Getting Started with Microsoft Copilot Cowork

Posted on October 30, 2026 by Imran Rashid

Reading Time: 22 minutes

If you’ve been using Microsoft 365 Copilot for a while, you’ll know it’s great at answering questions, summarising emails and helping you draft content. Copilot Cowork takes this a step further. Rather than going backwards and forwards with Copilot one prompt at a time, you hand Cowork a piece of work and it gets on with it for you.

In this blog post, I’ll explain what Copilot Cowork is, how it differs from Copilot Chat, what you need before you start and how much it costs. I’ll then share a set of 25 tasks with example prompts that you can try yourself. You don’t need any technical experience to follow along.

Important: Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and must be enabled by your organisation. Features are rolled out gradually, so some of what I cover may not yet be available in your environment.

Let’s get started.

Why Copilot Cowork?

Before we dive in, it’s worth asking why Microsoft has introduced Cowork in the first place. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index research found that people using Microsoft 365 are interrupted roughly every two minutes during core working hours by a meeting, an email or a chat. For the busiest users, that adds up to around 275 interruptions a day. Microsoft calls this the infinite workday.

A lot of that time is spent organising information rather than doing meaningful work. Checking your inbox, piecing together what happened in a Teams thread, finding the right file before a meeting. This is exactly the kind of work Cowork is designed to take off your plate.

What is Copilot Cowork?

Copilot Cowork is an agentic Copilot experience. That simply means that Cowork can plan and carry out tasks on your behalf, rather than just answering a question and stopping. Think of it like handing a task to a helpful colleague. You explain what you need, they work out the steps, and they come back to you with the finished result. Along the way, they check with you before doing anything important, such as sending an email.

Note: Reading, searching and drafting happen without interruptions. Anything that leaves your hands or changes something, such as sending an email, posting in Teams, scheduling a meeting, sharing a file or deleting an email, always waits for your approval first.

Microsoft says Cowork can:

Draft, reply to and send emails in Outlook
Schedule meetings and manage your calendar
Create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and PDFs
Post messages in Teams chats and channels
Search across your organisation for documents, messages and information
Carry out deep research and pull the findings together into a report
Prepare daily briefings and meeting summaries

Cowork is grounded by Work IQ, which is Microsoft’s intelligence layer for work. In simple terms, Work IQ gives Copilot an understanding of your emails, meetings, chats, files, the colleagues you collaborate with and the projects you work on, so the results are based on your actual work rather than generic answers.

Note: Cowork inherits your permissions. It can only access the files and emails you already have access to, so if you can’t open a file, neither can Cowork. Your organisation’s sensitivity labels and policies still apply, and Cowork doesn’t use your organisation’s data to train AI models.

What is the difference between Chat and Cowork?

This is one of the most common questions I get asked, so here’s a quick comparison.

	Copilot Chat	Copilot Cowork
Best for	Quick questions, summaries and drafts	Bigger pieces of work you want to hand over
How it works	You ask, Copilot answers, you ask again	You describe the outcome and Cowork works through the steps
How long it takes	Seconds to minutes	Minutes to hours, running on its own
Example	Summarise this document for me	Prepare me for tomorrow’s meeting and email the agenda to the attendees

Here is how I think about it. Chat is a conversation where you are driving each step. Cowork is delegation. You tell it what you want done, then let it work out how to get there while you get on with something else.

What you’ll need to get started

A Microsoft 365 Copilot licence assigned to your account, also known as Copilot Premium. This is a prerequisite needed before you can use Cowork.
Cowork enabled in your organisation, along with usage based billing. This is set up by your IT administrator. Cowork is disabled for users by default.

Note: If you can’t access Cowork, speak to your IT team. Cowork won’t start costing your organisation unless it has been enabled for you.

How much does Cowork cost?

Your Microsoft 365 Copilot licence covers everyday Copilot experiences, such as Copilot Chat and Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Cowork is different. It uses usage based billing, which means your organisation pays for what you actually use, measured in Copilot Credits.

Your organisation sets a monthly credit limit for you. Bigger and more complex tasks use more credits than quick ones, and unused credits don’t carry over to the following month. If you reach your limit, you can request more from your organisation.

Tip: Type /cost in any Cowork task to see roughly how many credits that task has used, how many you’ve used this month and how many you have left. Using /cost doesn’t cost any credits. You can also click on an option recently introduced by Microsoft called Usage details as shown in the image below.

