What Are SharePoint Agents? A Plain-English Guide for End Users
If you’ve heard the words “SharePoint agent” floating around lately and felt your eyes glaze over, you’re not alone. The whole agent conversation has been moving fast, the names keep changing, and most of the explanations out there are written for IT people, not for the rest of us.
So here’s the plain-English version. What they are, how they work, and what you can actually do with one once it’s switched on in your tenant.
First, a quick note on the name change
You may have come across something called the Knowledge Agent when it first rolled into preview in late 2025. Same thing, new name. Microsoft has rebranded that experience and it’s now simply called AI in SharePoint. The floating button is still there, the capabilities are the same, the licence is still Microsoft 365 Copilot. They just dropped the “Knowledge Agent” label.
Then there’s a separate thing called SharePoint Agents (sometimes “custom agents”). These are the ones you create on a document library or a set of files. They’re not the same as AI in SharePoint, even though both sit under the broader Copilot umbrella. I’ll explain both below because the words get used interchangeably and it’s confusing.
What is a SharePoint Agent?
A SharePoint Agent is a small, focused AI assistant that’s grounded in a specific set of your SharePoint content — a library, a folder, or even a handful of files you pick. You ask it questions in plain English, and it answers using only the content you’ve pointed it at.
Think of it as a Copilot that’s been told, “Only look in this cupboard. Don’t go wandering off into the rest of the house.” That scoping is what makes it useful — instead of Copilot trawling everything you have access to, your agent stays focused on the content that matters for the task.
Every SharePoint site also gets a default site agent that’s already there, grounded in the whole site. You can use that one straight away if you want to ask questions across the full site, or you can build your own custom agent for something more specific.
How they work
Here’s the short version of what’s happening behind the scenes:
- You go to a document library, a folder, or select some files.
- You click Create an agent from the AI actions menu.
- SharePoint creates a small .agent file in that library — that’s literally what an agent is, a file.
- You can give it a name, a purpose, a tone, and tell it which files to use as its knowledge.
- You and anyone you share it with can then chat to the agent and ask questions about that content.
The agent only ever sees what the person asking has permission to see. So if you share an agent with someone who doesn’t have access to the underlying files, the agent simply won’t return anything from those files for that person. Permissions still rule everything, which is exactly how it should work.
To create or use a SharePoint Agent you need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and to create one you need at least Edit (Site Member) permissions on the library you’re working in.
Some basic things you could try
I’m still putting agents through their paces myself, so rather than tell you what they’re brilliant at, I’d rather you go and test some yourself. Here are a few simple, low-stakes ideas to start with. Nothing fancy, nothing solution-sized — just everyday things most people have content for.
| Try this agent | What you’d point it at | What you might ask it |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting notes assistant | A folder of your team’s meeting notes | “What did we decide about the launch date?” or “Summarise the last three meetings.” |
| Policy lookup | Your HR or company policies library | “How many sick days am I entitled to?” or “What’s the policy on working from home?” |
| Project summariser | The documents folder for one specific project | “What’s the current status?” or “Who owns the budget section?” |
| Onboarding helper | Your new-starter documents and welcome pack | “Where do I find the IT setup guide?” or “What do I need to do in week one?” |
| Brand & tone guide | Your brand guidelines and style documents | “What’s our tagline?” or “Can I use the logo on a black background?” |
None of these will replace the documents themselves, but they make finding the answer a lot quicker than scrolling through fifteen PDFs hoping the right line jumps out.
What I’m still figuring out
I want to be upfront that I’m still testing these. There’s plenty I haven’t worked through yet, including how agents behave when the source content is messy, how well they handle older or duplicated files, and where the practical limits sit for everyday business use. There’s also more arriving from Microsoft over the next few months as the product moves toward general availability.
So treat this post as the starting point. I’ll be writing more as I learn more — including what to do before you build an agent so the answers it gives you are actually worth trusting.
The bigger picture
Agents are a genuinely useful step forward, but they don’t fix the underlying problem most organisations have, which is messy SharePoint content. An agent grounded in disorganised, out-of-date, or poorly tagged files will give you disorganised, out-of-date answers — confidently. That’s the part nobody loves talking about, and it’s the part I’ll keep coming back to.
For now, the best thing you can do is try one. Pick a small library, build a basic agent, ask it a few real questions, and see what comes back. That’s how you’ll learn faster than reading any blog post — including this one.
Want help getting your SharePoint ready for agents?
If your content is the messy bit holding you back from making agents useful, that’s exactly what I help with. Head over to the resource hub for the tools I’ve built to get your environment in shape.
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Hi, I’m Liza 👋
Microsoft MVP (SharePoint) • SharePoint Blogger • Information Architecture Specialist
I’ve been working with SharePoint for nearly two decades, across consulting and in-house roles, helping organisations design, clean up, and scale their Microsoft 365 environments. I now run one of the fastest-growing SharePoint blogs, sharing practical guidance based on real-world experience.
My focus is information architecture — the layer that determines whether search works, governance sticks, and tools like Copilot actually deliver value… or quietly make things worse.
Through Simply SharePoint, I share practical, real-world guidance on structuring libraries, designing metadata, managing permissions, and fixing the issues that policies and “best practice” slides never really solve.
Everything on this SharePoint blog is based on how SharePoint is actually used — not how we wish it was used — with a strong emphasis on foundations that scale and hold up in the AI era.
