Researcher (Microsoft 365 Copilot)
Microsoft's built-in deep-research agent — multi-step reasoning across web and work data to answer complex questions.
Researcher is one of Microsoft's out-of-the-box reasoning agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot. It performs multi-step research by planning, retrieving, and synthesising across both public web sources and the user's own work data (Microsoft Graph — email, files, Teams, SharePoint). Output is a structured, citation-backed answer suitable for strategy work, market analysis, competitive intelligence, and complex internal questions that require pulling together many sources.
What this agent does
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Multi-step deep research combining public web sources with tenant-grounded work data via Microsoft Graph.
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Plan-retrieve-reason loop — decomposes the question, retrieves iteratively, refines sub-queries until the plan is answered.
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Citation-backed output — every claim links back to its source (web URL or internal file / email / chat).
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Honours existing Microsoft 365 permissions — the user only sees what they already have access to inside the tenant.
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Ships built-in with Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing — no custom development, configurable via admin controls and sensitivity labels.
What you can expect
Measured as reduction in claims without a source and in ungoverned research tools being used outside the M365 boundary.
Measured as consistency of research quality across junior and senior staff; less rework from shallow first-pass answers.
Measured as time-to-answer on complex questions (hours vs. a day) and volume of research tasks a single analyst can cover per week.