AI in SharePoint, the Knowledge Agent rebrand, and what to do about it

Microsoft renamed the SharePoint Knowledge Agent in March 2026. It is now called AI in SharePoint. The new name is better. The bigger story is that the underlying product has been rebuilt on Anthropic's Claude model and significantly expanded. There is also a quiet gotcha for tenants in the EU and UK that will trip you up if nobody warns you about it.

This article covers what actually changed, why Microsoft chose Claude, the four things AI in SharePoint now does in your tenant, the EU and UK opt-in trap, the PowerShell to enable it, and my honest read on whether to turn it on this month or wait for general availability.

What changed when Knowledge Agent became AI in SharePoint

The rebrand was announced at SharePoint's twenty-fifth birthday event on 3 March 2026. Microsoft used the rename as the cover for a much larger refresh. The original Knowledge Agent was a useful but narrow preview that focused on metadata enrichment, library organisation, and scoped Q&A. AI in SharePoint kept all of that and added natural language site, page, list, and library building.

The Tech Community announcement is direct about the rename: "What began as Knowledge Agent is now simply AI in SharePoint." If your tenant was already opted into the Knowledge Agent public preview, you do not need to opt in again. The preview opt-in carries forward.

A few practical things to know about the rename:

• The PowerShell parameter names (KnowledgeAgentScope, KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList) are unchanged. Microsoft kept them stable for backward compatibility during preview. They will likely change at general availability.
• The user-facing surface has been redesigned. There is a new floating action button that gives context-aware suggestions based on your role and behaviour in SharePoint.
• Most documentation on the web still says "Knowledge Agent" because the rename is recent. If you are searching for help, try both terms.

Why Microsoft chose Claude as the reasoning model

This is the part of the announcement that surprised people. The refreshed AI in SharePoint preview is powered by Anthropic's Claude, not by an OpenAI model. Microsoft has historically been the largest commercial partner of OpenAI. Picking Claude for a flagship SharePoint feature is a meaningful signal.

The honest read on why is that Claude is currently the best frontier model for the kind of multi-step planning and execution that AI in SharePoint does. Building a SharePoint site from a natural language description involves long planning chains, structured outputs, and recovering from partial failures. Anthropic's models have led the industry on those tasks for the last twelve months.

It is also a hedge. Microsoft is signalling that it will use the best model for each job rather than defaulting to OpenAI for everything. That reads as good architecture. It also reads as a polite warning to OpenAI about over-relying on Microsoft as a distribution channel.

For SharePoint admins, the model choice does not change much in day-to-day use. Where it does matter is the sub-processor compliance question, which is where the EU and UK gotcha comes in.

The four things AI in SharePoint actually does in your tenant

The original Knowledge Agent did one main thing: organise libraries with AI-powered metadata extraction. AI in SharePoint does four broad things, and the scope is meaningfully wider.

Sites. Describe a solution in natural language and SharePoint proposes a structured plan that includes site structure, pages, libraries, lists, and starter content. You can iterate with the agent before committing.

Pages. Draft, refine, summarise, and reorganise content directly on the page canvas. Less like asking for a chunk of text and more like working with a co-author who can restructure the page as you talk.

Libraries. This is where the original Knowledge Agent capability lives, expanded. Extract metadata from documents using AI, refine columns, organise files automatically as content changes, and apply autofill prompts to populate columns at scale. The deeper version of this is in SharePoint metadata for Copilot.

Lists. Generate or modify list structures using natural language. Schema changes, new columns, new views, all conversationally. Coming behind that is document generation from list-driven templates, which Microsoft has signalled but not shipped at the time of writing.

The cumulative effect is that SharePoint moves from a content repository to an active knowledge layer. That is a real shift, and it is what makes the rebrand more than cosmetic.

The EU and UK Anthropic gotcha (how to fix it)

This is the section to read carefully if your tenant is in the European Union or the United Kingdom. Anthropic is currently excluded from the EU data boundary commitments that Microsoft offers as standard. As a result, Anthropic is disabled by default as a sub-processor for tenants in those regions.

If your tenant is in the EU or UK and you have opted into the AI in SharePoint preview without enabling Anthropic, your users will see this exact error when they try to use the feature:

This preview experience isn't available because of your organization's AI provider settings.

The fix is to opt in to Anthropic as a sub-processor in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. Go to Settings, Org settings, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and look for the AI provider settings. Enable Anthropic. The change takes a few minutes to propagate.

If your tenant is outside the EU and UK, none of this applies. Anthropic is enabled by default and AI in SharePoint just works.

How to enable AI in SharePoint with PowerShell

During preview, AI in SharePoint is enabled via the SharePoint Online Management Shell. You need version 16.0.26615.12013 or later, which is current as of May 2026. Download it from Microsoft's official page or update an existing install with Update-Module -Name Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell.

To enable AI in SharePoint on every site in your tenant:

Connect-SPOService https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com
Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope AllSites
Get-SPOTenant | Select-Object KnowledgeAgentScope

The third line confirms the change. You should see AllSites in the output.

