agent can’t be added to private channels.
Group chats’ messages can’t be used by Channel Agent.
Scheduling meetings via Channel Agent is limited to channel meetings with a maximum of 10 invitees.
Mobile support is limited; agent creation, removal, and configuration must be done via desktop or web.
You can't turn off auto-creation of Channel Agent in new channels. Only IT admins can turn this ability off.
Only members of the channel can add Channel Agent to other group chats or meeting chats.
Channel Agent may gather and share context that crosses information barriers.
Channel Agent is best supported by English (US).
Channel Agent is not functional in channels that contain external or guest users.
Channel Agent is not supported in tenants that use Customer Key.
Processing data from previews can happen outside of the EU Data Boundaries.

What information does Channel Agent have access to?

Some Teams conversations Channel Agent is added to become knowledge sources for the agent, while other conversations don’t.

Tip: A knowledge source is a Teams conversation that Channel Agent can retrieve information from when generating responses, like project status reports and responding to questions.

Here is a list of Channel Agent’s potential knowledge sources:

Channel messages: By default, messages within the channel where Channel Agent is created are part of the agent’s knowledge base.
Channel meetings: Since Channel Agent is treated like a channel member, the agent is automatically added to the channel’s meetings. For channel meetings, the agent generates summaries that can be reviewed and added to the agent’s knowledge.
Other Teams meetings: When added to other Teams meetings, these agents can access transcripts to generate summaries. Those summaries can be reviewed and added to the agent’s knowledge.
Web search: If allowed by your IT admin, Channel Agent can search the web to answer questions.
Information outside of Teams: Your IT admin can allow Channel Agent to access information from outside of Teams for tasks like viewing your org chart and sending emails.

Notes:

Channel Agent can also be added to group chats, but group chat messages aren’t used as knowledge sources for the agent.
Channel Agent is useful in group chats for tasks like answering open-ended questions.

More ways to work with Channel Agent

Get started with Channel Agent for Teams channels

Frequently asked questions about agents in Microsoft Teams