Meet SharePoint’s new overlord (…sorry, knowledge agent)

Surprise, surprise, Microsoft decided that the world desperately needed another AI agent in SharePoint. But this one, they claim, is different. It’s called Knowledge Agent, and it’s here to make your content smarter, your metadata actually usefull, and your Copilot dreams slightly more grounded.

Yes, you heard me, grounded. Because until now, Copilot often wandered off into fantasy land when trying to answer questions based on your content. Knowledge Agent is designed to put some structure and sanity behind it.

Let me walk you through what this magic does, how to flip the switches, and when (or whether) you should actually care.

What it actually does

Here’s the “marketing bullet list,” translated:

Goodbye to folder-in-folder-in-folder hell

Yes, Knowledge Agent actually reads metadata. Let that sink in. No more relying on the utterly stupid “folder inside a folder inside a folder” way of organising documents that we’ve all suffered through since the 90s.

Instead of wasting time digging through Finance > 2023 > Invoices > Draft > Final > Final-Final, you can tag files properly, let the agent suggest classification, and surface what you need in a few clicks.

This is the death knell for the “Windows Explorer school of thought” where structure equals endless nested folders. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to kill that habit once and for all, Knowledge Agent just handed it to you.

This is not “magic,” it’s “smart assistants with limits.” But for organisations drowning in unstructured content, this is a serious escalation in capability.

How to get started

Of course, Microsoft can’t just drop this in your tenant without you raising your hand. Here’s how you turn this on and make it actually useful:

1. Opt-in at tenant level

• You need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for users. Knowledge Agent is public preview, and requires Copilot licensing.
• Admins opt in the tenant. Microsoft provides a process (via a linked article in the official blog) to toggle Knowledge Agent in your tenant.
• Later, you’ll have flexibility to enable it per site. Starting November 1, individual SharePoint sites can be opted in.

To turn on Knowledge Agent (preview) in SharePoint, follow these steps:

1. Admin Role Required: You must be a SharePoint Administrator or Global Administrator.
2. PowerShell Setup: Use SharePoint Online Management Shell version 16.0.26413.12010 or later.
3. Enable Agent:

• Connect to your SharePoint admin center:

Connect-SPOService https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com

• Enable Knowledge Agent for all sites

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope AllSites

• Or enable it for all sites except specific ones:

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope ExcludeSelectedSites Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList @("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/site1")

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope ExcludeSelectedSites Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList @("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/site1")

1. Verify Setup:

Get-SPOTenant | Select-Object KnowledgeAgentScope

Remember, updating PowerShell with the right modules sometimes requires a restart – and if you want to check if you have the correct parameter KnowledgeAgentScope, run this:

(Get-Command Set-SPOTenant).Parameters.Keys | Sort-Object | Format-Table

2. Roll it out gradually

You’re not going to flip this on everywhere at once, unless your org loves chaos. Use pilot sites, skeletal content, and keep backups.

• Start with low-risk sites (intranets, internal docs) to see how metadata suggestion, automation, and content cleanup behave.
• Give site owners training: “how to accept/reject metadata suggestions,” “how to refine rules,” “how to review content gap suggestions.”
• Watch the suggestions it makes closely. It will misclassify, suggest nonsense, or fight your existing taxonomy. You’ll need manual oversight at first.

3. Use the floating button (yes, it follows you around)

Once enabled, the Knowledge Agent manifests in your SharePoint UI, there’s a floating button in the lower right on all surfaces.

Click it, and depending on where you are (library, page, site) you’ll see different options:

• From a SharePoint site you control: “Improve this site” (which walks you through broken links, content gaps, outdated pages).
• In a document library: “Organise this library,” “set up rules,” “create new views” — tasks that help you clean up and structure content.
• As a viewer or reader: “Ask a question” — the agent will try to answer based on the context (site, document library, selected file) with grounded results.
• Other goodies: summarise page, compare docs, generate audio, produce FAQs.

You can also speak in natural language to refine suggestions, so if you don’t feel like hunting menus, just ask the agent to “notify me when new contracts over $100k are added” or “flag outdated HR policies.”

What to watch out for (because nothing is perfect)

• Garbage in, garbage out: If your content is chaotic, with inconsistent naming, missing metadata, or poorly organised, Knowledge Agent will struggle.
• Overreaches: It may suggest weird metadata or automate rules you don’t want. You’ll need oversight for a while.
• Permissions and security: It must respect your site permission boundaries. Don’t expect it to reveal things to people who shouldn’t see them.
• Licensing surprises: It’s in public preview now. That might change. Microsoft says more details will be announced closer to general availability.
• Scale and complexity: Deep, nested libraries or heavily customised sites may break assumptions the agent makes.
• Change anxiety: Your users will freak out if the AI starts “touching” their content. Be clear about what it does and doesn’t do.

When (and why) you should care

You should care when:

• You have a SharePoint mess (which is most people).
• Your Copilot answers are constantly hallucinating or answering from nowhere.
• You want metadata and content hygiene without making humans tag thousands of files manually.
• You want to push part of your content management burden onto AI (but within boundaries).
• You’re okay with a preview product that might evolve or break stuff.

Don’t care (yet) if:

• You’re small and your content is already tight.
• You lose sleep over the AI tweaking your files.
• You don’t have Copilot licensing or want to wait for stability.

To sum it up:

• Microsoft just introduced Knowledge Agent in SharePoint, a built-in AI assistant that helps structure, tag, clean, and surface content.
• You access it via a floating button in SharePoint, with context-aware actions depending on where you are (site, page, library).
• To use it, you must opt in at tenant level (and eventually site level), and have Copilot licenses.
• It’s powerful, but not magical, oversight, cleanup, and testing are essential.
• Use it when your content is messy, and you’re ready to iterate, not when you expect perfect automation day one.

My honest opinion? This will blow your mind!