Conversation start system topic never activates in copilot 365

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Posted on by AB-12031119-0

Yep, that's pretty much it, I customized my conversation start topic so that it specifically goes into topic 2 and so on.

It works in the testing field:

and it works in MS Teams:

But in MS Copilot 365 it clearly doesn't work:

My question is, why? And is creating a "Greeting" topic the only solution / workaround? So like the user always has to say "hi" to trigger the first topic and so on?

Categories:

Autonomous agents

Bot administration

Bot extensibility

Topic creation & management

Building Copilot Studio chatbots in Microsoft Teams

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chiaraalina 1,944 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @AB-12031119-0

This is a known behaviour/issue.

The Conversation Start topics are supportet in the test pane and in Teams but not yet in Microsoft 365 Copilot. There the agent usually invoked only after the user sends a message.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/publication-add-bot-to-microsoft-teams

Under known limitations in Microsoft 365 Copilot:

Conversation Start topic not supported: The Microsoft 365 Copilot channel doesn't support the Conversation Start topic, so general greetings aren't possible.

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11manish 2,281 on at

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Hi AB-12031119-0 Your observation is correct.

The reason your:

Conversation Start topic

works in:

Test pane

Teams

but not reliably in:

Microsoft 365 Copilot

is because M365 Copilot uses a different orchestration/runtime model where startup lifecycle events are not always guaranteed to execute.

Currently, the most reliable production approach is:

Greeting topic

Explicit trigger phrases

Suggested prompts

Lightweight startup routing

rather than depending on Conversation Start for core navigation logic.

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Haque 2,944 on at

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Hi @AB-12031119-0,

While a "Greeting" topic is the most practical and widely used workaround, you can also design your agent to handle initial user inputs gracefully and route them to the desired topics. But the user will need to say something first to trigger the flow.

I am sure some clues I tried to give. If these clues help to resolve the issue brought you by here, please don't forget to check the box Does this answer your question? At the same time, I am pretty sure you have liked the response!

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Valantis 5,139 on at

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Hi @AB-12031119-0,

the conversation start will be used again if you use / write "Start over".

or if you end the conversation and clear the variables, when user inactive for sometime then. (this wont trigger the conversation start but it will end the conversation and avoid errors after many convos for example inside Teams)

here how to build the end convo clean variables: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwhbktk_X8

To answer your question directly: yes, a Greeting topic triggered by the user saying something (like "hi" or "start") is currently the only reliable workaround for M365 Copilot. The Conversation Start topic is a confirmed known limitation in that channel as chiaraalina pointed out from the Microsoft docs.

The closest thing to an automatic greeting in M365 Copilot is using Conversation Starters. In your agent settings you can define suggested prompts that appear to the user when they first open the agent. These aren't automatic messages but they guide the user to click a prompt that then triggers your topic flow. It's not the same as Conversation Start firing automatically, but it reduces friction so users don't have to know what to type.

To set them up: go to your agent Overview page in Copilot Studio and add Conversation Starters there. Keep them short and action-oriented so users naturally click them as a first step.

Best regards,

Valantis

✅ If this helped solve your issue, please Accept as Solution so others can find it quickly.

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