Sharepoint agents 🕵️
- Bjørnar Aassveen
- Apr 16
- 3 min read
In a previous post I wrote about security and compliance for agents in Microsoft 365, I wrote that there was a issue, SharePoint agents (Security and governance for Agents in Microsoft 365).
In this post, we dive into how to get a little better control over SharePoint agents.
How are SharePoint agents managed?
SharePoint agents are represented as .agent files in each site's document library. Site permissions define who can access or edit .agent files on a particular site.
The .agent file can be associated with specific SharePoint sites, folders, and files, and responds to requests based on the questioner's permissions. (Important point! The agent will not respond to questions you ask about content you do not have access to, it follows the permissions structure in M365)
How can administrators monitor usage?
Administrators have several ways to monitor usage of the agents they have created.
Site owners and Site members can check file statistics on any .agent file they have permission to view, including views and unique viewers. To find files for a specific agent, they can search using the agent name (e.g. *.agent). They will only see the agents they have permission to view.
As a Site Owner, you can also see popular files used on your sites via the Site Usage Analytics page, including popular agent files as well as other content.
SharePoint and global administrators can get an overview of the number of agents on sites created in a specified time period through the usage report available in SharePoint Advanced Management. (SAM is now included in the Microsoft 365 Copilot license, as announced earlier this year). These reports will soon be visualized on Agent Insights reports, but you can get started now with PowerShell. See more information here:
Start-SPOCopilotAgentInsightsReportGet-SPOCopilotAgentInsightsReport 
Compliance administrators and Global Administrators can view details about agent usage, including which users interacted with the agent, and where and when the interaction occurred using the Purview .agent audit log. These logs also include references to files, websites, or other resources that Copilot and AI applications used to generate responses to user requests.
What are the options for managing SharePoint agent costs?
SharePoint agents can be used under two billing models
Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users: Creation, use, and sharing of SharePoint agents is 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, enables consumption-based pricing. Details on setup and payment models can be found here: Set up SharePoint agents for pay-as-you-go billing - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn
One model does not exclude the other and both can be used in an organization. Currently, you can only set cost limits at the resource group level against Sharepoint agents. However, Microsoft promises that there will be an opportunity to set up departmental billing and budget limits per department. (No date or roadmap ID yet..)
How can administrators disable SharePoint agents?
As an administrator, you can choose to use Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) on individual sites where you do not want to be able to use Copilot. Enabling RCD for each site prevents the sites from appearing in organization-wide search and Microsoft Copilot services unless a user has recently interacted with the content. The primary use of this feature is to prevent the accidental discovery of high-risk sites. It is recommended to familiarize yourself with how RCD works if you are considering using it, read more here: Restrict discovery of SharePoint sites and content - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn
Since SharePoint agents are an .agent file, removing a specific SharePoint agent is as simple as deleting the .agent file or changing the sharing permissions.
Additionally, administrators can use the SharePoint Online Management Shell command to disable trial licenses for SharePoint agents.
Set-SPOCopilotPromoOptInStatus -IsCopilotPromoStatusEnabled $falseMicrosoft is working to improve reporting and control over all agents that occur in SharePoint and elsewhere, and one good news is that a new report will soon be available in SharePoint Advanced Management that provides better insights across domains.
The report shows the number of agents created, along with details about the policies that affect the various agents and how they affect users and queries. The report can also be downloaded for further analysis. Similar to PowerShell cmdlets, regular site owners will not be able to access these reports unless they have been explicitly granted roles.
Monitor SharePoint agent Usage - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn Five things for IT administrators to know about SharePoint agent management | Microsoft Community Hub
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