Northwind Traders is a financial services company with strict data handling policies. The compliance team has determined that Microsoft 365 Copilot must not use web search when generating responses, to prevent any risk of data leakage to external services. Where should the administrator configure this setting?

Microsoft 365 Copilot includes web search powered by Bing, which allows Copilot to supplement its responses with current public web content. Administrators can disable this feature directly in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Settings > Copilot (or the Copilot settings section). Disabling the web search toggle prevents Copilot from sending query context to Bing and ensures all responses are grounded only in data within the tenant — SharePoint, Teams messages, emails, and other Microsoft 365 content.

Option A, using Defender for Cloud Apps to block Bing connections, is technically possible at the network level but is not the supported or recommended administrative control. This approach could also inadvertently break other services that use Bing, such as Microsoft Search.

Option C, Conditional Access policies in Entra ID, control user sign-in and application access based on identity conditions. They do not operate at the level of web search features within individual Microsoft 365 workloads.

Option D, SharePoint admin center external sharing controls, manage whether SharePoint content can be shared outside the organization. They have no relationship to Copilot's use of Bing for web search.

Exam tip: For controlling Copilot's web search behavior, the answer is always in the Copilot settings within the Microsoft 365 admin center. This is a purpose-built toggle, not a network or identity control.