Basic Administrative Tasks for Copilot and Agents · Topic 2 of 5
Researcher, Analyst and Custom Agents
AB-900 use cases: Researcher for multi step research reports, Analyst for data analysis, and custom agents built in Agent Builder or Copilot Studio.
- 4 min
- Researcher means deep, multi step research that ends in a report.
- Analyst means data analysis: patterns, comparisons and charts.
- A custom agent solves a task specific to your organization.
What it is
An agent is a focused version of Copilot. It combines instructions, knowledge and skills so that it does one kind of job well. Three kinds of agent appear on the exam.
Researcher and Analyst are agents built by Microsoft. They sit inside the core Copilot chat experience, and a user starts them from the Tools menu in Copilot Chat. A custom agent is one your own organization builds for its own task.
How it works
Researcher
Researcher is built for questions that need more than one search. Given a goal, it plans the work, gathers material, reasons over it and returns a structured report. It can draw on work data such as emails, files and meetings, and on the web.
Good use cases:
- Preparing for a meeting with a new customer by pulling together public information and internal history.
- Building a market overview or a competitor comparison.
- Writing a first draft of a briefing document that needs several sources.
If a single prompt would return a quick answer, ordinary Copilot Chat is enough. Researcher is for the question that would otherwise take an afternoon of reading.
Analyst
Analyst is built for data. It works through a data question step by step and can turn raw figures into findings. A user can ask it to look at uploaded or stored data, find patterns and present the result.
Good use cases:
- Working out why monthly sales fell, from a spreadsheet of figures.
- Comparing budget with actual spend and highlighting the largest gaps.
- Summarising survey results into clear charts and conclusions.
Custom agents
A custom agent covers what the Microsoft agents do not: a task specific to your business. You give it instructions, point it at knowledge such as a SharePoint site, and optionally let it take actions or call other systems.
| Way to build | Who it suits | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Builder in Copilot | Any user who wants a simple agent from a description | Declarative agent built from instructions and knowledge |
| Microsoft Copilot Studio | Makers who need more control, actions and connectors | Low code tool, supports declarative and custom engine agents |
| SharePoint agent | Anyone who wants an agent for a site's content | Uses content hosted in SharePoint |
Good use cases:
- An HR agent that answers questions from the staff handbook.
- A sales coach that knows the company's pricing and product sheets.
- An IT help agent that gathers details and raises a ticket.
Researcher and Analyst compared with custom agents
| Researcher and Analyst | Custom agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Built by | Microsoft | Your organization, a partner, or a user |
| Purpose | General deep research and data analysis | A specific business task |
| Admin governance | Part of the core Copilot chat experience, not under the agent settings | Governed through Agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center |
A worked example
A product manager is preparing a launch review. She asks Researcher to build a report on three competitors using public sources and internal planning documents. She uploads last quarter's sales sheet and asks Analyst to explain the regional dip. Her team also wants the same launch checklist question answered the same way every time, so IT builds a custom agent in Copilot Studio that reads the launch playbook and answers from it only.
How the exam asks about this
- "A user needs a report that combines web sources and internal files, produced through a multi step process." Researcher.
- "A user wants to find trends in a sales spreadsheet and get charts." Analyst.
- "Staff should ask questions about the company's travel policy and get answers from that policy only." A custom agent.
What to remember for the exam
- Researcher means deep, multi step research that ends in a report.
- Analyst means data analysis: patterns, comparisons and charts.
- A custom agent solves a task specific to your organization.
- Custom agents can be built with Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, SharePoint or other tools.
- Researcher and Analyst are part of the core Copilot chat experience, and the agent settings do not govern them.
Do not pick a custom agent when Researcher or Analyst already does the job. The exam rewards the simplest fit.
Common mistakes
Using Analyst for text research. Analyst is about data. A report from many documents and web pages is Researcher's job.
Treating Researcher and Analyst as ordinary custom agents. They are Microsoft built experiences in Copilot Chat. Blocking or restricting custom agents does not switch them off.
Thinking only developers build agents. A user can create a basic agent with Agent Builder, which is why approval and sharing controls matter.
Check yourself
Which agent produces a multi step research report from work data and the web?
Researcher.
Which agent would you use to find trends in a spreadsheet of sales figures?
Analyst.
When is a custom agent the right choice?
When the task is specific to your organization, such as answering questions from your own handbook, and the Microsoft agents do not cover it.
Topic 2 of 5 in Basic Administrative Tasks for Copilot and Agents
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