How to open Copilot Cowork

Go to copilot.cloud.microsoft and sign in with your work account. You can also launch the Copilot application if installed on your device.

Select Cowork. You’ll find it either next to Chat in the message box or as a tab at the top of the left pane. (Microsoft announced a new Copilot layout in September 2026, and it’s rolling out gradually, so your screen may look slightly different.)

Type your request into the chat box, or pick one of the suggested prompts, such as Catch me up, Organize my week or Prep for a meeting.

Follow along as Cowork works. The side panel on the right shows each step, the skills Cowork is using and any files it creates.

Review and approve any actions when asked. Before Cowork sends an email, posts in Teams or schedules a meeting, it shows you a preview so you can approve, change or cancel it.

Any files Cowork creates appear in the side panel, where you can preview or download them. They’re also saved to the Cowork folder in your OneDrive.

Choosing a model and effort level

In the Cowork message box, you’ll see Auto Medium. These are two separate settings, and it’s easy to be unsure which to pick.

Auto is the AI model Cowork uses. Microsoft’s advice is “Most of the time, leave the picker on Auto so Cowork can choose the model for your task.”

Medium is the effort level, which controls how hard Cowork thinks. Select it to open a slider that runs from Faster on the left to Smarter on the right:

Light: quick, simple tasks, such as a short email.
Medium: the default, and the right choice for most everyday work.
High and Extra High: when you need deeper analysis or a more thorough result.
Max: for your hardest work.

As the slider itself warns, higher effort is more thorough, but is slower and uses more credits. Your choice stays selected for future tasks, so remember to move it back afterwards.

Tip: If you’re not sure, leave it on Auto Medium. Only move the slider to the right if the result isn’t as detailed as you need.

Tips for writing a good Cowork prompt

You don’t need to write a perfect prompt, but a little detail goes a long way.

The most important tip is to lead with the outcome. Tell Cowork what you want to end up with, rather than listing every step. For example, instead of “Find my emails with Contoso, then summarise them, then find the latest deck”, try “Get me ready for Thursday’s meeting with Contoso and draft a one page briefing I can review before the call.”

When I write a Cowork prompt, I also try to cover the following:

Where to look, such as my inbox, a Teams channel, my calendar or a specific file.
What I want back, such as a summary, a table, a Word document or a draft email.
Any preferences, such as length, tone or who it’s for.
What it should check with me first, such as sending an email or Teams message on my behalf.

If Cowork needs more information, it will ask you a question and give you options to pick from. You can also skip the question and let it carry on with what it already has.

Tasks to try in Cowork

Note: The prompts below are examples. Replace the names, projects and dates with your own.

Task 1: Get a daily briefing

Mornings are often the busiest part of the day, and it’s easy to lose the first hour just catching up. Cowork includes a Daily Briefing skill designed for exactly this, so you can start the day knowing where to focus rather than digging through messages to find out.

Prompt:
Catch me up on what’s happened since I logged off yesterday across Outlook and Teams, and check what’s in my diary today. Give me a short list of my top priorities, point out anything that needs an answer before lunch, and highlight anything I should prepare ahead of today’s meetings.

Once you’re happy with the briefing, you can ask Cowork to run it for you automatically.

Prompt:
Send me this daily briefing every weekday at 7:30am

Next, you will need to complete the automation wizard as shown in the image below.

Note: You can manage your scheduled prompts from the Automations page. You can create up to 25 of them at the time of writing this post.

Task 2: Prepare for an upcoming meeting

Prompt:
I have a meeting with NAME HERE tomorrow about the Copilot Adoption project. Review our recent emails, Teams chats and shared documents, then create a one page briefing as a Word document covering the background, key discussion points and open questions. Draft a short agenda and email it to the attendees, and block 30 minutes in my calendar beforehand to read the briefing. Check with me before sending or booking anything.

Cowork will find the relevant information itself, so you don’t need to attach anything. If you’d rather point it at specific files, you can attach them or select them from OneDrive.

Task 3: Turn meeting notes into actions

After a meeting, paste your notes into Cowork or attach the file, and let it do the tidying up.

Prompt:
Using these meeting notes, create a list of actions with an owner and a suggested due date for each one. Then draft a follow up email to the attendees summarising what was agreed. Show me the email before sending it.

