Microsoft SharePoint Blog

7 MIN READ

Five things for IT administrators to know about SharePoint agent management

Microsoft

Apr 08, 2025

Every day, customers add over two billion files to SharePoint and create two million new SharePoint sites. SharePoint agents unlock this vast knowledge by providing quick access to insights and knowledge, driving higher productivity and smarter business decisions.

Even though it's only been a few months since general availability, it’s been amazing to talk to customers who are using agents in so many unique ways – from making safety information available quickly to front line workers to gaining new insights from digitized research records. I was inspired by the creativity of our SharePoint community in the recent SharePoint Hackathon – be sure to check out the finalists in the “Most Creative Use of SharePoint Agents” category!

Over the next several months, we’re excited to continue to invest in the user experience and response quality of SharePoint agents. Expect to see SharePoint agents in Copilot Chat, stronger integration with Teams, and deeper monitoring and analytics capabilities - all designed to help anyone get started quickly with AI on their content.

With the growing usage of agents, robust governance is crucial to maintain data security, compliance, and optimal usage. SharePoint agents have built-in governance controls to help organizations manage their creation, access, and usage effectively. Read on to discover best practices in managing SharePoint agents and how effective governance can enhance your organization's efficiency.

Need more guidance? Microsoft Learn has all the details on SharePoint agent governance.
Short on time? Check out this short video outlining SharePoint agent governance.

How are SharePoint agents governed?

SharePoint agents are represented as .agent files in each site's document library or the Copilots folder. As such, site permissions define who can access or edit .agents on a particular site.

The .agent file can be grounded to specific SharePoint sites, folders, and files and responds to inquiries based on the askers’ permissions.

Figure 1: A .agent is managed as a file with the ability to delete, copy, and control access

Site permissions can be used to control both access to the knowledge of the agent and the agent itself. Microsoft Purview provides a scaled lens to help look at .agent activity across a tenant and multiple sites.

Where to implement controls	Who takes the action	Actions to be taken
SharePoint admin center	Admins	Limit access to a site with overshared content and further control accidental content discovery. Find more details in this article.
License service plans	Admins	Edit service plans under the Microsoft 365 Copilot license to enable or block certain users from using Copilot experiences in OneDrive and SharePoint.
Site permissions	Site owners	Set permissions on the SharePoint site to indicate who can access or create files, including agents, using site permissions. Limit site access to a specific group by setting up a Microsoft 365 group, setting the site as private (team sites only), and controlling group membership.
Agent picker	Site owners	Designate specific agents on a site as ‘approved’ via the agent picker. Approved agents always appear in the top section of the agent picker. See how it’s done in this article.
.agent file permissions	Site members with edit permissions	Set permissions on the .agent file to indicate who can access or edit the agent.

How can admins monitor usage?

Administrators have a few ways to monitor the usage of the agents that are created by their site owners and site members.

Site owners and site members can check file statistics on any .agent file they have permissions to view, including views and unique viewers. To find files for a specific agent, they can search using the agent's name (e.g. *.agent). They will only see the agents they have permission to view. Learn more about viewing agent usage with File Statistics.

As a site owner, you can also view popular files used on your sites via the site usage analytics page, including popular agent files as well as other content. Learn how to access site usage analytics.

SharePoint and global admins can get a summary of the number of agents on sites created in a specified time period through the Tenant-wide usage report available in SharePoint Advanced Management. These reports will soon be visualized on the Agent Insights reports, but you can get started now with the Start-SPOCopilotAgentInsightsReport and Get-SPOCopilotAgentInsightsReport cmdlets.

Figure 2: Sample SharePoint agent report PowerShell output

Compliance and global admins can see agent usage details, including which users interacted with the agent, as well as where and when the interaction took place using Purview .agent audit log. Audit records also include references to files, sites, or other resources that Copilot and AI applications accessed to generate responses to user prompts.

Figure 3: Sample audit log on Purview.

It is our priority to deliver even richer analytics across Copilot Analytics dashboard (480726), Microsoft 365 Admin Center (480729), SharePoint Online (480725), and SharePoint Advanced Management (486861) in the coming months.

What are the options for managing costs of SharePoint agents?

