Every Monday the HR inbox gets the same questions: where's the expense report procedure, what does the remote work policy say, which vacation request form is the current one. All of it is already on the intranet. Nobody can find it, though, because there are three versions of the same document spread across four different sites.
SharePoint agents are meant to fix exactly that. Someone asks a question in plain language and the agent answers from the documents already on the intranet. It works well, with two caveats: the way you build them changes this month, and the quality of the answers depends more on how tidy your sites and permissions are than on the AI. Below we cover licensing, the transition Microsoft announced, and what to clean up before you turn a knowledge agent loose on your intranet.
What a SharePoint agent is
It's a Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant that answers questions from a defined set of content: a site, a document library, a few folders or specific files. Unlike general Copilot, it sticks to the sources and instructions you gave it ("only answer about HR policies and always name the document").
According to the SharePoint documentation on Microsoft Learn, these agents access company data the same way Copilot does across Microsoft 365: they answer based on each user's permissions on those documents. If someone can't open a file, the agent won't use that file to answer them.
They work best for repeated questions that already have a documented answer:
- internal policies and rules (vacation, expenses, remote work, equipment use);
- operating procedures and process manuals;
- onboarding for new hires;
- IT help desk FAQs;
- product sheets for the sales team.
What changes from November 2026
Until now, creating an agent in SharePoint produced a file with the .agent extension, stored on the site itself. Microsoft is retiring that format. Per the guide to upgrading agents in SharePoint and OneDrive:
- Starting mid-November 2026, new agents for SharePoint and OneDrive are built with Microsoft Copilot Agent Builder, and no .agent file is saved.
- Existing .agent files keep working in SharePoint, Teams and the Copilot app until the end of March 2027. After that, they stop responding.
- There is no automatic upgrade. The agent owner or site owner has to pick a path for each one.
- Upgraded agents are managed through Agent 365 and placed on pages with a new Agent Chat web part, which Microsoft lists as coming soon.
Microsoft suggests four paths depending on what each agent does today:
| If your agent today... | Recommended path |
|---|---|
| Only answers questions about content on the current site | Use Copilot in SharePoint directly |
| Runs a repeatable task on the site (drafting, reviewing, organizing files) | Convert it into a Copilot in SharePoint skill |
| Offers custom Q&A with its own instructions and sources | Upgrade it with Agent Builder |
| Is a Copilot Studio agent published to SharePoint | Publish it to the Microsoft Copilot app |
Watch the permissions, because they don't carry over on their own. A .agent file used the site's permissions. The upgraded agent is shared separately, with people, groups or email addresses, but not with SharePoint groups. If the original was shared with the whole organization, that access stays. Otherwise it's private until the owner shares it. And access to the agent doesn't grant access to the documents behind it: users need permission on both.
Licensing: who can build and who can use
Building an agent on SharePoint content requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and permission to add files to the site. Using one requires either a Copilot license or pay-as-you-go billing turned on for the organization.
| User situation | What they can do |
|---|---|
| No Copilot license, no pay-as-you-go | Can't build or use agents |
| No license, pay-as-you-go enabled on the tenant | Can use agents; usage is billed to an Azure subscription |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot license | Can build and use agents at no extra cost per answer |
Pay-as-you-go for SharePoint agents in the .agent format has a published rate: each interaction uses 12 messages (10 for tenant graph grounding and 2 for the generative answer), according to the Microsoft Learn billing page. For Copilot-licensed users, that interactive use carries no extra charge. That pay-as-you-go scheme only covers .agent files, though. Upgraded agents follow the agent licensing model for the Copilot app, where usage by unlicensed people is billed in Copilot Credits. If you plan to open an agent to unlicensed staff, estimate consumption first; we explained how those credits work in Copilot Studio: AI agents for your business without coding.
Keep one limit in mind when you design the agent: in Agent Builder, each agent can point to at most 100 SharePoint files, folders or sites plus one list, per the knowledge sources documentation. One more reason to keep official documents in a few places.
Clean up the content before you turn the agent on
A knowledge agent answers with whatever it finds. If the 2022 vacation policy sits next to the 2026 one in the same library, the agent may quote the wrong one with complete confidence. Before building the first agent, we'd check:
- That each topic has one official version. Archive or delete old versions and drafts; site lifecycle management helps you find inactive or ownerless sites.
- That documents are short and clearly titled. A three-page procedure with a clear title works better than an eighty-page manual.
- That every document has an owner. Someone has to update the policy when it changes. If nobody owns it, the agent ages along with the content.
- That permissions have been reviewed. The agent doesn't open new doors, but it does expose the ones already left open. A payroll folder shared with "everyone in the organization" by mistake will show up in answers.
For that last point, it helps that the Copilot license includes SharePoint Advanced Management, according to the guide to getting ready for Copilot and agents. It has data access governance reports to spot overshared sites and lets you ask site owners to review who has access. The most useful feature at the start is Restricted Content Discovery, which keeps a sensitive site out of Copilot's answers while you fix its permissions.
If those documents contain personal data about employees or customers, also check what Chile's Law 21.719 requires; we covered it in Microsoft Purview, data protection and Law 21.719.
A four-week plan to get started
With the transition underway, there's no point creating .agent files today that you'll have to migrate in March. Here's how we'd do it:
| Week | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Inventory existing agents (SharePoint Advanced Management reports and the agent registry list them) and pick one new use case, for example HR policies |
| 2 | Clean up that site: one version per document, owners assigned, permissions reviewed |
| 3 | Build the agent with Agent Builder, write its instructions and test it with five or six people using the questions that actually arrive by email |
| 4 | Review what it couldn't answer, fix it and share it with the team |
Week 4 almost always shows the same thing: bad answers point to a missing or outdated document, not to the agent. After that, measure how many questions stop landing in the inbox.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a Copilot license to use SharePoint agents?
To build them, yes. To use them, a person needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, or the organization needs pay-as-you-go billing enabled, which is charged to an Azure subscription.
Will my current .agent agents stop working?
They keep working until the end of March 2027. From mid-November 2026, new ones are built with Agent Builder, and existing ones have to be upgraded manually along the path that fits them.
Can the agent show documents a user isn't allowed to see?
No. It answers based on each person's permissions. The risk is the overly broad permissions already sitting on your intranet, which is why you should review them before turning the agent on.
Get your first agent right
At Disrupsoft we identify the Copilot scenarios with the most impact for your company, set it up in your Microsoft 365 environment and train the teams who will use it. If you want your intranet to answer questions without exposing what it shouldn't, let's talk about Copilot and Microsoft 365.
