{"id":652,"date":"2025-07-10T08:47:33","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/?page_id=652"},"modified":"2025-07-10T08:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:47:33","slug":"copilot-agents-benefits-and-limitations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/copilot-agents-benefits-and-limitations\/","title":{"rendered":"Copilot Agents \u2013 Benefits and limitations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"copilot-agent-benefits\">What are the benefits of Copilot Agents?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You could just use the general version of Copilot to do many of the same things that you can do with Copilot Agents. The main benefits of using Agents are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For repetitive tasks, or tasks shared between several people in a team, you can\u00a0<strong>store the task instructions in the Copilot Agent<\/strong>, so there\u2019s no need to keep writing these out each time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If everyone in a team is using the same Copilot Agent for the same task, it will provide a more<strong>\u00a0standardised and consistent output\u00a0<\/strong>than if everyone using their own private AI chats \u2013 especially if you carefully structure the instructions, for example by specifying output format, or providing content that it must use in its answers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You can give Copilot Agents\u00a0<strong>\u2018Starter prompts\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 these are essentially \u2018buttons\u2019 for conversation starters, so you can guide the user as to what functions the Agent has. With general AI chat tools, the user has to start with a blank text box, so they need to have some idea of what instructions to give it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One great use of AI is for role-plays. With Copilot Agents, you can\u00a0<strong>hide the description of the role-play and characters from the user<\/strong>, which helps with suspension of disbelief and immersion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another good use of Copilot Agents is to create student-facing activities \u2013 you can add<strong>\u00a0appropriate-level, accurate information for it to use in its feedback<\/strong>, rather than relying on AI\u2019s \u2018general knowledge\u2019.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You can give Copilot Agents\u00a0<strong>access to specific websites<\/strong>\u00a0(these must be \u2018open\u2019 \u2013 i.e. no log-in required).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"agent-limitations\">What are the limitations of Copilot Agents?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coventry University staff \/ students have access to the version of Copilot that is included in the \u2018Education Microsoft 365 licence\u2019. This version of Copilot allows us to create and use \u2018Agents\u2019 that are similar to other custom bots, such as OpenAI\u2019s \u2018custom GPTs\u2019 or Google Gemini\u2019s \u2018Gems\u2019, but with some&nbsp;<strong>important limitations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>You can\u2019t give Agents access to files.<\/strong>\u00a0You need to put all the custom information you want the Agent to have access to \u2013 i.e. information that it won\u2019t have from its general training data \u2013 in the \u2018prompt\u2019 (which can be up to\u00a0<strong>8,000 characters<\/strong>), or give it access to specific websites.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You can give Agents access to general\u00a0<strong>\u2018Web Search<\/strong>\u2018 or<strong>\u00a0specific URLs<\/strong>, but they\u00a0<strong>can only access \u2018open\u2019 websites\u00a0<\/strong>(i.e. websites that don\u2019t require a log-in).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>You can\u2019t connect Copilot Agents to other apps.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You\u00a0<strong>can\u2019t share Copilot Agents externally\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 they can only be shared with Coventry staff\/ students.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Copilot Agents\u00a0<strong>can\u2019t currently create images or data visualizations\u00a0<\/strong>(the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/m365.cloud.microsoft\/chat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">normal web version of Copilot\u00a0<\/a>can do both of these things, so if you need that functionality you\u2019d be better off sharing a prompt than creating a Copilot Agent).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Copilot Agents are\u00a0<strong>tied to the Microsoft account of the person who made them<\/strong>, so if that person leaves the organisation, the Agents will stop working. I recommend creating an index with all the information needed for someone else to recreate any Copilot Agent that you make.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In order to set expectations about Copilot Agents more generally, it\u2019s useful to note that Microsoft\u2019s use of the word \u2018to \u2018Agent\u2019 to describe their custom bots is a bit of an outlier. In general, \u2018Agent\u2019 or \u2018Agentic\u2019 is used for AI tools that can operate with a degree of autonomy \u2013 for example \u2018narrow\u2019 agents like Google\u2019s Deep Research that can create research reports, or \u2018general\u2019 agents like ChatGPT\u2019s Operator that can use a computer. Copilot\u2019s Agents are not \u2018Agentic\u2019 (autonomous) in this sense. It\u2019s best to think of Copilot Agents as\u00a0<strong>standard chat bots with custom instructions<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For more\u00a0<strong>general limitations of Copilot<\/strong>\u00a0vs other AI tools, such as restrictions on the amount of data\/ number of words it can work with, see the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/faq\/\">FAQ<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the benefits of Copilot Agents? You could just use the general version of Copilot to do many of the same things that you can do with Copilot Agents. The main benefits of using Agents are: What are the limitations of Copilot Agents? Coventry University staff \/ students have access to the version of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3323,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-652","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copilotcookbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}