SharePoint agents can be utilized under two billing models, offering flexibility for your organization:

Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users: Creating, reasonable use, and sharing SharePoint agents are included as a feature within the Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Consumption-based pricing for non-Microsoft 365 Copilot users: For users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, consumption-based pricing enables the ability to only pay for the messages consumed. Starting April 1, 2025, the cost of an interaction with a SharePoint agent will be reduced and consume twelve (12) messages, so customers will be billed at $0.12 per interaction with SharePoint agents. Learn more about consumption-based pricing for SharePoint agents in this article.

The two billing models are not mutually exclusive and can both be implemented in the same organization.

Coming soon, for those leveraging the consumption-based option, organizations will be able to set up departmental billing and apply budget limits at a tenant level [Roadmap ID not yet available, check back here soon].

Departmental billing allows organizations to manage their costs effectively by providing the ability to create multiple billing policies that can be used for different departments. This enables better financial management and cost allocation across different areas within an organization.

Budget allow organizations to set a maximum spending limit for the entire tenant, ensuring that the organization does not exceed its budget and avoids unexpected charges.

In the meantime, learn more about monitoring consumption rates of SharePoint agents and creating budgets in Microsoft Cost Management in this article.

More granular controls for SharePoint admins are being explored to provide greater flexibility at the site or department level for configuration based on specific use cases. Stay tuned to your message center for updates on future billing controls.

How can admins disable SharePoint agents?

As an admin, you’re familiar with using Restricted Content Discovery to protect SharePoint sites that have the highest risk of oversharing or require accurate permissions. SharePoint agents follow this policy by removing the Copilot icon from the suite navigation bar and removing this site from being added as a knowledge source for all SharePoint agents. Users won’t have access to use the ready-made agent, create new agents on the site, or use that site’s content in any other SharePoint agent.

Because SharePoint agents are a .agent file, removing a specific SharePoint agent is as simple as deleting the .agent file or changing its sharing permissions.

Additionally, admins can use the SharePoint Online Management Shell command to manage trial access to SharePoint agents.

What enhancements are coming?

Right now, we’re focused on implementing more granular billing controls, advanced analytics, and further enhancing the collaboration experience with SharePoint agents. Here are some roadmap features to keep an eye out for:

Monitoring and analytics

Ability to view agent usage stats per site on source files citations (via SharePoint Online) - 480725
Ability to view agent usage statistics across all SharePoint sites (via Microsoft 365 Admin Center) - 480729
Ability to view agent insights for SharePoint Administrators (via SharePoint Advanced Management) - 486861
Ability to view agent analytics on Microsoft Viva Insights (Copilot Analytics Dashboard) - 480726

Billing

Ability to set up departmental billing and apply budget limits – [Roadmap ID not yet available, check back here soon]

SharePoint agents in Teams

Ability to use SharePoint agents in Teams mobile group chats and meetings – 481823
Ability to chat one-on-one with SharePoint agents in Teams chat - 481825
Ability to use SharePoint agents in Teams channels - 481822
Ability to add multiple SharePoint agents in Teams chats and meetings - 481826
Ability to access SharePoint agents from the Teams app store - 481824

Other capabilities

Ability to use SharePoint agents in Copilot Chat – [Roadmap ID not yet available, check back here soon]
Ability to manage SharePoint agents as shared apps in the Integrated apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center - 487857
Ability to for site page authors to add SharePoint agents using an agent web part, enabling end users to interact with SharePoint agents directly from the site pages - 481512
Ability to allow files from OneDrive as a grounding source - 480728

In summary

In introducing SharePoint agents, we aimed to solve the most fundamental, age-old business challenge: Get the right information to the right people at the right time to make the greatest impact on the customer. To fully leverage the value of these agents, consistent content management processes are essential for maintaining policy, security, and compliance.

As you implement the best practices outlined here, please share your questions and feedback. We’re listening and committed to continuous improvement.

Stay tuned for the exciting features we have on our roadmap! I look forward to sharing more information in the coming weeks on additional capabilities to help your organization surface, share, and act on content.

Don't forget, SharePoint agent promotion ends June 30, 2025

A SharePoint agent promotion is currently available, which provides any organization with at least 50 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses to receive 10,000 queries monthly for non-licensed users to consume. To read more about our limited time promotion, please refer to this blog.