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In this lesson you’ll learn the core administrative tasks required to deploy, secure, govern, and maintain Microsoft 365 Copilot agents. As organizations build custom AI agents to automate and assist business processes, administrators are responsible for the agent lifecycle: from creation and registration to monitoring, governance, and retirement. This lesson covers practical, admin-focused guidance for building Copilot Chat agents, integrating SharePoint as a knowledge source, implementing iterative development practices, enforcing security and access control, establishing governance and approvals, and managing agent operations at scale.
This lesson assumes familiarity with Microsoft 365 administration concepts, Azure AD identities/roles, and basic AI/agent terminology.

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Learning objectives — overview

Below are the six key administrative objectives covered in this lesson, with practical examples and links to relevant tasks or docs.

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What you’ll learn in this lesson

  • End-to-end process to create and register Microsoft 365 Copilot agents.
  • How to configure SharePoint as a knowledge source and apply appropriate access scoping.
  • Best practices for iterative agent development: testing strategies, telemetry, and feedback loops.
  • Permission models and security controls (Azure AD roles, conditional access) to protect data and limit admin functions.
  • Governance patterns and approval workflows to ensure agent compliance, quality, and consistency.
  • Operational tasks for monitoring, updating, and retiring agents responsibly.
Ensure you have the necessary admin roles before making changes: configuring SharePoint connectors, registering Copilot agents, and modifying conditional access policies typically require Global Admin, SharePoint Admin, or specific delegated roles. Mistakes in permissions can expose sensitive data.
By mastering these areas, administrators will be able to manage Copilot agents effectively, securely, and at scale throughout their entire lifecycle. With these objectives in mind, let’s begin by examining the core administrative tasks involved in creating and managing Microsoft 365 Copilot agents.

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