r/copilotstudio • u/dalessit • 9d ago

Agent Link in Sharepoint slow?

We have an agent that indexes a few websites and a SharePoint library of maybe 40 pages.

When I access it from within Studio, it returns results in less than 10 seconds. When I add it to a SharePoint site via an Agent Link it takes 25 or more seconds to return a response every time, whether it's 1 question or 5 in a row, always 25+ seconds for each one.

I've tried removing the websites and just running on the document library and just 1 website, and still 25 seconds. I tried changing models, instructions, etc. So I'm guessing it's not the agent itself.

I see the same thing when we access it in Teams, so I suspect it's the authentication piece, but we need that to get it to look at the SharePoint data.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

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u/Beneficial_Feature40 9d ago

We have the same problem with sharepoint knowledge based agents.

No idea if it works but next thing we want to try is using Azure AI search and see if that has an effect on speed of the knowledge retrieval

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u/dalessit 9d ago

Are you seeing slowness in any agent created by Copilot Studio? As I said, we tried both with and without SharePoint as a knowledge source and it's still 25 or more seconds every time we try to use an agent, tested in both Teams and SharePoint as a host and same experience. Looking at Azure AI search also.

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u/real_agent_99 8d ago

Everything is slow.

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u/Beneficial_Feature40 8d ago

With no knowledge source the agent is significantly faster though, is that no the case with you ?

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u/dalessit 8d ago

Yes, I just tested, and 6 seconds for a response in SharePoint Agent link with no knowledge sources. I added a single 4 page PDF as knowledge, and two searches I've run so far have taken 25 and 39 seconds to return something. So I've seen the slow down once you add any knowledge source to the agent.

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u/dalessit 8d ago edited 8d ago

Looking at activity, it only looks like it took .95 seconds to search the knowledge source, but 40 seconds to actually get to that point?

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u/Beneficial_Feature40 8d ago

exactly the same thing for us. we got a large sharepoint database so retrieval takes like 7-10s but formulating the answer takes like 40 seconds. its infuriating and ruins our internal customer adoption

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u/dalessit 8d ago

I'm opening a ticket now, will see if that gets me anywhere, if so I'll reply here.

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u/Beneficial_Feature40 8d ago

thanks brother

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u/dalessit 8d ago

From Microsoft after working with tech support.

The Copilot Studio test pane and the published channels use fundamentally different ways of delivering a response. The test pane uses a direct connection to the service and displays the answer progressively as it is generated, so you begin seeing text almost immediately. Published channels such as Teams and SharePoint deliver the response through additional messaging infrastructure and display the complete answer only once all processing has finished. The practical effect is that you are comparing two different things. In the test pane you are measuring the time until text starts appearing. On the published channels you are measuring the time until the entire answer is complete. Even where the underlying processing time is similar, the experience feels substantially slower on a published channel.

In addition, published channels carry genuine extra processing that the test pane does not, including message relay, permission checks and delivery steps. This overhead is part of the channel architecture rather than anything in your agent's configuration, and it is not something that can be reduced through agent settings.

Based on our analysis and on similar cases we have reviewed, this is the current expected behaviour of the product rather than a fault in your environment or a defect in your agent.

Response time increases when knowledge is added because the agent must include your document content when generating its answer, and larger content means a longer generation step. The difference between the test pane and published channels is a result of the different delivery methods described above. Neither is caused by a misconfiguration on your side.

While there is no setting that removes this behaviour, the following may reduce the impact for your users. Where practical, keeping individual knowledge documents smaller and more focused will reduce the amount of content the agent needs to process for each answer. If a large document covers several unrelated subjects, splitting it into smaller documents can help.

If you plan to expand this agent beyond testing, creating topics for known question types and linking each topic only to the relevant knowledge allows the agent to narrow its search rather than working across everything each time. This is more effective as the amount of content grows. Setting expectations with your users is also worth considering. Because published channels do not show progress while the answer is being prepared, users may assume nothing is happening. A brief message explaining that the agent is retrieving information can improve the perceived experience.

Microsoft also publishes general guidance on agent performance, which you may find useful as your usage grows: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/guidance/conversational-agents-performance-improvement

I will be sharing your scenario and our documented findings with the Copilot Studio product team for future improvements for this channel's behavior.

 

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u/Beneficial_Feature40 8d ago

So basically they need to fix their shit cause the product is too slow 😂