SharePoint Tools in Work IQ Preview for Microsoft 365

Introduction

Microsoft has introduced SharePoint tools in Work IQ in public preview, extending agent capabilities across Microsoft 365 with native SharePoint actions. For IT teams and platform admins, this matters because agents can now do more than summarize content—they can create, update, organize, and govern SharePoint work directly.

What’s new in SharePoint tools in Work IQ

The preview adds more than 60 SharePoint operations through the Work IQ MCP server. These tools are the same underlying capabilities used by Copilot in SharePoint and are now being exposed to broader agent scenarios, including Microsoft Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot CLI, VS Code, and custom-built agents.

Key capabilities include:

• Searching SharePoint sites and retrieving file or folder metadata
• Discovering lists and schemas
• Querying large lists, including natural language queries
• Adding, updating, or deleting list items
• Creating lists, columns, and views
• Applying column and view formatting
• Managing approvals, eSignatures, Quick Steps, sharing, version history, and recycle bin actions

Microsoft says internal testing showed task pass rates improving from 70.1% to 84.6%, while reducing token usage by 16%. Compared with direct Microsoft Graph access, success rates improved by as much as 77%, depending on the scenario.

Why this matters for admins

This preview reflects a shift from agents simply answering questions about content to actually completing work in SharePoint. That can improve automation for common business processes such as tracker creation, policy lookups, content updates, and document-library-based deliverables.

From an administration and governance perspective, Microsoft is emphasizing secure-by-design controls:

• All calls run as the signed-in user
• Permissions are delegated, so agents only act within existing user access
• New scopes support least-privilege access:
  • WorkIQ.Read for search, read, and summarization
  • WorkIQ.Act for create, update, and move actions
• Admins can use Work IQ tenant policy to allow specific SharePoint paths and actions

Next steps

If you want to test the preview:

1. Enable Work IQ in the tenant
2. Consent to WorkIQ.Read and, if needed, WorkIQ.Act
3. Configure allowed SharePoint actions in tenant policy
4. Connect an MCP client to the Work IQ endpoint or use the GitHub Copilot CLI plugin
5. Run scenario evaluations before broader rollout

Admins should also review the consumption-based billing model using Copilot Credits, since pricing is separate from Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing.

Bottom line

SharePoint tools in Work IQ bring native SharePoint expertise into agent workflows, which could reduce prompt complexity and improve task completion. For Microsoft 365 administrators, the preview is worth evaluating now—especially for governed automation scenarios in SharePoint-heavy environments.