Deploy an agent to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Copilot

  • 7 minutes

For an internal agent, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Copilot are where employees already work, so publishing to them is often the step from testing to real use. In this unit, you learn how to publish an agent to Teams and Microsoft Copilot, try it yourself, and share it with a pilot group or your whole organization.

Publish the agent to Teams and Microsoft Copilot

The Teams + Microsoft 365 channel makes the agent available in Teams and lists it in the Agent Store in Microsoft Copilot.

You can select this channel in the Publish agent dialog when you first publish. To add it to an agent that's already published:

  1. On the agent's Build tab, find the Channels area, and select Add channel.

  2. Select Teams + Microsoft 365, and confirm with Add channel.

  3. In the channel dialog, select Availability. Choose Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Teams, and then confirm the selection.

    Important

    Read the warning above the Availability choice. You can't change this setting after you publish, so decide where users reach the agent before you save.

  4. Select About info, and review the details that users see when they find the agent, such as its short and long descriptions, developer name, website, and terms of use. Users judge whether the agent fits their need from these details, so finalize them before you share the agent.

  5. Select Save, and wait for the channel to finish.

Try the agent before you share it

Before anyone else reaches the agent, confirm that the published version works on the surfaces your users work in. Preview tests the draft, so only a check from the channel itself shows what users get.

When the channel finishes, the Use and share tab offers View in Teams and View in Copilot:

  1. Select View in Teams. Teams opens the agent's store card, which shows the supported clients and a link to the permissions the agent requests.
  2. Select Add. Teams installs the agent for you only and opens it as its own chat.
  3. Ask a question that only your agent's data can answer. A generic question might get a plausible answer from the model alone, so a data-specific question confirms that you're testing the published agent.
  4. Back on the Use and share tab, select View in Copilot to open the agent's Agent Store card, and then select Add. The agent appears as an agent you can chat with in Microsoft Copilot.

Share the agent with users

Publishing makes the agent available, and sharing decides who can use it. Before you share, confirm these prerequisites:

  • The agent uses Authenticate with Microsoft.
  • The agent is published to Teams + Microsoft 365, with Microsoft Copilot availability turned on. If the agent isn't published, Copilot Studio prompts you to publish it before you share.
  • The people you share with have a Copilot Studio per-user license, or sign up for a trial.

To share the agent with specific people:

  1. Open the agent from the Agents page.
  2. On the top menu bar, select the Share icon next to Publish.
  3. In the Share panel, enter user names, email addresses, or security groups. Each one appears under People who can use the agent with a Pending status.
  4. Select Share.

People you share with this way become viewers. They see the agent in their list of agents and can open it to view its details and test it, but they can't edit it. You can share with security groups, but not with Microsoft 365 groups that aren't security enabled.

To share with everyone in your organization, use the organization option in the Share panel:

Organization option Who can use the agent
No permissions, unless specified Only the users and groups you add. This option is the default.
End user access Anyone in your organization can find and use the agent, but they can't see its details or edit it.

After you grant access, you can copy an installation link for the agent and send it to the people you shared it with. A link works only for users who already have access to the agent.

Choose a distribution path

Each distribution path fits a different stage of a rollout:

  • Yourself: Fits when you want to try the agent in Teams and Microsoft Copilot before anyone else. Use View in Teams and View in Copilot.
  • A pilot group: Fits when a small set of users should try the agent before a wider rollout. Share the agent with those users or a security group, and send them the installation link.
  • Your organization: Fits when the agent is ready for release and complies with your company's standards and policies. Set the organization option to End user access, or add the agent to the organization catalog from the confirmation that appears when publishing succeeds.

Every distribution path serves the same published version. To confirm that an update reached users, start a new chat and check the version in the greeting. If it still shows the earlier version, wait for publishing to finish, and then start another chat.

For example, suppose your HR benefits agent passes its tester review on the demo website. You add the Teams + Microsoft 365 channel and try the agent yourself in Teams and Microsoft Copilot. Then you share it with a pilot security group and send the group the installation link. When the pilot ends, you set the organization option to End user access, so every employee can find and use the agent.