MC1310687 – M365 Change Digest

One-line summary

Admins can mark SharePoint sites as authoritative to prioritize trusted content in Copilot Chat/Search; feature requires Copilot Premium and rolls out starting mid-June 2026.

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Details

Summary

Authoritative Sites lets admins mark specific SharePoint sites as trusted, prioritizing their content in Microsoft Copilot Chat and Search to improve reliability and relevance. Rolling out May-June 2026, it requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) license and is configurable via PowerShell without changing permissions.

Body (from Message Center)

[Introduction]

Authoritative Sites enables administrators to designate specific SharePoint sites as trusted sources of organizational information. By prioritizing content from these sites in Copilot Chat and Copilot Search, this feature improves content reliability, enhances search relevance, and helps users quickly find accurate company information. This capability supports stronger governance and aligns Copilot responses with verified organizational content.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview (Worldwide): We began rolling out in mid-May 2026 and expect to complete by late May 2026.
General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out on mid-June 2026 and expect to complete by late June 2026.

[How this affects your organization:]

Who is affected:

SharePoint Online administrators
Microsoft 365 administrators managing Copilot and search experiences
Users interacting with Copilot Chat and Copilot Search
A Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) license is required to use this feature

What will happen:

Admins can designate SharePoint sites as authoritative using PowerShell.
Content from authoritative sites will be prioritized in Copilot Chat responses and Copilot Search results.
Users will see clearer indicators of trusted content in the user experience.

Screenshot: Example showing results labeled “From your organization,” helping users quickly identify trusted, internal content:

user settings

The feature is off by default until configured by an admin.
No changes occur to existing SharePoint permissions or content access.
Improved relevance and trust in AI-driven responses grounded in authoritative content.

[What you can do to prepare:]

Identify key SharePoint sites (for example: HR, Legal, Communications) that should be marked as authoritative.
Configure authoritative sites using SharePoint Online PowerShell. Before running the commands, ensure the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell is installed.

Set-SPOSite -Identity "https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/<siteName>" -IsAuthoritative $true

Validate configuration in Copilot Search and Chat experiences.
Pilot with a limited group of users.
Gather feedback and refine site selection.
Update internal documentation and inform helpdesk teams.

Before rollout, we will update this post with new documentation.

[Compliance considerations:]

Area	Explanation
Alters processing of existing data	Copilot and Microsoft Search will prioritize content from designated authoritative SharePoint sites, changing how existing content is ranked and surfaced.
AI/ML capabilities interacting with data	Copilot responses will be influenced by authoritative site signals, improving grounding of AI outputs using trusted organizational content.
New interaction with generative AI	Users will receive enhanced Copilot responses that emphasize authoritative content, improving trust and relevance in AI-generated answers.
Admin control available	Admins can configure authoritative sites using SharePoint Online PowerShell, enabling control over

Raw JSON (for debugging)

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    "details_map": {
      "Summary": "Authoritative Sites lets admins mark specific SharePoint sites as trusted, prioritizing their content in Microsoft Copilot Chat and Search to improve reliability and relevance. Rolling out May-June 2026, it requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) license and is configurable via PowerShell without changing permissions."
    },
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