If you want to limit AI in SharePoint to a specific subset of sites:

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope IncludeSelectedSites
Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList @("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/policies", "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/projects")

Or to enable on all sites except a sensitive few:

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope ExcludeSelectedSites
Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList @("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/legal", "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/board")

To disable entirely:

Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope NoSites

The list of selected sites is capped at one hundred URLs. If you have more sites than that to scope, you will need to use the include or exclude pattern strategically rather than listing every site explicitly.

For multi-geo tenants, run the script in each geo separately. The scope setting does not propagate across regions automatically.

The full Microsoft Learn reference is at Get started with AI in SharePoint (preview). The official page has more on troubleshooting versioning errors if you have multiple SharePoint Online modules installed.

What it costs and what licences you need

AI in SharePoint requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence per user. There is no separate AI in SharePoint subscription. If your users have Copilot, they have AI in SharePoint at no additional cost during preview.

Pricing for Copilot at the time of writing is around USD 30 per user per month, billed annually, on top of an underlying Microsoft 365 plan (E3, E5, Business Standard, or Business Premium).

The agentic features of AI in SharePoint, the new sites/pages/lists building capabilities, are all included in the Copilot licence. Microsoft has not signalled any add-on charges for advanced features at general availability, but that is not a guarantee.

You do not need SharePoint Premium or SharePoint Advanced Management to use AI in SharePoint. Some adjacent features (Restricted Access Control, advanced Purview policies) require Premium, but the core AI in SharePoint experience does not.

Should you turn it on this month, or wait for general availability?

This is the question worth answering honestly.

Turn it on this month if:

• You are outside the EU and UK and have Copilot licences in flight
• Your SharePoint is in reasonable shape (the foundation matters more than the agent)
• You have a small pilot group who will give you feedback
• You want first-mover positioning internally as a Copilot-savvy IT leader

Wait if:

• Your tenant is in the EU or UK and you cannot get Anthropic enabled by your privacy team
• Your SharePoint is a permissions and metadata mess (start with the cleanup work first)
• You are in a regulated industry where preview features are a non-starter
• You have under twenty Copilot licences total (not enough scale to learn anything useful)

My read for the average mid-sized tenant outside the EU is that the time to turn it on is now. The preview is mature enough to be useful, the Claude-powered upgrade is meaningfully better than the previous Knowledge Agent, and the worst-case downside is that you get an extra button in your SharePoint chrome that some users like and some ignore.

For EU and UK tenants, the call is harder. The compliance question is real. If you can get the Anthropic opt-in cleared, do it. If not, you are waiting until Microsoft addresses the EU data boundary issue, which is on their roadmap but not on a fixed date.

Frequently asked questions

Is AI in SharePoint the same product as Knowledge Agent or a different one?

It is the same product, refreshed and renamed. The original Knowledge Agent capabilities (metadata extraction, library organisation, scoped Q&A) are all still there. AI in SharePoint adds natural language site, page, list, and library building on top, and rebuilds the underlying reasoning on Anthropic's Claude model. Existing Knowledge Agent opt-ins carry forward without re-enrolment.

Why is Anthropic involved?

Microsoft chose Claude as the reasoning model for AI in SharePoint because it is currently the strongest frontier model for the multi-step planning that the new agentic features require. It is a commercial decision, not an architectural quirk. Microsoft's broader pattern in 2026 has been to pick the best model for each task rather than defaulting to OpenAI everywhere.

Do I need to opt in again if I had Knowledge Agent enabled?

No. The preview opt-in carries forward. If your tenant was running Knowledge Agent on 2 March 2026, it is running AI in SharePoint on 4 March 2026 with no action from you. The exception is EU and UK tenants who also need to enable Anthropic as a sub-processor for the new capabilities to work.

What error do EU and UK users see if Anthropic isn't enabled?

The exact error string is "This preview experience isn't available because of your organization's AI provider settings." If users in your tenant report this error and you are in the EU or UK, the cause is almost always that Anthropic has not been enabled as a sub-processor. Fix it in the Microsoft 365 admin centre under Org settings.

What's the PowerShell to enable AI in SharePoint?

The cmdlet is Set-SPOTenant -KnowledgeAgentScope AllSites for tenant-wide enablement, run from the SharePoint Online Management Shell. Note that the parameter name is still KnowledgeAgentScope for backward compatibility, even though the feature has been renamed. Use IncludeSelectedSites or ExcludeSelectedSites with KnowledgeAgentSelectedSitesList to scope to specific sites.

What's the difference between AI in SharePoint and a Copilot Studio agent?

AI in SharePoint is built into the platform and works out of the box on any opted-in site. It has native access to SharePoint metadata, library structure, and the Knowledge Agent capabilities. A Copilot Studio agent is a custom-built agent you configure for a specific task, using SharePoint or other content as a knowledge source. Studio agents are more flexible. AI in SharePoint is more deeply integrated.

Does it require a Copilot licence?

Yes. AI in SharePoint requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence per user. There is no separate licence to buy for AI in SharePoint, but users without Copilot will not see the floating action button or be able to use the agent.

Is it production-ready?

It is in public preview. The naming and PowerShell parameters will likely change at general availability. Capabilities and behaviour may shift. For pilot use and early-adopter rollouts, yes. For mission-critical workflows that you cannot afford to have break, wait for GA.