eDiscovery and Copilot Interactions

Overview

When you deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot in a government environment, you’re not just adding productivity features. You’re creating a new category of organizational content—prompts, responses, citations, and AI-assisted artifacts. And in agencies subject to FOIA, litigation holds, Inspector General investigations, and records retention schedules, that content creates compliance obligations.

The question isn’t whether Copilot interactions are discoverable. The question is how to incorporate them into your existing eDiscovery workflows, document your approach, and test your processes before they’re needed in high-stakes scenarios.

This video gives you a practical, compliance-ready walkthrough of handling Copilot interaction content in Microsoft Purview eDiscovery. You’ll learn what content is created, where it lives, and how to include it in your case workflows for GCC, GCC High, and DoD environments.

What You’ll Learn

• Copilot Interaction Data: What Copilot creates and why it matters for eDiscovery
• eDiscovery Integration: How Copilot content fits into existing Purview eDiscovery workflows
• Practical Workflow: Step-by-step guidance for cases, holds, searches, and exports
• Operational Readiness: How to document SOPs and test your process

Script

Hook: Copilot creates content—and content creates obligations

Copilot isn’t just a feature. It’s not a passive assistant that works in the background and disappears.

It creates content. Drafts. Summaries. Meeting recaps. And depending on how it’s configured, it can create interaction history—prompts you’ve entered, responses it’s generated, and the citations it used to ground those responses.

And here’s the thing about content in government environments: content creates obligations. Retention obligations. Discovery obligations. Oversight obligations.

So the question agencies need to answer isn’t “Should we use Copilot?” The question is: “Can we preserve and discover Copilot interactions the same way we do email, documents, and Teams chats when we’re required to?”

That’s what we’re here to solve.

What Copilot interaction data is and why it matters

Let’s start with what we’re actually talking about.

Copilot interactions can include prompts—the questions or instructions you give Copilot. They can include responses—the content Copilot generates for you. And in some experiences, they can include citations or references to the documents Copilot used to create that response.

The specifics depend on which Copilot experience you’re using. Copilot in Teams, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint each behave a bit differently. But the compliance principle is the same.

Here’s the governance framing you need to internalize: treat Copilot interaction content like any other regulated content type. You scope it. You protect it. You retain it according to policy. And you make it discoverable when required by law, regulation, or oversight authority.

That means if your agency is subject to FOIA, litigation holds, Inspector General investigations, or records retention schedules, Copilot content falls into the same workflows you already use for email and documents.

It’s not a new compliance program. It’s an expanded scope for the one you already have.

Where eDiscovery fits

Now let’s talk about eDiscovery and how it applies here.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery provides case-based workflows for managing discovery obligations. You create a case. You identify custodians—the people whose content might be relevant. You apply legal holds to preserve content. You run searches to find what matters. You review the results. And you export content for legal counsel or investigators.

This is the same workflow your agency uses for email, SharePoint files, and Teams messages. And here’s the key line you need to understand:

Your goal is not to invent a new workflow for Copilot. Your goal is to include Copilot interaction content in the existing workflow your agency already trusts.

That’s the right posture. It’s not about building something from scratch. It’s about extending what you’ve already validated.

In GCC, GCC High, and DoD environments, you’re already using Purview eDiscovery for compliance-sensitive content. Copilot content should flow through the same controls, the same access restrictions, and the same audit trails.

Walkthrough: including Copilot content in an eDiscovery case

Let’s walk through the practical steps.

First, you create or identify the eDiscovery case. This might be tied to litigation, an investigation, a FOIA request, or an internal audit. The case is your container for the entire workflow.

Second, you determine scope. Who are the custodians? These are the users whose Copilot interactions might be relevant. What’s the time range? Discovery requests usually have date boundaries. And what locations or workloads are in scope? Are you looking at Copilot interactions in Teams? In Outlook? Across all M365 workloads?

Defining scope clearly is critical. Don’t just say “everything.” Be specific about custodians, dates, and locations. That precision protects you legally and operationally.

Third, you apply a legal hold where required. Legal holds preserve content so it can’t be deleted—even if normal retention policies would allow it. Ensure your hold configuration covers the content types you need. For Copilot, that means confirming that interaction data in the relevant workloads is included in the hold scope.

Fourth, you run searches. This is where you identify the specific content that matches your discovery criteria. You can use keyword queries—searching for terms in prompts or responses. You can filter by date, custodian, or workload. And you’ll want to correlate Copilot interactions with the underlying documents and communications they reference.

For example, if Copilot summarized a meeting, you might want both the Copilot-generated summary and the original meeting transcript or recording.

Fifth, you export and review. Once you’ve identified the relevant content, you export it in a format that’s appropriate for legal review or oversight. You define export settings—whether you need metadata, native files, or text-only versions. And you maintain chain-of-custody practices, so you can prove the integrity of what you’ve produced.

Here’s the government callout you need to internalize: coordinate early with your records team and legal counsel. Copilot content may overlap with FOIA obligations, Inspector General requests, and litigation requirements depending on your mission. Don’t wait until you’re under a deadline to figure out how this content fits into your workflows.

Operational recommendations

Now let’s talk about operational readiness.

First, define what counts as a record in your organization for Copilot-assisted artifacts. Is a Copilot-generated draft email a record? What about a meeting summary? A research synthesis? Your records officer needs to make that determination based on your agency’s schedule and mission.

Second, document your standard operating procedure. This should include trigger events—what prompts you to initiate an eDiscovery case. It should include custodian identification—how you determine who’s in scope. It should cover your search approach—what keywords, date ranges, and filters you’ll use. And it should address export and retention—how you produce content and how long you keep it.

Don’t rely on institutional knowledge. Write it down. Train your compliance team. And update your documentation when Purview features change or your agency’s requirements evolve.

Third, test with a pilot. Before you roll Copilot out broadly, generate known prompts and responses in a controlled environment. Then confirm you can locate them, preserve them under a hold, search for them, and export them successfully.

This isn’t optional. If you can’t prove you can discover Copilot content before you deploy it at scale, you’re creating compliance risk.

Testing also gives you confidence when you’re talking to auditors, counsel, or oversight authorities. You’re not guessing. You’ve validated the workflow.

Close: your compliance-ready summary

Here’s the summary you can use when leadership or legal counsel asks about Copilot and eDiscovery.

“Copilot interaction content is governed within Microsoft 365, and we can incorporate it into our Purview eDiscovery workflows. The key is having a documented scope, a clear retention posture, and a tested process for legal holds and exports before we enable broad rollout.

We treat Copilot content like any other regulated content type. We scope it. We retain it according to policy. And we make it discoverable when required by law or oversight authority.

Our approach doesn’t require a new compliance program. It extends the eDiscovery workflow we already trust.”

That’s a defensible, compliance-ready answer. Use it.

Sources & References

• Microsoft Purview eDiscovery for Copilot — Primary documentation for handling Copilot data in Purview eDiscovery workflows
• Microsoft Purview eDiscovery — eDiscovery fundamentals including case workflows, holds, search, and export capabilities
• Copilot Privacy and Data Handling — Copilot interaction data handling, storage context, and governance considerations