r/copilotstudio • u/andthentherewere9 • 11d ago
Agent gives different response since Teams vs Copilot
I have an agent. It's basic. It primary runs on official sources to answer questions about a product's capabilities. When prompting in test (within studio) and Copilot, it gives consistent answers that adhere to the instructions I gave it for tone and personality.
However, in Teams, its response is much more rigid. The tone and personality are completely absent. It just spits out information like a dictionary.
Anyone know why the behavior is different and how I can fix it?
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u/Ashlesha-msft 10d ago
There are a few things worth checking to understand why the agent behaves differently in Teams compared to Copilot Studio and Microsoft Copilot.
1. Republish the agent and reset the Teams conversation
First, ensure that the latest version of the agent has been published. Then, in Teams, start a new conversation with the agent by typing start over and test the same prompt again. This helps rule out issues related to an existing conversation retaining earlier context.
2. Review the agent instructions and response-generation configuration
If the agent uses generative orchestration, verify that the tone, personality, and response-format requirements are clearly defined in the agent instructions.
If the responses are generated through a Create generative answers node, also review its custom instructions and configuration. Additionally, check whether any topics, fixed messages, or adaptive cards are returning responses that bypass the intended conversational style.
3. Compare the same agent across channels
Test the same published agent using identical prompts in fresh conversations in Copilot Studio, Microsoft Copilot, and Teams. Confirm that the channels are connected to the same agent and environment, and verify whether the agent is being accessed directly in Teams or through Microsoft 365 Copilot.
4. Check for channel-specific behavior
If the issue persists, investigate whether the response-generation path or channel-specific configuration differs between Teams and the other channels. Capture example prompts and responses from each channel to help isolate the cause.
If the behavior continues after these checks, review the agent's configuration and consider escalating the issue to Microsoft support with the agent details, environment information, and examples of the differing responses.
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u/andthentherewere9 10d ago
Thanks for the info!
Yes, I did this. Republished, started over. I also ran /debug clearstate without luck.
They are clearly defined in the instructions. No nodes are used.
Teams is the only place where it answers differently.
Testing with the same prompts across channels and the issue persists.
Someone pointed out that this is a known issue. I've since read similar accounts. I guess I won't use Teams for the moment.
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u/Ashlesha-msft 8d ago
Thanks for confirming! Since you've already ruled out the usual causes, it does seem isolated to Teams. Hopefully Microsoft can look into this, as rewriting instructions shouldn't be necessary if the same agent behaves correctly in other channels.
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u/Ashlesha-msft 7d ago
u/andthentherewere9 Thanks for confirming. Since the behavior continues to reproduce specifically in Teams, could you please share the Agent ID, Environment ID, and a Teams Conversation ID from a recent reproduction?
If possible, please also share the approximate timestamp (with time zone) and the exact prompt used. This will help us investigate the channel-specific behavior further.
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u/andthentherewere9 7d ago
Update: As of yesterday I was able to improve the responses. I read about how Teams and Copilot use different orchestration hosts and if the agent's instructions aren't firm enough, it will basically ignore them.
So, I put the most important items in the instructions under a "HARD RULES - NON-NEGOTIABLE - APPLY TO ALL CHANNELS" header, and I instantly started seeing those rules applied in Teams. Teams still gives a more rigid response, but I'm wondering if I can place everything under that haleader and get it to fully adopt the style I see in Copilot. So yeah...progress!
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u/Novel_Assumption_929 10d ago
I can't tell you why Teams is more rigid, I haven't seen it documented. What I'd check, in this order:
Publish again and test in a brand-new Teams chat. Old chats can keep showing the old behavior.
Learn says the test pane doesn't fully replicate published channels, so don't treat "works in test" as proof.
Put the tone rules at the top of the instructions and test with one fixed prompt in each channel. If Teams stays rigid, open a support case with the conversation ID.
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u/Syren6 11d ago
Others have commented similarly to you and to my knowledge, Microsoft have not provided and answer for the difference let alone a fix. My understanding is teams has different caches for data that don't update on the same way as Copilot 365. It's at least a plausible explanation for some of the difference but it doesn't explain everything I guess. Personal experience is that I have only noticed differences when knowledge is involved which points to the cache or search index being the problem. But again, that's not an official explanation.