Hello Champions!
Here’s a recap and top Q+A from our February M365 Champions monthly call of 2026, featuring Word, Excel and PowerPoint Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot with Alex Yang, Chelsea Fesik and Sangeeta Kulkarni of the Office AI product team.
We kicked off the call with two major community event announcements. First, the SharePoint 25th Birthday Celebration is happening on March 2, 2026—a free digital event highlighting SharePoint’s most defining innovations and offering a forward‑looking view into its AI‑driven future, with insights from Microsoft leaders. We also shared that the Microsoft 365 Community Conference returns April 21–23, 2026 in Orlando, where attendees can connect with Microsoft experts, explore hands‑on labs, and dive into the latest advancements across AI and Microsoft 365.
Alex and Chelsea introduced the new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot, explaining that they are designed to solve the “blank page” problem by turning natural‑language intent into finished, professional artifacts, not just drafts. They positioned these agents as task‑specific “thought partners” that help users move from conversation to completed documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, grounded in enterprise data and the web while respecting permissions. The agents ask clarifying questions when needed (such as audience, tone, or format) and support multi‑turn iteration so users can refine content conversationally rather than starting from scratch.
During his demo, Alex focused on the Excel (and PowerPoint) agent experience, showing how Copilot can create a fully built Excel workbook directly from a natural‑language request. In his demo, the Excel agent generated a multi‑tab spreadsheet complete with formulas, structured models, and sourced data, then seamlessly handed the file off to Excel for further refinement. He explained that the agent intelligently decides when to use enterprise data versus web research and highlighted the workflow distinction: using agents in Copilot chat for creation from scratch, then switching to in‑app agent mode for precise, iterative edits once the file exists.
Next, Chelsea demonstrated the Word agent, emphasizing long‑form, structured writing scenarios such as guides, reports, and proposals. Her demo showed how Word agent asks clarifying questions (like audience, tone, and theme), then generates a polished document that users can refine through conversation—adding sections, changing tone, or expanding details. She highlighted multi‑turn iteration, visible references, and how the agent acts as a thought partner that helps users move past the blank page while still keeping them in control of the final output.
For more information on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot, read the official release blog by Sangeeta Kulkarni here!
Q+A from this month's session:
- Can Word Agent use organizational templates?
Answer: Not fully today. Users can reference existing documents or templates and the agent will try to replicate them, but native support for organizational template libraries is still in progress.
- Will Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents be available without Copilot Premium?
Answer: Rollout is currently prioritized for Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium customers, with broader availability planned after the initial rollout completes.
- When will these agents be available worldwide (including Australia)?
Answer: Rollout started roughly two weeks before the call, with Microsoft aiming to saturate most worldwide tenants during March.
- Will agents support corporate brand kits and branding guidelines?
Answer: This is planned but not fully supported yet. Agents can reuse referenced documents today, but formal brand kit and template integration is under active development.
- Will these agents be embedded directly inside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint?
Answer: They are accessed via Copilot Chat and the Tools/Agents menu. Inside the apps, users interact through Agent Mode, which is the preferred in-app experience.
- When is the best time to use these agents in Copilot app vs agent mode in Word/PPT/Excel?
Answer: The Word/Excel/PowerPoint Agents in the M365 Copilot app are best suited for creating new documents. When you have a document already created and want to iterate on your document with Copilot with the document open side-by-side, then Agent Mode is best-suited for that.
- How do Word/Excel/PowerPoint Agents differ from Researcher Agent?
Answer: Researcher is optimized for deep, long-running research. App agents are optimized for creating polished, app-native documents with layouts, charts, and formatting.
- How does Microsoft reduce hallucinations in generated content?
Answer: Newer models have significantly lower hallucination rates, and agents surface citations, flag missing data, and provide templates when data can’t be verified.
- Are sources and citations included in generated documents?
Answer: Yes. Agents generate explicit source lists for facts and numbers, especially for Excel and research-heavy outputs.
- What happens if the agent can’t find reliable data?
