Microsoft has made OneDrive agents generally available, allowing users to query multiple documents simultaneously through Copilot instead of just one at a time.
Users can select up to 20 files and create an agent, saved as a .agent file in OneDrive.
Rather than teasing information out of individual documents, Microsoft says users can make cross-document queries, including “What decisions have we made so far?” and “What risks keep coming up?” The agent then generates a response based on the documents’ content.
Agents can be searched for and shared, although collaborators will need access to the source documents. Microsoft said: “The agent can provide complete, grounded responses keeping everyone aligned without extra handoffs.”
However, the claim that getting started “requires no special admin setup,” combined with the lack of detail about what the agents do behind the scenes or where user data ends up, is likely to worry administrators. That said, for a user of OneDrive on the web with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, that ship has long sailed.
The Register asked Microsoft about the privacy implications and what happens to user data while an agent does its thing, but other than acknowledging our question, the company did not respond.
Copilot meddling with OneDrive files is not new. Microsoft showed off a variety of concepts in 2023 and revealed updates in 2024. Users who don’t want a perky virtual assistant that might occasionally make potentially catastrophic errors don’t have to use the functionality.
However, for organizations that have bought into Microsoft’s vision of a Copilot-powered future, the functionality may be worth checking out. It makes queries more targeted and collaborative than simply applying AI to OneDrive.
There are some intriguing opportunities for collaboration, however, it is up to the user to make sure that anyone with whom an agent is shared has access to the same source files. Otherwise, there is an even greater chance that Copilot might be confidently wrong. Or, as Microsoft put it: “If someone opens the agent but doesn’t have access to the source files, they won’t get useful answers.” ®