For CIRO-registered Canadian financial advisors
Six Copilot agents for the work no client ever sees, built inside the Microsoft 365 your firm already approved.
The write-up after every meeting. The search for one email from last month. The history of what a client has been through with you. The Advisor Copilot Toolkit is a set of six agent specifications for Microsoft 365 Copilot, set up with you in your own tenant, with the Meeting Documentation Agent as the one most advisors start with. Each agent drafts. You review. Nothing enters a file until you have read it.
What an agent is, and what it is not
An agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot is a set of written instructions and, where needed, a named knowledge source. It has no access beyond what your own signed-in account already has. Think of it as a capable assistant that works from clear instructions and hands back a draft.
Every agent in the Toolkit works the same way. It produces a draft for your review. It never files a record, never sends a message, and never changes your mailbox. Where information is missing or unclear, it asks or names the gap instead of filling it. Names, dates and figures are copied from their source, never totalled or invented. Each draft ends with an advisor-only note on confidence, gaps and assumptions, which never reaches a client.
The Meeting Documentation Agent
Built and in use. Listed in the Toolkit as the Client Meeting Summarizer.
You give the agent a meeting transcript. It returns two drafts: an internal meeting summary structured for the client file, and a follow-up email to the client covering what was discussed and what was agreed. Add a few of your own sent client emails during setup and the draft email follows their tone; without them it arrives in a clear professional voice for you to adjust.
Both are drafts. You review each one, edit where the meeting warrants it, and decide what enters the file and what gets sent. The agent does the assembly; you keep the judgment. You do the build once. After that the routine for each meeting is short: attach the transcript, read the two drafts, file the summary, send the email.
The summary is written to cover the blocks in the Documentation Standards Kit, the Northern Catalyst reference standard for what a Canadian client meeting record needs to contain.
What the setup works from. A step-by-step Build Guide, written to you as the builder and ready to hand to your administrator if agent creation sits with them. The agent instructions in two editions: the Complete Edition with the two default templates included, and the Placeholder Edition for firms that already have their own meeting-summary and client-email formats. The two default templates as separate files, each a worked example. A matched sample pair, a fictional transcript in which every name, contact detail and figure is invented, and the summary and email produced from it, so the finished product is visible before you build. In the guided session these are fitted to your practice rather than pasted in as they stand.
What it needs. Its standard configuration runs on the Copilot Chat included with Microsoft 365 Business plans, with the transcript attached in the conversation. Adding persistent knowledge, such as sent-email samples kept on file, moves it to a metered or licensed Copilot configuration.
The other five agents
Each agent is described by its state and by the Copilot route it needs. Two of the six are built and tested: the Meeting Documentation Agent above and the Financial Concept Explainer. The other four are written and are being tested in Northern Catalyst’s own demonstration tenant, and each is set up with you once its test is complete.
Client History Report. Reads a client’s records in your firm’s SharePoint or OneDrive and assembles a draft history of the significant events over a period you set, with a section for gaps and unclear items. Needs a metered or licensed Copilot configuration. Its setup is confirmed against Northern Catalyst’s own test before it is offered to any practice.
Financial Concept Explainer. Built and tested. Turns your explanation of a plan or concept into a short plain-language draft for a client, three to five sentences by default. Supplies no figures it was not given. Runs on the Copilot Chat included with Business plans.
Email Summarizer. Condenses a long thread and gathers the related messages from across your mailbox on the same matter, with a dated timeline and the open items. Reads your mailbox, so it needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licence on your own account.
Weekly Plan. A start-of-week view of the emails that still need your reply, what you are waiting on from others, and the dates ahead. Reads your mailbox, so it needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licence on your own account.
Administrative Research Assistant. Quick checks against current public sources, each point with its source and date, in conditional language tied to the matter in front of you, ending with what to confirm before acting. Runs on included Copilot Chat with web knowledge; a metered or licensed configuration adds a persistent reference file of Canadian primary sources.
Which agents your licence supports
The Microsoft 365 base plan and the Copilot entitlement are separate decisions. Business Basic, Standard or Premium sets your environment. The Copilot route sets what an agent can read.
