Enterprise Search and Deep Research Skills

Enterprise Search and Deep Research Skills

Post 10 of 14

Introduction

Enterprise Search and Deep Research are the two skills that turn Cowork from a single-task agent into an investigator. Search is the broad sweep across your Microsoft 365 environment; Deep Research is the multi-step synthesis, optionally routed through the Researcher agent with Critique.

Finding, Synthesizing, and the Critique Path

Enterprise Search skill.

• Searches across mail, calendar, files, Teams, OneNote, and SharePoint.
• Returns answers with citations to source items, not just a list of links.
• Respects your existing Microsoft 365 permissions — only what you can already see.

“Find every reference to ‘Project Atlas’ across my email, Teams chats, and SharePoint files in the last 60 days. Group results by source and show the most recent activity first.”

Deep Research skill.

• Conducts multi-step investigations across attached files and indexed content.
• Synthesizes findings into a structured deliverable.
• Can use the Researcher agent’s Critique capability — one model draft, a second model from a different provider reviews and refines.
• Microsoft has measured a 13.8% improvement on the DRACO benchmark for Researcher with Critique versus single-model approaches (57.4 vs ~50.4).

“Run a competitive analysis of our top three competitors using our product team’s research files in the shared library and the recent industry reports in /SharePoint/Industry. Produce a Word document with executive summary and an Excel comparison matrix. Flag capability gaps. Use Critique.”

Multi-source patterns that work well.

• “Pull last quarter’s campaign results from the attached CSV, compare to the meeting notes from our April review, and produce a 3-page PDF flagging the biggest gaps and recommended actions.”
• “Synthesize everything we know about the Acme account — open opportunities in the CRM SharePoint site, recent email threads, and Teams chats — into a one-page brief for tomorrow’s QBR.”

Citations and verification. Outputs include references back to the source items so you can verify before you share. Treat citations as the audit trail for any externally facing deliverable.

Limits of “Enterprise” search.

• It is an enterprise within your tenant. Not a public web search.
• Permissions inheritance applies: nothing the user could not access manually will appear.
• External portals reachable only via SSO from the tenant cannot be opened by Cowork; surface the limitation when it matters.

Cross-skill chains worth knowing. Deep Research → Word + Excel for the deliverable → Email to distribute. One prompt, three approvals, one finished package.

Takeaway

Use Enterprise Search when the question lives somewhere in M365, and you don’t know where. Use Deep Research with Critique when the answer matters enough that you would otherwise ask a human to peer-review it.

Sources

• Cowork common questions (Frontier)
• Cowork deep-dive (attached source) — Researcher with Critique benchmarks (DRACO 57.4)