PII Data Redaction Agent: AI-Powered Document Privacy & Compliance Assistant Built by Optimus Information Inc.

Overview

Organizations handling sensitive data often face compliance risks when managing documents containing Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Manual redaction is time-consuming, inconsistent, and prone to human error. To address this, Optimus Information built the PII Data Redaction Agent, an AI-powered Microsoft Teams agent that automates the detection and redaction of PII across documents while maintaining compliance and audit readiness.

The PII Data Redaction Agent streamlines document sanitization workflows by using Azure AI models to intelligently detect sensitive data (like names, emails, and addresses), apply redactions, and allow human review, all within Teams. The result is faster processing, higher accuracy, and consistent compliance across all business units.

The Challenge

Enterprises and delivery teams often struggle with managing and sharing documents that contain sensitive or confidential information. Manual redaction processes are slow, inconsistent, and difficult to scale. Common challenges include:

Manual review of large documents leading to high turnaround times
Risk of human oversight in identifying sensitive PII
Lack of standardized redaction formats across teams
Inconsistent compliance with data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA)
No centralized visibility into redaction history or audit trails

Organizations needed an intelligent, secure, and traceable approach to automatically identify and redact PII from documents before sharing them internally or externally.

The Solution

Optimus developed the PII Data Redaction Agent, a secure Teams-based AI assistant that automates sensitive data redaction from uploaded documents. Built on Azure OpenAI and Azure Cognitive Services, it intelligently detects PII entities, applies visual redactions, and enables user verification, ensuring both compliance and control.

The agent integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Teams, allowing users to upload files, preview redactions, approve changes, and export sanitized versions, all without leaving the Teams environment.

Key Capabilities

Document Upload & Detection: Users can upload files (Word, PDF, Excel) directly in Teams. The agent scans the content using Azure AI models to detect PII such as names, phone numbers, addresses, and financial information.
Automated Redaction Preview: The system applies visual redactions and generates a preview within Teams, allowing users to review before approval.
Approval & Revision Workflow: Users can accept or reject suggested redactions through a conversational interface — for complete transparency and control.
One-Click Export & Storage: Final redacted files are exported in secure formats.

Multi-Agent Architecture

At the core of the system is a multi-agent architecture, where each agent performs a specialized function while collaborating through a central orchestrator. Here’s how it works:

Agent	Role
Redaction Orchestrator Agent	Manages overall workflow and communication between detection, redaction, and review modules
File Processing Agent	Handles file uploads, type identification, and conversion (PDF, Word, Excel)
PII Detection Agent	Identifies sensitive entities using Azure Cognitive Services and GPT models
Redaction Engine Agent	Applies visual or content-level redactions and prepares review versions
Review & Approval Agent	Presents redacted output for user validation and integrates feedback
Export & Compliance Agent	Finalizes approved documents, logs audit metadata, and uploads to SharePoint

Deployment

Platform: Microsoft Teams
Auth & Data: Microsoft SSO (OAuth2), Microsoft Graph API, SharePoint API
Tech Stack: Azure OpenAI (GPT-4), Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, Teams M365 SDK

This secure and modular architecture ensures data confidentiality, traceability, and scalability for both internal and marketplace deployments.

The Results

By embedding the PII Data Redaction Agent within Microsoft Teams, Optimus significantly reduced the operational burden of manual redaction workflows.

Tangible Business Outcomes:

80% reduction in document sanitization time
95% accuracy in PII detection and masking
100% compliance with data handling policies and audit requirements
Centralized visibility of redacted files and actions through SharePoint integration

Technologies Used

Azure OpenAI (GPT-4)
Azure Cognitive Services (Text Analytics for PII)
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Copilot Studio
SharePoint & Graph API
Azure Functions
Azure SQL Database
OAuth2 (Microsoft SSO)

What’s Next

Future enhancements of the PII Data Redaction Agent will include support for image-based redaction using Azure Vision API, bulk document processing, and integration with Power Automate for enterprise-scale workflows. Optimus also plans to introduce detailed compliance analytics and reporting dashboards for audit readiness.

Contact Optimus to learn how we can help you leverage Agentic AI & Cloud services.