Cowork will show you a preview of the email. Read it through, make any changes and select send the email when you’re happy. If you’re trying this for the first time, send it to yourself first.

Task 4: Research a topic

Cowork can search inside your organisation as well as carry out deep research, which pulls together information from multiple sources into a single report.

Prompt:
Carry out deep research on best practices for rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot to a 500 person organisation. Cover training, governance and how to measure success. Only use sources from the last two years and include links to every source.

Continue to task 5 below

Note: Always read through the results and check the sources before you rely on them. AI can get things wrong.

Task 5: Turn your research in task 4 into a report and a presentation

Stay in the same task so Cowork can reuse what it has already found.

Prompt:
Turn this research into a two page Word report for our leadership team, written in plain English, and a five slide PowerPoint presentation summarising the key recommendations. Then post a short summary of the key findings in the CHANNEL NAME channel in Teams, with links to both files, and find a 30 minute slot next week to go through them with NAME HERE. Show me the post and the meeting invite before anything goes out.

Note: You could also ask Cowork to send the Teams chat message to someone directly.

Task 6: Create your own custom skill

So what exactly is a skill? Think of it as a set of written instructions, a bit like the step by step guide you’d give a new colleague so they do a job exactly the way you like it. Each skill is a simple text file containing a name, a short description that tells Cowork when to use it, and the instructions it should follow. When your request matches that description, Cowork loads the skill automatically and you’ll see it appear in the side panel.

Cowork already comes with built in skills for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, email, scheduling, meetings, daily briefings, enterprise search, communications and deep research. You can add up to 50 of your own, and Cowork picks them up automatically at the start of each session. You can also share a skill with specific people in your organisation, so everyone on your team gets the same results.

Why bother creating one? Without a skill, you have to explain how you want something done every single time, and the results can vary from one day to the next. With a skill, you explain it once. Your prompts become shorter, the output stays consistent, and you can improve the skill over time as you spot things you’d like done differently.

A good rule of thumb, if you find yourself typing the same instructions into Copilot again and again, it’s probably time to turn them into a skill. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

Weekly status report. Pulls together your sent emails and meetings from the past week and turns them into a summary organised by project. You get the same format every Friday without starting from scratch.

Meeting minutes in your own style. Turns your notes or a meeting transcript into minutes with decisions, actions and owners, laid out exactly the way your organisation expects. No more reformatting before you share them.

Training session follow up. Turns your session notes into a thank you email for attendees, with key takeaways, links to resources and any agreed actions. Every attendee gets a polished follow up, even after a busy day of delivery.

Reply to customers in your company’s tone. Drafts responses to customer queries using your organisation’s tone of voice, greeting and sign off. Replies stay consistent no matter who on the team sends them.

New starter welcome pack. Creates a welcome email, a first week schedule and a list of useful contacts and links for a new team member. Onboarding feels organised and nothing gets forgotten.

One skill I find really useful is one that gives my work a second opinion before I share it. Let’s create it.

Prompt:
Help me create a custom skill called Second Opinion. When I ask it to look over a document, it should play the role of a sceptical reader. Point out where my reasoning is weak, any claims I haven’t backed up, figures or facts that need a source, and any suggestions I make without explaining why. Give me feedback only and leave the document itself unchanged.

Cowork will walk you through naming and describing the skill, then save it to the Cowork skills folder in your OneDrive. You can also create skills from the Customise page in Cowork.

Review and click approve

When you create or update a skill, Cowork automatically scores it out of 100 (as shown in the image below) across four areas: whether it triggers at the right time, how specific the instructions are, whether it stays within its purpose and how well it handles unexpected input. It also suggests improvements, which is a handy way to make your skill more reliable.

Note: Microsoft doesn’t validate custom skills created by users. Review custom skill outputs carefully.

Task 7: Let Cowork react when something happens

As well as running on a schedule, Cowork can run a task when something happens, such as when you receive a particular email or are mentioned in Teams.

Prompt:
Whenever my manager emails me about the Copilot Adoption project, summarise the email and draft a reply for me to review.

Cowork shows you what will trigger the task, what it will do and what permissions it needs, before you select Set up. By default, these tasks prepare actions for your approval rather than sending anything on their own.

