The symptoms described—increased latency to 3 seconds and verbalizing internal reasoning—are characteristic of a deep reasoning or generative AI feature being active in the voice channel. Disabling this specific feature for the voice channel is the most direct and immediate mitigation. It can be done via configuration without downtime or redeployment, directly addresses both the latency and compliance issues, and can be applied consistently across environments as a policy.

A. This would worsen the latency problem and likely increase the verbalization of reasoning, directly contradicting the requirements.

C. This is a business continuity measure, not a technical fix. It fails to solve the agent's performance issue and stops the service.

D. While prompt engineering can influence behavior, it is less reliable for preventing verbalized reasoning than a direct feature disablement, and it doesn't address the root cause of the latency.

1. Microsoft Copilot Studio Documentation, "Configure the voice channel in Microsoft Copilot Studio." This documentation outlines channel-specific settings, implying that features can be enabled or disabled on a per-channel basis to optimize performance and behavior for modalities like voice. (Section: "Voice formatting and settings").

2. Microsoft Azure AI Documentation, "Responsible AI practices for conversational AI." This guide emphasizes the need for concise and relevant responses, especially in voice interactions, and avoiding the exposure of internal logic, which aligns with disabling verbose reasoning features. (Section: "Transparency and user control").