Three routes exist. Included Copilot Chat covers instructions, web knowledge and whatever you supply in the conversation: the Meeting Documentation Agent, the Financial Concept Explainer and the Research Assistant’s fallback run here. Pay-as-you-go, which your tenant administrator sets up, adds metered access to SharePoint, OneDrive and files kept with the agent; it does not unlock email. Microsoft 365 Copilot Business adds the licensed sources, including your Outlook mailbox, and supports all six.
Two questions come before licensing. Whose tenant is it: in a dealer-controlled tenant, the dealer’s administrator sets licensing, agent availability and policy, and you may have little authority to change them. And is agent creation switched on: a licence alone does not guarantee the option to create an agent is enabled for you.
Northern Catalyst does not sell Microsoft licences.
Your tenant is the boundary
Every agent is built inside your firm’s own Microsoft 365 tenant, runs there, and cannot be shared out of it. Processing, permissions, policy and data-location terms are set by Microsoft and your administrator. The agents see only what your signed-in account can already see. Sharing an agent does not transfer your mailbox access to anyone.
The agents do not remove client personal information from what you give them. A transcript is processed as it stands by your firm’s own Copilot, under your firm’s tools and policies. Give the agents transcripts and records your firm already permits you to process there.
Northern Catalyst supplies the specifications and the guides. It does not host the agents, does not deploy them, and has no access to your tenant, your transcripts or your records at any point. No client data reaches Northern Catalyst.
Where client files live matters for the Client History Report. Northern Catalyst recommends a SharePoint library the firm owns, reached however your practice already works. A shared folder in one person’s OneDrive is supported, with two limits stated at setup: the files depend on that one person’s licence and account, and each agent has a ceiling on OneDrive files. Records kept outside Microsoft 365 can be attached in the conversation, and a history built from attachments will be thin.
The guided setup
Every agent in the Toolkit is delivered through a working session, and none is handed over as a file to paste in unseen, because each build has to match what your practice needs and how your Microsoft 365 is set up. You drive your own tenant on a screen-share of configuration surfaces only, with no client data present, and Northern Catalyst never has access to the tenant at any point. The session pastes each agent’s instructions into place, adds the knowledge sources your licence supports, tests creation and then use, and fits the Meeting Documentation Agent to your practice: your templates, your wording, and the meeting shapes you run, such as a standard client meeting, a recommendation-heavy meeting with the suitability rationale given full weight, material-change capture, or an onboarding meeting. The Documentation Standards Kit is included.
The scope stops at the agents and the practice records they draft from. Northern Catalyst does no tenant administration, no migrations, no security configuration and no IT services. Licensing, enabling agent creation and tenant policy stay with your administrator.
Pricing depends on your office setup. Write to Northern Catalyst to talk it through.
The standard behind it
The Meeting Documentation Agent is written to produce a summary that covers the blocks in the Documentation Standards Kit: what a Canadian meeting record needs to contain, block by block, with the regulatory basis for each one. The Kit is the standard the agent’s output is measured against, and it stands on its own for advisors who use no AI tool at all.
$97 CAD, one-time. Read the Documentation Standards Kit
What the Toolkit does not do
- No agent is approved, endorsed or certified by CIRO, by the Canadian Securities Administrators, or by any dealer.
- Northern Catalyst is not affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the environment the agents run in, licensed through your firm, and no licence is included.
- The agents do not remove client personal information before processing. Your firm’s own Copilot handles what you give it, under your firm’s tools and policies.
- The agents’ outputs are drafts. Whether a record satisfies your firm’s requirements remains your compliance department’s call.
- Northern Catalyst does not administer, migrate, secure or support your tenant.
- The Toolkit is not compliance advice and it is not legal advice.
- Northern Catalyst has no access to your tenant, your transcripts or your records, and cannot see what the agents produce.
The Advisor Copilot Toolkit is a set of agent specifications and setup guides supplied by Northern Catalyst for use inside a firm’s own Microsoft 365 tenant. It does not constitute compliance or legal advice, and it is not approved or endorsed by CIRO, by the Canadian Securities Administrators, by any dealer, or by Microsoft. Consult your firm’s compliance department and your own legal counsel for guidance specific to your situation. The Canadian rules and the Microsoft 365 Copilot surface both change; each specification states its edition date, and changes to the Microsoft surface are reported in On the Record, the Northern Catalyst monthly note.