Task 8: Organise your week

Copilot Chat can tell you what’s in your diary, but Cowork can actually make changes to it. This is a great way to claw back some time for focused work.

Prompt:

Look at my calendar for next week. Tell me how many hours I’m spending in meetings, flag any clashes and suggest which meetings I could decline or shorten. Add two 90 minute focus blocks for preparing course material, and draft a short, polite note to the organiser of any meeting I decide to decline. Ask me before changing anything.

Cowork may ask you a few questions first, such as which meetings matter most to you. It then shows each proposed change so you can approve or skip it, and makes the changes directly in your calendar.

Task 9: Tidy your inbox with a rule

If newsletters and automatic notifications keep burying the emails that matter, Cowork can set up an Outlook rule for you, without you needing to know where the rules settings live.

Prompt:
Look at my inbox for the last two weeks and tell me which newsletters and automatic notifications I receive most often. Then create an Outlook rule that moves them into a folder called Read Later, so my inbox only shows emails that need my attention.

Before the rule is created, Cowork shows you an approval card explaining exactly what the rule will do, so there are no surprises.

Task 10: Update an existing file

Cowork doesn’t just create new files. It can also edit a Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation you already have in OneDrive or SharePoint, and save the changes back to the same file.

Prompt:
Open the Training Schedule spreadsheet in my OneDrive and add the three Copilot sessions which are currently in my calendar next month, including the date, time and number of people invited. Then update the dates on slide 2 of my Copilot Training Overview presentation to match.

Tip: Type / in the chat box to pick a file from OneDrive or SharePoint. When Cowork asks for permission to edit the file, you can allow it once or for the rest of the conversation. If you change your mind, the file’s version history means you can always go back to an earlier copy.

Task 11: Plan a training session from start to finish

This is where Cowork really shines, because one request covers your calendar, Word and Teams all at once.

Prompt:
I’m running a one hour Introduction to Copilot Cowork session for the Sales team in the week commencing 16 November. Find a time when NAME HERE and NAME HERE are both free, create a Teams meeting invite with a short description, write a one page Word handout for attendees, and post a message in the CHANNEL NAME channel in Teams letting everyone know the date and what to expect. Show me everything before it goes out.

Cowork works through each step, then asks you to approve the meeting invite and the Teams post before anything is sent. Doing all of this by hand would mean switching between four different apps.

Task 12: Build a simple app

Using the App skill, Cowork can build a small interactive app from a plain English description. No coding is needed.

Prompt:
Build an app to track my training sessions. For each session I want to record the course name, date, number of attendees and average feedback score, and see a chart of feedback scores over time.

You can then ask Cowork to add features, such as a filter by course, and the app updates as you go. Once you’re happy, you can publish it and share a link with colleagues who use Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Note: The App skill is currently a preview feature at the time of writing this post and requires your organisation to be part of Microsoft’s Frontier programme.

Task 13: Clear out your inbox

Copilot Chat can tell you which emails look unimportant, but Cowork can actually do something about them. It can sort emails into folders and delete the ones you don’t need, which makes it a great way to get on top of a busy inbox.

Prompt:
Go through my inbox from the last 30 days. Move any emails from outside my organisation that are newsletters, marketing or event invitations into a folder called External Updates. Delete any promotional emails I haven’t opened. Leave anything from my manager, or anything that mentions a deadline, where it is. Show me the full list before you move or delete anything.

Cowork shows you what it plans to do before it goes ahead, and actions such as deleting come with a risk level indicator so you can see the impact at a glance. My advice is to start with a short time period, check the list carefully the first time, and only widen it once you’re happy with the results.

Task 14: Reorganise your OneDrive

If your OneDrive has become a dumping ground, Cowork can create new folders and move your files into them for you.

Prompt:
Look at the files in my OneDrive Documents folder from the last six months. Create a folder for each course I deliver and move the matching files into it. Put anything you’re not sure about into a folder called To Sort, and give me a summary of what you moved.

Note: Cowork can’t delete files or folders in OneDrive or SharePoint, so nothing is lost while it tidies up. It only creates folders and moves files around.

Task 15: Create and send an email newsletter

Cowork can design and send HTML newsletters by email, which is perfect for regular updates to your team or the people you train.

Prompt:
Create an email newsletter called Copilot Tip of the Month. Include three practical Copilot tips for beginners, a short introduction from me and a reminder about my next training session on DATE HERE. Use a clean, professional layout and send it to EMAIL ADDRESS HERE. Show me a preview before sending.

