Q1 2023 Microsoft rolled out the Teams Copilot Recap feature for customers with E5 and Copilot licenses. Most of my global corporate clients are still balancing the user demand for meeting recordings/transcripts against their potential cost/risk downstream. This is complicated by the potential Copilot generated recap summaries, action items/tasks and real time answers. So how can you manage retention and discovery of meeting related Copilot content? My recent testing revealed that it is not simple.
What Teams meeting content can Copilot generate and where is it stored?
- Meeting Summary or Recap – presently this is stored in an Azure service and it is not yet accessible to Purview. I verified this with MSFT product management and could not find any potential solution entries on the Microsoft Road Map.
- Copilot questions/answers/suggestions – these appear in the Copilot window for the user during the meeting and are stored in a hidden folder in the user mailbox as html files. The Purview export reports give the path as something like: “M365 Services/Teams/how can I find this in Purview eDiscover…/2025-06-25T18:37:24Z”.
- While Copilot can suggest action items, tasks, etc. in the query pane the user must copy/paste them to create the actual items in usual mailbox locations presently. Although I am sure various add-ins do this today, I bet they only exist in the destination.
How can I search for Copilot content?
- As seen above, Purview cannot yet access the recap/summary. However, the meeting owner can copy it into the Meeting notes or actual meeting description to make it accessible. That is an extra step, but important for custodians on hold.
- Every user’s Copilot queries/responses are stored in a hidden folder in their mailbox. These can be retrieved with filter Type: Contains Any “Copilot content”. Before you get too excited, be aware that I observed a lot of extraneous html, json and other system files in Purview results. A simple search for a pair of test meetings generated 40+ files on export. While I did find the meeting invites, recording MP4s, a transcript json, Loop files from chat and the Copilot queries I recommend filtering out the ‘junk’ from exports before processing for review.
Until Copilot recap can be preserved/collected how can I prevent users from using it?
- While updated desktop apps are supposed to have an option to disable Copilot, this option was available for me in my own or my client’s tenants. You can disable Copilot in the iOS, Android or web versions of Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
- There is a privacy setting that disables all enhancements (including Copilot), but that is pretty drastic.
- While administrators can disable recordings and transcripts, internal users can still activate Copilot during the meeting and get a recap in the query pane. It is based on the CC text and MSFT says that is only retained during the meeting.
To ‘recap’, enabling Copilot for employees under legal hold should be approached with caution until the busy developers at Microsoft deliver granular controls and discovery functionality for every potential new generative AI content that users spawn. Blocking access is not realistic in our hyper-competitive and productivity driven world. Run test searches to see what kinds of Copilot content already exist in your tenant. “Oh, we forgot to tell you that IT is running a pilot test and the execs wanted in.” Update appropriate usage policies, legal hold instructions and counsel guidelines for discovery protocols to minimize exposure. Test exports, processing and review presentation in your/counsel’s eDiscovery platform of choice. Verify Purview criteria to include/exclude appropriately to meet matter scope. Expect that all of this will change rapidly with little warning as the Microsoft Roadmap rolls on.
Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com. Book a free 15 minute ‘Good Karma’ call if he has availability. He solves problems and creates eDiscovery solutions for enterprise and law firm clients.
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