Give Every Employee Instant Answers With MySearch Agent
Finding an old message or attachment can mean guessing whether it came through email, Teams, or text before the real search begins. MySearch Agent gives employees one place to search their archived communications across email, chat, voice, mobile, and social. That includes content that is no longer available. The result is faster answers from the data the organization already preserves — with the right controls in place.
Key takeaways
- Search archived email, chat, voice, mobile, and social communications from one place.
- Recover deleted emails and attachments directly from the archive.
- Maintain access to archived communications during Exchange or Microsoft 365 outages.
- Give each employee access to their own data and authorized shared or delegated mailboxes.
- Turn retained communications into a governed source of institutional knowledge.
The hidden cost of searching for information
Knowledge workers lose a large share of every day looking for information. IDC research suggests employees spend about 2.5 hours a day searching for information. McKinsey puts the figure at 1.8 hours a day. And 41% of employees say they can't find the information they need at work (Forrester and Coveo). That friction typically shows up three places:
Native search is limited
Native search covers one environment at a time and can’t reach deleted content or channels like voice and mobile.
Mailbox policies remove what people rely on
Mailbox policies often strip older attachments, making files drop out of view even when an archive copy might exist.
Formal requests take too long
Formal requests route a quick search through IT or compliance, where it can take days and add work for stretched teams.
Tip: A useful measure of search friction is the number of tools, handoffs, and hours it takes, and how often employees stop looking.
How MySearch Agent works
The archive already holds a preserved record of business communications. MySearch Agent gives employees a way to put that record to work and search the content they’re permitted to access.
Search across channels from one place
Employees search email, Teams, voice, mobile, and social communications from one place. They can type a plain-language request such as "Q2 deal discussions with the Northwind team.” MySearch Agent returns the relevant messages, and a conversation summary saves them from reading every thread.
Search extends across the employee’s archived history rather than a fixed time window. Familiar filters narrow results by date, participant, content type, or keywords in the subject, body, or attachments.
Recover deleted messages and attachments quickly
If an email or attachment was captured before it was removed from the source system, employees can find the archived content and preview attachments such as PDFs and images directly.
Maintain access during Microsoft 365 outages
Because MySearch Agent searches communications preserved in the Smarsh archive separate from the mail system, employees can continue searching available archived content during Exchange and Microsoft 365 outages.
Turn communications history into everyday knowledge
Access to archived communications becomes a resource in everyday workflows. Employees get context about decisions, stakeholders, and attached documents. They don’t have to rebuild it from memory or depend on a coworker's inbox.
Tip: Requests to recover missing emails are among the most repetitive requests IT and compliance get. Self-service turns that recurring cost into productivity.
Self-service doesn't mean open access
Self-service still calls for governance. MySearch Agent applies platform-level permissions, so employees reach their own data and any mailboxes delegated to them.
- Governed access: Role-based controls tie each search to the user’s identity through single sign-on.
- Delegated access: Shared or team mailboxes are granted by administrators, narrowly scoped, audited, and revocable.
- Retention integrity: Data remains within the governed archive boundary, helping prevent unauthorized exports and supporting chain of custody.
- Audit trail: Each search and retrieval generates a record of who performed it, what they found, and when.
Tip: Permissions enforced at the platform level and tied to identity offer stronger protection than filtering applied in the interface.
How MySearch Agent fits existing workflows
MySearch Agent is built for how employees already work:
- Single sign-on gives employees access without adding another password.
- Outlook compatibility lets IT publish MySearch Agent in the standard desktop environment.
- Familiar filters mirror the Enterprise Archive experience, simplified for people outside of compliance.
Put your archive to work
Most companies have invested heavily in capturing and preserving business communications. Even fewer let the employees creating those communications use them.
MySearch Agent closes that gap by helping employees find what they need themselves. IT and compliance handle fewer routine requests, and the business stays productive even when primary systems are down. The archive becomes a shared resource for knowledge across the company.
Bring governed communications data to every part of the enterprise with Smarsh
The Smarsh Platform captures, preserves, and enriches communications data across more than 100 channels. That data supports compliance, supervision, discovery, and a growing range of enterprise intelligence uses. With our latest launch, Smarsh keeps moving from siloed capture, retention, and surveillance workflows toward one connected intelligence platform that's open and ready for agents.
See how MySearch Agent fits into the launch, including:
- AskSmarsh AI gives compliance officers, legal teams, and records managers a conversational interface, helping them search archived communications, generate reports, and export investigation-ready results in natural language from one place.
- Discovery Agent now includes a patent-pending Semantic Context Graph, which helps legal teams understand relationships and context in their data earlier in a matter.
- Intelligent Agent adds new models for non-financial misconduct, so supervision can cover more than traditional financial risk.
- ECA and Relativity API integrations connect early case assessment and review workflows without extra handoffs.
- Capture keeps expanding its always-on channel coverage, with updates including Amazon Bedrock, Google Workspace, and Claude.
- Smarsh MCP Server and API Developer Center give customers one place to find documentation and access Smarsh APIs, so they can build on governed data rather than extract it.
These capabilities run on the same foundation:
- Role-based access controls
- Customer tenant-level isolation
- Your existing data permissions and entitlements
- Auditability across searches, retrievals, and agent actions
This isn't AI added on top of an archive. It's a governed platform where every user and every approved agent sees only what they're entitled to see. Whether it's an employee finding a deleted attachment, an investigator building a case or a supervisor spotting a new risk, the work happens inside the governed boundary.
Frequently asked questions
MySearch Agent is a self-service search tool for employees, built on the Smarsh Enterprise Archive. It lets employees search their own archived communications across email, chat, voice, mobile, and social from one place, including content deleted from the source system.
Native Microsoft search is limited to Microsoft data and can't search content that has been deleted. MySearch Agent searches the archive, so it covers every captured channel, including non-Microsoft sources, as well as messages and attachments no longer in the user's mailbox.
No. Access is tied to each user's identity through single sign-on. Employees see only communications they took part in plus any shared or delegated mailboxes an administrator has explicitly authorized.
Yes. MySearch Agent runs on the Smarsh archive, not on Exchange. Employees can still search and view past communications while Microsoft services are unavailable.
Administrators. They configure features, delegated access, and message-level blocks. For example, they can hide messages sent to the wrong person or communications that are walled off from certain groups.
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- Give Every Employee Instant Answers With MySearch Agent - October 20, 2026
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