Copilot in SharePoint is now generally available: here's what changed and what admins must do before 1 November 2026
Copilot in SharePoint hit GA on 30 September 2026, bringing new features, a split billing model, and a PowerShell deadline admins cannot ignore.
Copilot in SharePoint moved to general availability on 30 September 2026, and October’s update builds on that foundation with a clear theme: finishing the job without leaving SharePoint. PDF restructuring, image editing, near-real-time metadata autofill, and site analytics are all in scope. So is a billing split you need to understand before costs appear on your invoice, and a hard deadline for admins who relied on PowerShell to manage Copilot availability.
What actually shipped
The GA release is not just a label change. Microsoft has confirmed that Copilot in SharePoint now runs on a Microsoft-managed reasoning model from OpenAI, selected and updated by Microsoft over time without requiring any model configuration on your end.
October’s additions focus on what happens after content is created:
PDF editing at the page level. You can now ask Copilot to split a document into separate files, extract specific sections, reorder pages, or insert attachments. If you regularly break a master report into audience-specific versions, this removes several manual steps.
Version history through conversation. Ask Copilot what changed between versions of a file and have it restore an earlier one. This replaces the old approach of opening version history, comparing files side by side, and manually reverting.
Image creation and editing in document libraries. Generate new images or edit existing ones directly in the Copilot pane inside SharePoint. The result appears as a preview before it lands in your library. This is particularly useful for field photo workflows and document scanning scenarios where the content already lives in SharePoint.
Near-real-time metadata autofill. Documents arriving in a library, such as support tickets, intake forms, or IT requests, can have columns like request type, affected team, urgency, and next action populated automatically. A document library can start functioning more like a structured issue tracker without anyone manually keying in values.
HTML review and publishing. There is a new workflow for reviewing and updating AI-generated HTML content directly within SharePoint, then publishing it without switching tools.
Copilot in OneDrive has also reached general availability, built on the same foundation, so the experience of creating, organising, and working with files feels consistent whether content lives in a team site or a personal drive.
The billing split you need to know about
This is the detail most likely to produce a surprise on someone’s bill if it goes unread.
Most Copilot in SharePoint capabilities are included with the Microsoft 365 Copilot user subscription licence. However, three capability areas consume Copilot Credits through usage-based billing:
- Image generation and editing in document libraries and sites
- AI-generated site analytics reports
- Advanced metadata autofill running in near real time
Copilot Credits began rolling out alongside the GA release. Admins should visit Microsoft 365 Admin Center, then Copilot, then Cost Management to set defaults before these features are used at scale. Microsoft has provided the controls, but the defaults may not match your organisation’s expectations.
The November 1 deadline for admins
This one has a hard date: 1 November 2026.
During public preview, administrators used PowerShell commands, specifically KnowledgeAgentScope, KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList, and KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesListOperation, to control which sites had access to Copilot in SharePoint. Those settings are honoured until 1 November 2026 and then ignored entirely.
After that date, the correct place to manage Copilot availability is Site AI settings, accessible via Settings, then Site AI on any SharePoint site. Site owners can use this panel to choose which agent appears when someone clicks the Copilot icon in the global header, hide the Copilot button for site visitors, and enable advanced document processing per site.
Restricted Content Discovery remains available for broader governance at the tenant level.
If your organisation configured KnowledgeAgentScope with ExcludeSelectedSites, IncludeSelectedSites, or NoSites, those configurations stop working on 1 November 2026. Replicate any intentional restrictions in Site AI settings before that date.
A few other changes worth noting
The SharePoint Page Agent is retiring. Microsoft introduced a separate SharePoint Page Agent in November 2025. That is being removed because Copilot in SharePoint now covers the same AI-assisted page and news post creation functionality. Existing page agent configurations will need to move across.
Copilot Search is becoming the default. Across SharePoint and OneDrive, Copilot Search, which combines natural language understanding with semantic retrieval, is becoming the default search experience. Users can ask questions naturally and receive answers grounded in content they are authorised to access. Admins can mark up to 100 SharePoint Online sites as authoritative sources to make results more reliable.
FAQ authoring has moved. AI-generated FAQ creation shifts from the FAQ web part into Copilot in SharePoint. Existing FAQ content continues to work, but new AI-generated FAQs are created through Copilot in SharePoint going forward.
What this means for you
For end users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, the day-to-day change is straightforward: more can be done without leaving SharePoint. Document restructuring, metadata tagging, version recovery, and image editing are now part of the same surface where content already lives.
For admins, there are two concrete actions. First, check your Cost Management settings in the admin centre and decide whether you want usage-based features enabled broadly or restricted, before someone discovers image generation and uses it at scale. Second, audit any PowerShell-based Copilot availability controls your organisation put in place during preview and migrate them to Site AI settings before 1 November 2026. That deadline does not flex.
Microsoft cited an average saving of 67.7 hours per co-build customer scenario during the preview period, representing a 95.7% reduction in time spent on document workflows. The GA release makes those capabilities available to the full Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriber base, not just early adopters.