Knowledge sources overview
Within Copilot Studio, knowledge sources act in concert with generative answers. Knowledge sources act as the sheet music for generative answers, using enterprise data from Power Platform, Dynamics 365 data, websites, and external systems, so your copilots provide relevant information and insights for your end users.
Published copilots that contain knowledge use the configured knowledge sources to ground the published copilot. Knowledge can be incorporated at the copilot level, in the Knowledge page, or at the topic level, with a generative answers node in a copilot topic.
Knowledge sources can be incorporated into copilots during their initial creation, added after the copilot is created, or added to a generative answers topic node.
Add and manage knowledge for generative answers
Generative answers allow your copilot to find and present information from multiple sources, internal or external, without having to create specific topics. Generative answers can be used as primary information sources or as a fallback source when authored topics can't answer a user's query. As a result, you can quickly create and deploy a functional copilot. Makers don't need to manually author multiple topics, which might not address all customer questions.
By default, when you create a copilot, Copilot Studio automatically creates the Conversation Boosting system topic. This topic contains a generative answers node, which allows you to begin utilizing knowledge sources immediately. All knowledge sources that are added at the copilot level are added to generative answers node in the Conversation Boosting system topic.
For prerequisites and information on limitations, see Generative answers.
Supported knowledge sources
| Name | Source | Description | Number of inputs supported in general answers | Authentication |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Website | External | Searches the query input on Bing, only returns results from provided websites | Four public URLs (for example, microsoft.com) | None |
| Documents | Internal | Searches documents uploaded to Dataverse, returns results from the document contents | Limited by Dataverse file storage allocation | None |
| SharePoint | Internal | Connects to a SharePoint URL, uses GraphSearch to return results | Four URLs per generative answers topic node | Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication |
| Dataverse | Internal | Connects to the connected Dataverse environment and uses retrieval-augmented generative technique in Dataverse to return results | Two Dataverse knowledge sources (and up to 15 tables per knowledge source) | Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication |
| Enterprise data using Microsoft Graph connectors | Internal | Connects to Microsoft Graph connectors where your organization data is indexed by Microsoft Search | Two per custom copilot | Copilot user's Microsoft Entra ID authentication |
Note
Copilot user authentication for knowledge sources means that when a specific user asks a question of the copilot, the copilot only surfaces content that the specific user can access.
Knowledge sources in generative answers nodes currently don't support Bing Custom Search, Azure Open AI, or Custom Data. Instead, from the generative answers node properties, use the Classic data option for Bing Custom Search, Azure Open AI, or Custom Data sources.
For websites, you need to confirm which website(s) your organization owns that Bing will search through Copilot Studio.
Source authentication
If you're using SharePoint, Dataverse, or enterprise data using Microsoft Graph connectors, you need to incorporate authentication. For more information, see Configure user authentication in Copilot Studio, and for individual generative answers nodes, see Authentication.
In addition, you might need to account for URL considerations that require additional authentication for your sources.
Content moderation
Adjust the content moderation settings in your generative answers node. The content moderation settings allow your copilot to provide more answers, however, the increase in answers might affect the relevancy of the given answers.
Under How strict should the content moderation be, select the level you want for your copilot.
Low - More creative Medium - More balanced High - More precise Copilot generates the most answers, but might be inaccurate. Copilot generates more answers, but might be irrelevant or undesirable. Copilot’s answers are more relevant. (default) Select Save at the top of the page.