Answer: Instead of fabricating information, the agent will flag missing data or provide a structured template for the user to complete.
- Are these agents user-created or personal agents?
Answer: No. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Researcher, and Analyst are first‑party Microsoft agents, not user-created agents.
- What happens to agents when a user leaves the organization?
Answer: Agents remain available. Files created by the user follow standard OneDrive offboarding and governance processes.
- Do these agents live in a user’s OneDrive or SharePoint?
Answer: No. The agents themselves do not live in user storage; only the generated documents do.
- Why am I seeing “Frontier agent availability is restricted” errors?
Answer: This indicates the tenant is not enrolled in the Copilot Frontier program and the GA version has not yet rolled out to that tenant.
- Do I need to enable Anthropic as an AI provider for these agents?
Answer: Anthropic enablement is required for Frontier access, but many users simply need to wait for GA rollout to their tenant.
- Will the Frontier agent disappear once GA is available?
Answer: Yes. The Frontier version will be replaced by the general availability agent when rollout completes.
- Will these agents appear in the Copilot Tools menu?
Answer: Yes. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Agents will appear alongside Researcher and Analyst in the Tools menu.
- Is there any difference between accessing the agent from copilot for m365 app or within the app itself?
Answer: The agents in the M365 Copilot app and from within the app itself are similarly capable. The M365 Copilot app agents are tuned towards creating documents, whereas if you want to do lots of iterative work, we recommend using the Agent Modes inside of the apps.
- Can Excel Agent generate full financial models?
Answer: Yes. Excel Agent can generate multi-sheet workbooks with formulas, projections, dashboards, and scenarios.
- Can Word Agent pull from enterprise data like meetings and files?
Answer: Yes. Word Agent can pull from Microsoft Graph sources such as emails, chats, meetings, and documents—respecting permissions.
- Can agents generate charts, graphs, and visuals?
Answer: Yes. Word and Excel agents generate charts and tables, and PowerPoint Agent generates slides with visuals.
- Can users iterate on generated content after creation?
Answer: Yes. Users can continue refining content either in Copilot Chat or directly in the app using Agent Mode.
- Can prompts and agent behavior be version-controlled in SharePoint?
Answer: This is not applicable because these agents are not user-created; they are global first‑party agents.
- Are governance controls the same as other Microsoft 365 files?
Answer: Yes. Generated files follow the same sensitivity labels, permissions, and compliance controls as any other file.
- Are Word/Excel/PowerPoint Agents the same as Copilot Studio agents?
Answer: No. Copilot Studio agents are custom and user-created, while Office app agents are first‑party Microsoft features.
- We have a managed property "Sensitivity" applied to OneDrive and SharePoint. These labels include "Corporate, sensitive, confidential, etc.) to assign to documents and data. Does - or - can Copilot agents be made to respond to Managed Properties to not include specific content with its creations?
Answer: Yes, all of the agents support sensitivity labeling and Azure Information Protection.
- Is it possible to limit the data source to our tenant's content or is it always assumed to look/use the web?
Answer: Select Work (at top) then go to Settings and turn off Web search.
- So, what's the best way to describe the different between Analyst and Excel Agent, or Researcher and Word Agent?
Answer: The Word and Excel agents are scoped specifically to functionality within those applications. Researcher will use content from a variety of sources in your enterprise and is meant for deeper analysis.
- I'm in a GCC Tenant, are these available in there now?
Answer: These are currently in the process of rolling out the agents to users in the Worldwide (non-GCC) environments. We will be rolling them out to GCC at a later date.
- The game changer and what I am waiting for is actually calling the WXP agents from an agent flow so that it can create documents in a deterministic way. When will that be possible?
Answer: No timelines to share about this just yet, but this is something we also really want as well. ;)
Join us next month on March 24th for our next community call.
- Haven't joined the program yet? It's free! Join here: https://aka.ms/M365Champion.
- Bring your questions to our discussion forum: https://aka.ms/DriveAdoption.
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