This article only applies to your community if your Firstup contract includes this functionality. Please contact your Customer Success Manager with any questions about feature availability for your community.

Firstup now integrates with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external data sources. This lets users discover and search their Firstup community directly from the AI tools they already use every day, without switching platforms.

About MCP Search

Instead of leaving Copilot or ChatGPT to search for company news or find a colleague's contact information, this integration surfaces trusted Firstup content right inside those interfaces. For example, users could ask their AI assistant to find the latest company updates on a specific policy, identify the right internal contact for follow-up, and get a cited answer without opening a separate app.

Key capabilities include:

• Seamless content discovery: Search and reference Firstup communications, topics, and people directly within Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT. (MCP Search is currently limited to the Firstup platform and file names of integrated content.)
• No context switching: Stay in Copilot or ChatGPT and still get verified company answers.
• Bring your own Copilot or ChatGPT: Connect your existing enterprise Copilot or ChatGPT tenant, making adoption faster and more flexible than adopting a new tool.
• Extends the life of your content: Communications keep working long after they're published, surfacing whenever someone asks a relevant question.
• Fewer repetitive questions: Routine policy and process queries get answered without reaching a person.

What Users Can Ask For

Users can ask their AI assistant about:

• Communications and announcements
• Topics and Knowledge Hubs
• People and reporting relationships (e.g., "Who reports to Priya?")
• Notifications and outstanding acknowledgements
• Connected external knowledge sources, where enabled
• Read-only data from configured integrations, such as payslips, time-off balances, IT tickets, and work schedules

Typical questions include:

• "What's our bereavement policy?"
• "What do I need to acknowledge this week?"
• "What is the latest guidance on regional compliance, and who owns it?"
• "What is my remaining PTO?"*

*Some of these prompts may require additional integration into your Firstup instance.

How MCP Search Works

• Firstup acts as an MCP provider, exposing content through a secure, enterprise-grade connection.
• Your AI assistant connects to a dedicated Firstup endpoint for your community. When a user asks a question, the assistant calls Firstup in real time, retrieves only what they are permitted to see, and composes the answer itself.
• Data is fetched dynamically only in response to an authorized user prompt; nothing is copied or synced. Your content stays in Firstup. There is no duplicate index, no ingestion into Microsoft Graph, and no second copy to keep current, so answers are never based on stale content.
• Your AI, your infrastructure: the assistant you already own does the reasoning. Firstup returns search results rather than generating answers, so your content is not sent to a Firstup-hosted language model.
• Permissions are enforced per user: Each user signs in as themselves and sees only what they could already see in Firstup. Permissions on connected third-party systems are honored, too.
• Your endpoint is scoped to your community alone, enforced by the access token rather than the address.
• This is a backend/data integration only. There are no UI/UX changes within Firstup's native web or mobile applications, and no mobile app update is required.

Security and Governance

Requirements

• An enterprise AI assistant: Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise, licensed for the users who will use this. Firstup does not provide the assistant.
• Access: Administrator access to your Microsoft 365 or ChatGPT Enterprise environment.
• Firstup enablement:  Firstup switches this on for your community. It is not self-service.

On Microsoft Copilot licensing: Both Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and full Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses can access the Firstup agent, so a mixed estate is not a barrier. Users on Copilot Chat without a Copilot license can reach it with usage metered via Copilot Credits, while full license holders get the same access at no incremental charge. Since that cost model is set by Microsoft, confirm the specifics with your Microsoft account team.

Enable MCP Search

• To enable this feature or discuss pricing: Reach out to your Firstup Account Manager.
• For onboarding and setup: Firstup's Integration Engineers and Service Delivery teams assist corporate IT departments with manifest file configuration, API credential matching, and SSO profile alignment.
• Next steps: Contact your Account Manager or Customer Success Manager. They will confirm your entitlement, arrange enablement in your community, and provide your endpoint details, connector assets, and a named technical contact for setup.

Configure MCP Search

Once enabled by your Firstup Account Manager, you must:

• Configure the Firstup MCP application registry mapping within your Microsoft 365 Admin Center or enterprise ChatGPT workspace settings.
• Authorize the appropriate data permissions for the integration.

Setup at a Glance

• ChatGPT Enterprise: Your administrator creates a connector using the endpoint Firstup provides, then publishes it to the workspace, where it appears for every user automatically. Each user signs in to Firstup once on first use.
• Microsoft Copilot: Setup is more involved because of how Microsoft's connector and agent framework works, so Copilot onboarding is delivered as a guided engagement. A Firstup Integration Engineer works alongside your IT team through connector creation, authentication, publishing, and access.

A detailed setup guide is available from your Firstup contact.

What to Expect

So you can set expectations with your users:

• Read-only: The assistant finds and references content. It cannot publish, and it cannot submit requests on a user's behalf at present.
• Users invoke it explicitly: In ChatGPT, this means @ mentioning the app on each question. It does not answer automatically.
• Slower than searching in Firstup directly: The request passes through your assistant, which adds its own processing time.
• File attachments are not read, and links inside posts are not followed. Keep key information in the post body text.
• Firstup cannot tune your assistant's behavior: Result weighting, verbosity, and language are governed by your assistant.
• Usage analytics for this integration are not available in the current release.

Getting the Best From It

This integration retrieves content that already exists in Firstup, and it cannot resolve conflicting sources. If three posts give different versions of a policy, any of them may surface. Before rolling out widely:

• Prioritize the moments that matter: Identify the questions users actually ask most.
• Ensure one authoritative answer: Retire or consolidate duplicate and outdated content.
• Set clear ownership and access: Confirm the right audiences are attached to the right content.

Availability and Packaging

Available now. Included with Premier at no additional cost, and available as a paid add-on on other packages. Usage is unmetered and consumes no Firstup AI Credits, because your own assistant performs the language-model work.

An AI product agreement must be in place before AI capabilities are enabled.

Please speak to your Account Manager to confirm what applies to your contract and to begin enablement.