Forum Discussion
So many different CoPilots - confusing, unproductive
I appreciate your reply. I do think MSFT is doing things no one else is doing -- enterprise administration, data protection, etc., I give them credit for that. I have tried 10 things to get Copilot to work with Sharepoint. They are making it overly complicated.
Which AI tool or entry point within MSFT have you had the most success, productivity, or usage from?
I work for a Microsoft Partner, and we began our journey with Bing Chat Enterprise years ago. I have a deep understanding of the technologies that make up the Copilot ecosystem.
At this point, my answer to your question would be: Agents—designed for specific needs and functioning as expected. Yes, there are four levels of agents within Microsoft:
- Agents on SharePoint
- Agents within Business Chat (requires an additional Microsoft 365 Copilot license)
- Copilot Studio Agents
- Full developer-level agents using AI Foundry
Even though I’m not a developer, I can build agents up to level 3 using Copilot Studio. Of course, having a solid understanding of Microsoft ecosystem products is a big advantage.
Speaking for myself: I’m not sure I could set up an MCP server and integrate it with the cloud—but somehow, that knowledge came from your side as well, didn’t it? So at some point you played around with a service and tried your best in configuring it. Within the Microsoft ecosystem: Play around with Copilot Studio and you can get the same results, as Copilot Studio does now support MCP connections.
Thanks Peter! I like the easy configurability of a Sharepoint Agent, but it seems under-powered (AI capability-wise). I would like the Researcher Agent to be able to use the Sharepoint Agent (really the Sharepoint data source). So Business Chat and Sharepoint Agents -- easy to configure, but under-featured and not interoperable.
On the other hand, the Copilot Studio is a reworked "Virtual Agent" tool from a few years back and is massively complicated. There are pages and pages of options (Overview, Knowledge, Tools, Agents, Topics, Activity, Analytics, Channels, etc.) and I am not sure that it can use Researcher mode? I was not able to get the Copilot Agent to show up in Copilot Chat but just today it worked, and I have no idea why.
It all just feels needlessly complicated, even for what Microsoft is trying to accomplish.
As for me and MCP -- I downloaded some things from GitHub and typed about six commands into Terminal based on AI giving me instructions (Mac) and it worked. I don't claim to understand how.
Hi,
Agents in SharePoint and Business Chat are designed with the idea that anyone—even without extensive IT knowledge—can build and use them. These users typically don’t require the advanced capabilities that other, more complex agents might offer. I’ve trained dozens of users on these types of agents, and they’re generally very satisfied with what they can achieve.
When users need more advanced functionality, I usually introduce them to Copilot Studio. It still doesn’t require development know how (though having some technical knowledge is helpful), and it allows customers to quickly build their own agents.
As for integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat—you’re right, it’s still a bit buggy. However, from my perspective, Copilot Studio is a great solution for those who aren’t professional developers but still want to leverage AI features for their users. While deep research capabilities are not yet available, reasoning is supported and can be enabled in the agent’s generative AI settings.
The Researcher feature should soon be able to work with SharePoint data—not just individual files—but I’m not entirely certain. SharePoint sites are expected to be integrated into the Context IQ window in Business Chat, and the Researcher feature will be included there as well.
And yes, you’re absolutely right: Copilot Studio is the successor to Power Virtual Agents. Technically, it’s already far more advanced than its predecessor.