To use a SharePoint agent in Teams, open the agent in SharePoint, select the ellipsis next to it, choose Copy link for Teams, and post the link in a channel, group chat or meeting chat. Once someone adds it to the conversation, anyone there can @mention the agent and get an answer in the thread, without opening SharePoint.
I get asked this a lot: do we have to be in SharePoint to use these agents? No. Project teams mostly run out of Teams, so in the video above I built a project manager agent over two channels’ files and added it to the project’s General channel, then added a second agent from a different site to the same channel. If you haven’t built an agent yet, building a Copilot agent from a SharePoint library covers that part.
Before you start
- An agent built in SharePoint. You need access to it and to its knowledge sources.
- Teammates who can open those sources too. Sharing the agent doesn’t change permissions on the sites, pages or files behind it, and each person only gets answers from content they can already see.
- No guests in the conversation. Microsoft’s share an agent from SharePoint in Teams page says agents won’t respond in group chats or channels that include external or guest users.
Scope the agent to the channels it serves
For a project agent I didn’t want everything on the site, only the content for two channels. The files in a standard channel are stored in a folder named after that channel in the team site’s Documents library, so in SharePoint I selected the General and information architecture folders and chose Create an agent. The agent was grounded in those two folders and nothing else.
Whatever the team uploads to either channel’s Files tab lands in the agent’s sources without anyone updating the agent. I renamed it My Project Manager, gave it an icon and wrote short instructions: act as a project manager with all the knowledge about this project, give accurate information from the selected files, reply in a formal tone.
How to add the agent to a Teams channel
- Open the agent in SharePoint. On the site, page or library, select the agent icon in the upper-right corner and pick your agent. I asked mine for the project scope here first, to check it was answering from the right files.
- Copy the link for Teams. Select the ellipsis next to the agent and choose Copy link for Teams. In the Link copied dialog, Settings lets you change who can use the agent through the link.
- Post the link in the conversation. I started a post in the General channel, pasted the link and gave it the subject “My project manager agent is ready”.
- Add the agent. Whoever opens the post selects Add to this chat/channel when prompted. Skip this and people see the link but can’t talk to the agent. The agent then introduces itself with some starter prompts.
- @mention it. Type @ and the agent’s name, then your question. When I asked it to remind me of the scope, it replied in the thread. When I asked which content types were planned, it came back with each content type, its site columns and citations I could open.
You can add as many agents to one channel as the team needs. I added a policies agent grounded on a different site the same way and asked it how many days of leave we were entitled to.
To take an agent out of a chat, select the ellipsis next to the chat in Teams, choose Manage apps, then the ellipsis next to the agent and Remove.
What happens when not everyone can see the sources
The policies agent didn’t answer in the channel straight away. It asked me (signed in as Frankie, a demo account) to review its response first, because some people in the chat didn’t have access to some of the sources it searched. Everyone else in the channel saw a message saying it was waiting for Frankie to review the response. I selected View response, read the answer and the leave policy it cited, decided it was general information and sent it.
Microsoft documents the same behaviour, and a shared answer carries a note showing who asked, reviewed and shared it.
Keep answers current with a master document and an amendments folder
An agent grounded only in an original policy keeps quoting the old rule after it’s amended. The pattern I use is to ground the agent in the master document plus a separate folder or document set that holds every amendment, so a new amendment is in scope as soon as it’s saved.
In that demo I built an advisory guidelines agent for a made-up wealth firm, Anderson Wealth Partners, in Copilot Chat’s agent builder, and selected the master client investment advisory guidelines and the amendments document set as knowledge. The instructions named the master document by its file name, said the amendments folder held all later amendments, and set out how to interpret and combine the two. Asked how to prepare a statement of advice, it answered from the master document and quoted amendment 2, section 2.2, citing both. Asked about client data security requirements, it cited only amendment 1 and gave its effective date.
One agent per channel, scoped to what the channel can see
I’d design so people rarely hit the review step. If an agent in a project channel is grounded in content only half the channel can open, every second answer turns into a judgement call for whoever asked. Ground channel agents in that channel’s own folders, or in content the whole team can already open, and keep agents with narrower sources for chats where everyone shares that access.
Read the held-back answer before you send it, every time. Once shared, the whole channel sees content they couldn’t open themselves, with you named as the reviewer. I sent the leave answer because it was general policy. An answer quoting an HR case file or a client contract stays with the person who asked.
For amendments, put one rule in the instructions about which document wins when they disagree, and date every amendment. If someone renames the master document, update the instructions on the same day.
My demo channel also had a SharePoint page as a tab beside the agent, with the road map, resources and the team on it. That build is in adding a SharePoint page as a tab in Teams.
What to watch for
- Guests. Add a guest to the channel and the agent stops responding there. Keep client-facing channels and agent channels separate.
- The link’s access settings. Check Settings in the Link copied dialog before you post the link anywhere wide.
- Menu changes. When I recorded this the option was Copy a link for Teams, so expect labels to keep moving.
Frequently asked questions
Can I add a SharePoint agent to a Teams meeting? You can post the link in a meeting chat and add the agent there, the same as a group chat. Microsoft’s instructions cover group chats, meeting chats and channels.
Why can my colleague see the agent link but not use it? Nobody selected Add to this chat or channel when the link was posted, or they can’t open the agent and its sources. Without the add step the URL shows in the conversation, but no one can interact with the agent.
Does adding an agent to Teams share the files it’s grounded in? No. Sharing the agent leaves permissions on its sites, pages and files as they are. If people need fuller answers, update access to the sources themselves, and remember the agent answers each person from what they can see.
