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Fix Copilot Studio Giving Inconsistent SharePoint Answers
Question details
The user needs to resolve an issue where a Copilot Studio agent provides inconsistent, incorrect, or hallucinated responses based on SharePoint data.
- Product
- Microsoft Copilot Studio
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Using a Copilot Studio agent integrated with SharePoint knowledge sources to answer queries.
- Observed behavior
- The agent sometimes answers correctly, but occasionally provides no answer or hallucinates unrelated information such as office hours or shipping costs.
Ensure that your SharePoint content is fully indexed and that the user account testing the Copilot Studio agent has the appropriate read permissions for the connected SharePoint sites.
Optimize Generative AI Settings and Instructions
Adjust your Copilot Studio retrieval and generative settings to firmly ground responses in your SharePoint data and prevent hallucinations.
The accuracy of responses depends heavily on how the generative AI is instructed to handle unknown information. By adjusting the strictness and adding explicit prompt instructions, you can force the AI to rely exclusively on retrieved SharePoint data.
Open your SharePoint admin center to confirm the connected sites and document libraries are fully indexed and accessible to search.
Ensure the authentication settings in Copilot Studio are correctly configured to pass the user token to SharePoint, allowing the agent to read the required files based on the user's access level.
Navigate to the Generative AI settings in Copilot Studio and increase the grounding strictness level to reduce the likelihood of the agent fabricating information.
Add precise instructions to the agent's prompt, such as 'Only use information from the provided SharePoint knowledge source. If the answer is not found, state clearly that you do not know.'
Escalate to the Power Platform Community
If the issue persists despite configuration changes, consult the specialized community or Microsoft support for advanced troubleshooting.
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If complex enterprise integrations and agent setups are slowing down your personal productivity, consider streamlining your daily document tasks with WPS Office. It provides a lightweight, free alternative to Microsoft Office, featuring built-in AI tools for writing, summarizing, and data analysis without the need for complex SharePoint configurations.
- 1. Download and Install: Visit the official WPS website to download the free version of WPS Office and run the installer.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my Copilot Studio agent invent facts not found in SharePoint?
This phenomenon, known as hallucination, often occurs when the generative AI strictness is set too low or the system instructions fail to restrict the agent to rely solely on the provided SharePoint knowledge sources.
Does Copilot Studio respect SharePoint file permissions?
Yes, but only if user authentication is correctly configured. If manual authentication isn't set up to pass the user's token, the agent cannot access files restricted by permissions, which may lead to missing or incorrect answers.
How can I view what SharePoint sources Copilot Studio used for an answer?
During testing within the Copilot Studio test canvas, you can review the citations and retrieved sources linked at the end of the generated response to verify exactly which SharePoint documents were queried.
