Your First Steps with SharePoint Agents
Recently announced by Microsoft at Ignite, SharePoint Agents are now available on all tenants. SharePoint Agents are AI-powered agents that revolutionize the way you interact with SharePoint Online documentation. Leveraging artificial intelligence, these agents provide answers to your questions in natural language, eliminating the need to sift through countless documents.
Keep reading to discover how SharePoint Agents can transform your workflow and boost your productivity.
Why You Need SharePoint Agents
Remember the time when you were told that there is a SharePoint Online site with all the documentation. When you accessed the site there were many documents and you didn't know where to start.
SharePoint Agents are a new tool that gives us access to information easily and quickly. Thanks to artificial intelligence, we can get answers to questions in natural language. We no longer have to go document by document looking for a specific set of data.
SharePoint Agents offer a multitude of benefits. They save valuable time by eliminating the need to manually sift through countless documents. This increased efficiency boosts productivity, allowing users to focus on more critical tasks. Furthermore, they facilitate seamless collaboration by enabling easy information sharing among team members.
How To Create Your First SharePoint Agent
Creating a SharePoint Agent is a straightforward process that requires minimal effort. To begin, simply select the specific documents and folders that will serve as the information source for your agent. Once you've identified these relevant resources, click the "Create Agent" button on the menu. This action will initiate the agent creation process, and your new agent will soon be ready for use.
As a final step, share the agent file with your colleagues via Teams or Outlook, enabling them to leverage its capabilities. Alternatively, you can create a new agent directly from the site's homepage. Additionally, you have the flexibility to incorporate other SharePoint sites or documents from external SharePoint sites as potential information sources for your agent.
Start Today With These Two Use Cases
Embarking on your SharePoint Agent journey is as simple as taking the first step. Start small and gradually expand your knowledge and usage as you gain experience. To inspire your initial endeavors, consider these two compelling use cases:
1. Learning Material Agent
Imagine creating an agent from a SharePoint document library filled with training materials. This agent could revolutionize the learning experience by generating innovative ways to explore thematic issues. It can even be used to accelerate the adoption of new tools and services. For example, a company could create an agent to help employees learn about a new software tool. It could answer questions about the tool and provide tips and tricks.
2. External Providers Agent
By creating an agent from documents containing detailed explanations of the company's technical architectures, development standards, branding guidelines, and more, you can streamline communication with external suppliers. This can significantly reduce the time spent answering technical inquiries during the onboarding process.
Conclusion
Just when we thought that few things were going to improve the SharePoint Online experience, agents appear. Agents have arrived to take away the tedious days of reading the infinite number of existing documents in SharePoint document libraries.
Thanks to their simple and trivial creation, they allow any type of employee, experienced or not, to create their own agents and share them with their colleagues. It is clear that this will be a turning point in how employees use existing documentation to their advantage.
I am sure that the hours that will be saved will allow employees to perform a number of other more creative and quality tasks thanks to the information provided by the agents.
References
Get started with agents in SharePoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-agents-in-sharepoint-69e2faf9-2c1e-4baa-8305-23e625021bcf
Ignite 2024: Agents in SharePoint now in general availability: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/ignite-2024-agents-in-sharepoint-now-in-general-availability/4298746
Frequently asked questions about Copilot in SharePoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/frequently-asked-questions-about-copilot-in-sharepoint-eb1b7668-3d98-4a93-98ef-f0c6dfc694f0