What it does

Channels are where an agent is surfaced to users — Teams, a custom website, Dynamics 365, Slack, SMS, and others. You build once and publish the same agent definition to multiple channels.

Key facts

• You must publish before any change reaches a channel; the draft and the live agent are separate.
• Teams and Microsoft 365 is the most common channel and usually the smoothest to configure.
• Some channels need extra setup — Slack, SMS and custom apps involve their own registration and credentials.
• Authentication behaviour differs by channel; an authenticated Teams agent behaves differently from an anonymous web one.

When to use / skip

Publish to the channels your users already live in — usually Teams first. Skip standing up a bespoke web channel when Teams reaches the same audience with far less configuration and no anonymous-access headache.

Configuration decisions

• Which channels to enable, and the authentication model for each.
• Whether the web channel allows anonymous users, and the data implications.
• The publish/approval process before changes go live.

Gotchas

• Forgetting to publish is the classic "why isn't my change showing" — the draft looks updated, the channel isn't.
• Anonymous web channels expose the agent broadly; be deliberate about what knowledge and tools it can reach.

Consultant notes

• Standardise on Teams first for internal agents — it's the lowest-friction, best-governed channel.
• Treat each channel's authentication as a design decision with security review, especially external-facing ones.
• Fold publishing into ALM so channel config travels with the solution, not by hand in each environment.

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Recheck supported channels each release.