Microsoft said on 10 November 2026 that Community Agent in Viva Engage now supports more knowledge sources, clearer answers, feed-based draft review and broader activity reporting. The feature remains in public preview, and is aimed at community admins and experts who handle recurring questions in Viva Engage communities.
Community Agent is an AI agent for Viva Engage communities. It searches community conversations, the community’s connected SharePoint library, and sources added by an admin, then drafts replies to questions. Posted answers appear as replies to the original questions, where other members can find them later.
More sources for answers
Admins can already add SharePoint sites as sources for Community Agent. The preview now also supports public websites, such as official product documentation. Microsoft gives the example of a Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption community adding Microsoft Learn documentation alongside internal SharePoint material and community conversations.
The Include public community content setting lets the agent draw on conversations from other public communities in the same Engage network. Microsoft has also added an Only use expert and verified content setting. When enabled, it limits community conversation sources to best answers, verified answers, and content from community admins and experts.
The setup documentation lists a shared limit of 10 SharePoint sites and public websites per agent. Public websites must be available without signing in, and the URL can have up to four path levels after the website address. The agent searches only the public websites that an admin adds.
SharePoint access still needs attention. If the community’s Microsoft 365 group does not already have read access to an added SharePoint site or library, setup prompts for that access to be granted. Files that do not inherit the site’s permissions are not used by the agent.
Sensitivity labels also constrain what the agent can use. Admins can add SharePoint sites whose sensitivity label is at or below the label on the community or its backing Microsoft 365 group. Community Agent checks relevant files and site pages when drafting each answer, and does not use content with a higher sensitivity level than the community permits.
The preview supports SharePoint team and communication sites only. Microsoft says unsupported SharePoint compliance features include Restricted Content Discovery, Information Barriers, Data Loss Prevention, Conditional Access and Information Rights Management, and that support for these features is not currently planned for general availability.
Answer quality and review
Microsoft says Community Agent responses are now more concise. Citations now identify contributions from community experts and admins, and show when content is marked as a best or verified answer. That gives reviewers more context before they open every cited source.
The agent now applies stronger relevance checks. If it cannot find enough relevant information in its sources to support an answer, it does not attempt one. It also uses its own previous answers as sources only after a community admin or expert has marked them as verified.
Admins and experts can approve drafts directly from the community feed. The separate review page remains available for reviewing multiple drafts together. If a colleague answers the question while an agent draft is waiting, Community Agent checks the replies and withdraws its draft when it considers the question answered.
The review page now shows 14 days of activity. It covers drafts waiting for review, posted answers, dismissed drafts and skipped questions. Skipped questions include the reason the agent did not answer, such as insufficient relevant information in its sources.
Analytics, export and audit
Community analytics now includes an Agent activity section. It shows question coverage, generated and posted answers, review wait times, people helped, and estimated time saved. Microsoft bases the time saved estimate on 15 minutes for each answer the agent posted.
Network-level analytics gives network admins a view across communities. It shows each agent’s status and whether the agent posts automatically or requires review before posting. This matters where different communities use different levels of human review.
Viva Engage verified admins can export Community Agent data across a network for analysis or recordkeeping. The export includes agent configuration, knowledge sources and records of how drafted answers were reviewed. The Network Data Export API documentation lists CommunityAgentConfiguration.csv, CommunityAgentGrounding.csv and CommunityAgentProposals.csv among the relevant export files.
Audit logs in Microsoft Purview cover Community Agent setup and settings, knowledge source changes, SharePoint access grants and answer reviews. Searching those logs requires the Audit Logs or View-Only Audit Logs role.
Preview requirements
A network admin must enable the Community Agent preview in the Engage admin centre before community admins can add agents. Community admins can add one Community Agent per community. By default, the agent posts answers automatically, although admins can require review by a community admin or expert before posting.
During public preview, adding a Community Agent requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Reviewing, approving or editing agent-drafted answers also requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Reading answers posted by Community Agent requires a standard Viva Engage licence.
Community admins can view Community Agent analytics for their community with a standard Viva Engage licence. Network admins need Viva Engage premium to view Community Agent analytics across the network. Microsoft says a new network-wide Community Agent setting will replace the preview toggle at general availability, with at least 30 days’ notice; it has not given a general availability date.
Viva Engage agents that answer Copilot and workplace questions from SharePoint, community content and public documentation put administration, review controls and adoption support into ECS's M365 + Copilot topic, alongside Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, Viva, governance and adoption. The programme gives attendees sessions and practitioner experience on rollout decisions, knowledge source design, review models and analytics for Microsoft 365 communities. Bring the community scenarios, licensing questions and governance constraints that are difficult to settle from documentation alone.
This article was written by the ECS editorial team with the assistance of Amal Agent, run.events' AI assistant, which supported the research, drafting and proofreading.