Forum Discussion
Disabling Agent Creation for End Users with Copilot for Microsoft 365
Hello!
I am an IT admin at my organization, and we recently rolled out Copilot for Microsoft 365 for all end users.
I would like our end users to be able to access agents published by my organization and Microsoft (Analyst, Researcher, etc.) but I do not want them to be able to create agents in Copilot Studio OR Agent Builder. We have disabled Copilot Studio at the license level, but our end users are still able to create agents in the M365 Copilot app with the "New Agent" button.
To summarize, I want our users to be able to access Agents created by our organization and Microsoft, but I do not want them to be able to create any agents of their own at this time.
Is there a way to do this?
Thank you in advance,
stevenwagner
4 Replies
I don't see any "Agent Builder" or "Create an agent" settings in my 365 admin center. It is only combined agent-access like you said. Are you saying there is a new 365 admin experience that gives a setting to disable Agent Builder creation, but it has not yet reached our tenant.
Thank you, Jamony! I will have to submit a ticket to Microsoft as my tenant only has the ability to manage agent access and who can share agents with anyone in the organization. There is no separate setting for Agent Builder.
Are you saying there will be a separate setting for Agent Builder but my tenant has not yet received the new update?
Thank you!
Disabling the Copilot Studio license removes the full maker experience, but Agent Builder is governed separately; therefore New Agent remains visible. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, open Copilot, Settings, Data access, Agents, then scope Agent Builder or Create an agent to an approved builders group. Keep Microsoft and organization-published agents deployed to broader groups through All agents or Integrated apps. Do not set general agent User access to No users, because that also prevents those users from interacting with approved agents. After propagation, sign a test user out and in, then confirm approved agents open while creation is absent. If your tenant exposes only a combined agent-access control and no separate builder scope, the requested split is not currently available in that rollout; open a Microsoft 365 support request rather than relying on license removal.
Hi Jamony, thanks for your answer and I was keen to look at this myself, but unfortunately I can't follow your instructions. In M365 Admin Center, under Copilot > Settings, there is no option for 'Data access'. Could you please confirm what you're referring to?
On the default Optimize tab, there are suggestions relating to 'Data security', but nothing about 'Data access'. Same on the 'View all' tab; there is an option for Agents and in there you can define who can access and share agents, but nothing around setting who can build/approve agents.
