Copilot extensibility has evolved since the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot in September 2023. The first tools included plugins and message extensions, which Teams and Power Platform developers were familiar with. To improve the capability to scope Copilot’s focus and following the industry trend to all-in on agentic AI, Microsoft pivoted to focus Copilot’s extensibility on agents. The current implementation provides the ability to describe how an individual Copilot agent should behave, what information it is grounded in, and the actions it can take through a set of tools and capabilities.
Since Microsoft’s move toward agents as the delivery vehicle for custom AI experiences and Copilot extensions, governance and security have, in some areas, been playing catch-up. In February 2025, we wondered if Copilot agents will run amok in Microsoft 365 tenants, noting that administration is a missing link in the competitive race to build agentic capabilities.
Where are the Custom Agents in a Microsoft 365 tenant?
Whilst it’d be nice to assume that a Microsoft 365 tenant operates a single inventory for agents, complete with details about the state of each agent and its target platform, this isn’t the case. To begin with, we must understand where organization-built agents can exist within the tenant.
| Developer tool | Agent Type | Publishable in |
| Copilot Studio Lite | Declarative agents | Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat |
| Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit | Declarative agents | Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat |
| SharePoint | SharePoint agents | SharePoint, Microsoft Teams |
| Copilot Studio Full | Declarative agents | Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat |
| Copilot Studio Full | Custom engine agents | Microsoft 365 Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, custom channels |
| Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit | Custom engine agents | Microsoft 365 Copilot, Teams, custom channels |
An easy distinction to make in how agents are built and where they are published is whether they are published to Microsoft channels. With agent inventory in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, supporting agents published to Microsoft 365 channels, such as Copilot Chat and Teams, (different from custom channels), this is a reasonable assumption, but there are some nuances to be aware of.
Agent inventory in Microsoft 365 Admin Center
The Microsoft 365 Admin Center agent inventory lists the agents built in the tenant that have been published to a Microsoft 365 channel, as shown in Figure 1. Several scenarios meet the criteria for an agent to show up in this inventory:
- Agents built and that are sharable directly by users (shared agents)
- Agents built and published to the organization admin for approval and sharing (custom agents)
- First-party agents from Microsoft
- External agents from ISVs
- Frontier agents from Microsoft for early testing and experimentation
In all these scenarios, the agents are published to Microsoft 365 channels, like Teams and Copilot. Administrators can find the agent inventory by going to Copilot à Agents in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Figure 1 – Agent inventory in Microsoft 365 Admin Center
The Capability Today, and Roadmap Items that will Help
For agents listed in the agent inventory in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, several settings can be applied, and management activities can be used to control individual agents or multiple agents at once. The ability to use these management tools is dictated by agent type, as some controls apply only in specific agent scenarios.
One capability is the ability to view metadata about what an agent can do, specifically covering capabilities, data sources, and custom actions. This capability works in specific scenarios where the published agent is declarative. Declarative agents, which are agents purposed only for Copilot Chat, to give Copilot a scoped focus, use a standardized object to manage the capabilities that can be switched on for that agent. Custom engine agents aren’t built in the same way and hence don’t support standard metadata. The lack of standardization means that it’s necessary to reference developer tool to understand what the agents built in that tool can do.
For shared agents, we can deploy, block, unblock, and export agents in the tenant. Shared agents refers refers to the scenario where users have built agents in a developer tool such as Copilot Studio lite, and they are able to share them directly with other users or groups.
| ‘Shared agents’ refers to agents that users have built themselves, and that can be shared. These agents still appear in the agent inventory as ‘shared agents’ regardless of whether the user building them has shared them with another user or group. |
For agents published by Microsoft or ISVs, or those considered ‘custom’ because the agents have been submitted to tenant administrators for approval and sharing, we have a few more ‘management’ controls. In these publishing scenarios, we can depict the tenant administrator who can use these agents, as shown in Figure 3, for the Xero agent.
| It should be noted by administrators that the controls in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center for agents only apply to these agents where they are published in Microsoft 365 channels. Where a developer has built an agent and published it to Copilot following the administrator approval route, these controls apply. However, if that developer decides to expose that agent through a custom web application or third-party channel, additionally, whether built in Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, or Copilot Studio or another tool, these controls do not apply. |
Administrators can continue to deploy or block these agents, with deployment referring to the ability to install an agent for users on behalf of an administrator, rather than make it available in the agent store.
Scalable Management is a Challenge
Using the agent controls available in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center is challenging for organizations operating at scale, as the only interface available is the GUI. To manage agents published to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams at scale, an API is required. Organizations looking to facilitate automated approvals, publish following human assessment of agent capabilities, and integrate with service front doors must rely on task-queue-based approaches today, with administrators handling the manual actions needed to manage agents.
I hope that with Microsoft Graph endpoints on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap focused on this, we’ll be able to access the inventory and take action against specific agents with an API soon.
Seeking Capability Metadata for Custom Engine Agents
The agent inventory in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center is helpful for scenarios where declarative agents are published to Microsoft 365 channels, enabling the admin center to surface capability metadata. It is also beneficial for controlling how Microsoft, ISV-provided, or custom agents are available to users.
When exploring custom engine agents built by developers in the organization, metadata isn’t available in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. These agents rely on custom code logic, model deployments, and more flexible logic to enable their capabilities. Hence, they are harder to build metadata around in a standardized way.
In these scenarios, we must refer to the agents’ developer tools for information about their capabilities, which can often lead to a deeper assessment of each agent. In my next article, we’ll review options for observing agents built by users using tools such as Copilot Studio Full, Azure AI Foundry, and the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit.
