Brian Alderman

Introduction to Microsoft 365 Agents

Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly important part of Microsoft 365, and agents are one of the most significant developments in this area. Microsoft 365 agents are AI-powered assistants designed to help users find information, answer questions, complete tasks, and automate business processes.

Unlike a traditional chatbot that primarily answers questions, an agent can be designed around a specific business purpose. It can use organizational information, follow defined instructions, interact with business systems, and, when configured to do so, take actions on a user’s behalf.

What Can Microsoft 365 Agents Do?

Microsoft 365 agents can be created for many different business scenarios. For example, an organization could create an agent that:

  • Answers questions about company policies
  • Helps employees find information in SharePoint
  • Assists with IT support
  • Helps employees with HR questions
  • Summarizes business information
  • Searches company documents
  • Assists with sales and customer information
  • Automates repetitive business tasks
  • Connects users with business applications and workflows

The key idea is that an agent is specialized for a particular purpose. Instead of asking a user to search through multiple documents, sites, and applications, an agent can provide a conversational way to access that information.

Where Can Microsoft 365 Agents Be Used?

Microsoft is making agents available across many of the applications and services that users already work with.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Agents can extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with specialized knowledge and capabilities. Users can interact with agents directly through the Copilot experience.

For example, an organization could provide a Human Resources Agent that answers questions using approved company HR policies.

Microsoft Teams

Agents can be used in Teams to provide assistance where employees already collaborate.

Examples include:

  • IT help desk agents
  • Project assistants
  • HR assistants
  • Sales assistants
  • Department-specific knowledge agents

An employee could ask an IT agent a question directly in Teams rather than searching through documentation or submitting a support request.

SharePoint

SharePoint is particularly well suited for agents because it contains large amounts of organizational information.

A SharePoint agent can use content such as:

  • Documents
  • Pages
  • Policies
  • Procedures
  • Lists
  • Other SharePoint content

For example, a company could create an Employee Handbook Agent that helps employees quickly find answers about company policies and procedures.

Outlook

Agents can also support users in email and other Outlook-based scenarios.

For example, an agent could help users summarize information, locate relevant business information, or assist with tasks associated with customer or employee communications.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Agents can also extend the Microsoft 365 productivity experience.

Examples include:

  • A document-review agent in Word
  • A data-analysis assistant for Excel
  • A presentation-content agent for PowerPoint

These scenarios allow AI assistance to be specialized around particular business processes or organizational knowledge.

Power Automate and Business Applications

Agents become even more powerful when they can interact with workflows and business applications.

For example, an employee could tell an agent:

“I need to submit a request for new computer equipment.”

The agent could gather the required information and initiate a workflow that sends the request for approval.

Types of Microsoft 365 Agents

At a high level, Microsoft provides several ways to create agents.

SharePoint Agents are designed primarily around SharePoint content and are useful for quickly creating knowledge-based assistants.

Agent Builder allows users to create specialized agents within the Microsoft 365 Copilot experience without traditional programming.

Copilot Studio provides more advanced capabilities, including workflows, actions, connectors, and integrations with business systems.

Developers can also build more customized agents using Microsoft’s developer tools and agent SDKs.

Why Are Agents Important?

The biggest change agents bring to Microsoft 365 is the move from simply finding information to getting work done.

Instead of:

Search → Find document → Read document → Determine what to do → Perform task

an agent can potentially provide:

Ask → Agent finds the information → Agent determines the next step → Agent performs the configured action

This makes agents particularly valuable for repetitive tasks, organizational knowledge, employee assistance, and business processes.

Getting Started with Microsoft 365 Agents

For organizations beginning to explore agents, a good starting point is a simple, low-risk business scenario.

Examples include:

  • An employee policy agent
  • A SharePoint knowledge agent
  • An IT help desk agent
  • A project information agent
  • A department-specific FAQ agent

Once an organization becomes comfortable with these scenarios, it can move toward more advanced agents that integrate with workflows, business applications, and other Microsoft 365 services.

Microsoft 365 agents represent the next step in Microsoft’s AI strategy: moving beyond answering questions to helping users accomplish real work.