A Microsoft-built agent in Microsoft Copilot that works through in-depth, multi-step research, drawing on organisational files and the web and producing a cited report. Copilot licences include it, and it respects the web search policy.
Also called Researcher agent.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Researcher in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Agent
A specialised form of Microsoft Copilot set up for one particular job, pairing instructions with knowledge and skills. You can create one in Copilot Studio, SharePoint or Agent Builder, and administrators control them from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Microsoft Copilot
Licensed users get this workplace AI assistant, which grounds large language models in organisational data from Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps. It respects existing permissions, so people see only what they could already open; without the licence, people use the web-grounded Microsoft Copilot Chat instead.
- Web search
Lets Copilot pull fresh information from Bing by sending a brief query it writes itself, never the full prompt. It is governed by a Cloud Policy setting (Allow web search in Copilot), and where allowed, people get a Web content toggle.
- Exclusions
Scopes taken out of a policy assignment; they can only narrow its coverage, never widen it.
Related terms
- Analyst
A reasoning agent built by Microsoft that comes alongside Researcher for people with a Microsoft Copilot licence, and writes and runs code to work through raw data such as multiple spreadsheets. Agent settings don't govern it, because it belongs to the core Copilot Chat experience.