Generative answers with Search and summarize content

Important

Power Virtual Agents capabilities and features are now part of Microsoft Copilot Studio following significant investments in generative AI and enhanced integrations across Microsoft Copilot.

Some articles and screenshots may refer to Power Virtual Agents while we update documentation and training content.

When you create your copilot, you enter a URL your copilot uses to generate responses. This URL is used in all features of the copilot. However, you can boost your copilot's conversations by using multiple internal and external information sources within individual topics.

Within a copilot's topic, you can add a Create generative answers node. This node allows you to specify more sources that the node searches based on your inputs. Information sources defined in the Generative answers node override sources you specified at the copilot level, which functions as a fallback.

These sources include:

• External sources:

  • Bing Search
  • Bing Custom Search

• Internal resources:

  • Azure OpenAI on your data
  • Documents uploaded to Dataverse
  • SharePoint (only modern pages)
  • OneDrive for Business
  • Custom data (internal or external): Supply your own content from any source. For example, a Power Automate Flow, a Skill, or other source.

Information sources

Different information sources have different capabilities, such as the number of inputs, the type or format of the data, and how (or if) the source needs authentication to access it.

Name	Source	Description	Number of Inputs	Authentication
Bing Search	External	Searches the query input on Bing; returning results only from provided websites	4 public URLs (for example, microsoft.com)	None
Bing Custom Search	External	Query input filtered based on a website configuration external to Microsoft Copilot Studio	Each search ID can use more than 4 URLs (Bing Custom Search also provides other functionality) but you can only connect to one search ID	None
Azure OpenAI on your data	Internal		Defined by your Azure OpenAI Service connection	Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication
Documents	Internal	Searches documents uploaded to Dataverse, returning results from the document contents	Limited by Dataverse file storage allocation	None
SharePoint	Internal	Connects to a SharePoint URL, uses GraphSearch to return results	4 URLs	Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication
OneDrive for Business	Internal	Connects to a OneDrive for Business URL, uses GraphSearch to return results	4 URLs	Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication
Custom data	Internal	Uses a JSON code block to define the URLs and content to use	One variable, populated with the JSON results to be summarized	Dependent on source

Copilot user authentication for information sources means that when a specific user asks a question of the copilot, the copilot will only surface content that that specific user can access.

Add a generative answers node

1. Select the Topic page and open a topic. Find where you want to use generative answers.

2. Select the plus icon to open the new node menu.

3. Under Advanced, select Generative answers.

   

4. A new node called Create generative answers is added to your topic and opens the Properties pane automatically. Or, access the Properties pane by selecting the node's ... then Properties.

   You can specify and configure your new data sources:

   • Use a Bing Custom Search to search many websites
   • Use a connection to Azure OpenAI on your data
   • Upload documents to use as a data source (preview)
   • Use content on SharePoint or OneDrive for Business
   • Use a custom data source

Authentication

Some sources require authentication, since the copilot makes calls on behalf of the user in the chat window. Calls use the account credentials from powerva.microsoft.com.

The authentication settings configured in the copilot need manual authentication with the Service Provider type of Microsoft Entra ID.

To configure authentication and create a Microsoft Entra ID, see:

• Configure user authentication in Microsoft Copilot Studio.

• Configure user authentication with a Microsoft Entra ID.

Include delegated permissions for Microsoft Graph:

1. Files.Read.All
2. Sites.Read.All

Supported content

Generative answers obtain content stored in these formats:

• SharePoint pages (modern pages)
• Word documents (docx)
• PowerPoint documents (pptx)
• PDF documents (pdf)

Note

Only modern pages are supported. Content from classic aspx pages on SharePoint won't be used to generate answers.