Microsoft 365 Copilot Domain Exclusion Is Back After Last Month’s Pause

Microsoft previously halted the Copilot Domain Exclusion rollout, but the company has now resumed the rollout of Domain Exclusion for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

The feature targets IT administrators who want tighter control over the public web content Copilot can use when grounding its responses.

Admins can block websites from Copilot grounding

Domain Exclusion allows administrators to specify websites that Microsoft 365 Copilot should not use when grounding answers with public web content.

This gives organizations more control over which websites can influence Copilot-generated responses.

Admins can configure a list containing up to 1,000 excluded domains.

The feature could prove useful for organizations that want to prevent Copilot from relying on specific websites, including sources they consider unreliable, irrelevant, or unsuitable for internal use.

Microsoft hasn’t made major changes

The returning version does not appear to address two of the main concerns surrounding the original rollout.

Administrators still need to manually configure which domains they want Copilot to exclude, and Microsoft still limits the exclusion list to 1,000 domains.

For large organizations that want to block extensive collections of websites, that limit could make the feature harder to manage.

Microsoft has also not explained why it suddenly stopped the rollout in August or what prompted the company to resume it.

Domain Exclusion remains opt-in

Microsoft 365 Copilot Domain Exclusion is not enabled by default.

Organizations that want to use it need to configure the feature manually. Microsoft provides a PowerShell configuration script that administrators can use to set up and manage the exclusion list.

In other Microsoft 365 news, Microsoft 365 is changing its web domain, requiring administrators to review their network configurations.

Microsoft Teams is also getting a new feature that will let admins restore data more easily, including teams, channels, files, and messages.