Once you’re happy with the first edition, you can ask Cowork to put together a new one on a schedule, such as the first Monday of every month.

Task 16: Let Cowork use the web for you

Cowork can also complete web tasks using a browser on your device. It can open websites, read live pages and work through steps on a site for you. It can then turn what it finds into a Word document or a Teams post, and it will show you a message for approval before posting it.

Prompt: Go to the Microsoft 365 roadmap website and find the Copilot features that have started rolling out this month. Summarise the five most useful ones for my training attendees in a short Word document, then post a quick summary in the [CHANNEL NAME] channel in Teams. Show me the post before it goes out.

Note: The browser feature is currently in preview, so it may not be available in your organisation at the time of writing this post.

Task 17: Create images for your work

Cowork includes a built-in image generation skill, so you can create visuals for slides, handouts and newsletters without leaving the conversation. It can also let people know when materials are ready by posting in Teams or sending an email.

Prompt:
Create a landscape banner image for my Copilot Cowork training course in a clean, modern style using blue tones, showing a person at a desk working alongside a friendly AI assistant, with no text in the image. Add it to the title slide of my Copilot Training Overview presentation and to the top of my Copilot Cowork Handout document in OneDrive. Then post the image in the [CHANNEL NAME] channel in Teams with a short message letting everyone know the materials are ready. Show me the post before it goes out.

Note: If something about the image isn’t quite right, just ask for a change, such as “make the background lighter”. Finished images are saved to your session and to the Cowork folder in your OneDrive, ready to drop into your slides or handouts.

Task 18: Send a personal follow up to every attendee

Instead of one generic email to everyone, Cowork can read a list of attendees and write a separate, personalised email for each person.

Prompt:
Open the Copilot Training Attendees spreadsheet in my OneDrive. For each person on the list, write a short, friendly follow up email that thanks them by first name, mentions the course they attended and includes one tip that suits the question they asked during the session. Send each email individually and show me every email before it goes out.

Note: When several emails are waiting for approval, you’ll see an Approve All button showing how many are pending, such as Approve All (12). Read through a few first to check you’re happy with the tone before approving the rest.

Task 19: Turn survey results into a dashboard

If you collect feedback after every session, Cowork can do the analysis for you and turn the numbers into something your manager will actually read.

Prompt:
Analyse the Course Feedback spreadsheet in my OneDrive. Create a new Excel workbook with a summary of average scores by course, the most common comments and a chart showing how scores have changed over the last six months. Then create a three slide PowerPoint presentation highlighting what’s working and what needs to improve, and draft an email to NAME HERE with both files attached.

Doing this by hand could easily take an afternoon. Cowork works through the analysis, the workbook, the presentation and the email in one go, and you check each one before anything is sent.

Task 20: Answer questions in Teams for you

Task 7 showed Cowork reacting to an email. It can also keep an eye on Teams, which is ideal if people regularly ask you questions in a channel.

Prompt:
Whenever I’m @mentioned in the CHANNEL NAME channel in Teams, look through my training materials in OneDrive for an answer and draft a reply for me to approve. If you can’t find an answer, just send me a one line summary of the question.

Cowork shows you a card explaining what will trigger the task, what it will do and the permissions it needs before you select Set up. By default, it prepares replies for your approval rather than posting on its own.

Task 21: Put your weekly report on autopilot

Combine a schedule with the files and emails Cowork can already see, and your Friday report practically writes itself.

Prompt:
Every Friday at 3pm, look at my sent emails, meetings and Teams messages from the past week and create a short Word report organised by project, covering what I completed, what’s in progress and anything I’m waiting on. Then save a draft email to NAME HERE with the report attached, so I can review it before sending.

Asking for a draft email means nothing goes out without you checking it first. If you’ve created a weekly report skill, mention it in the prompt so the report follows the same format every week.

Task 22: Connect Cowork to other systems with plugins

Plugins from the Microsoft 365 App Store add new skills and connectors to Cowork, so it can work with tools beyond Microsoft 365, such as your organisation’s ticketing or customer management system. Your IT administrator can deploy plugins for everyone and decide which ones are available.

To find them, open the Browse plugins menu in Cowork. Once a plugin is installed, its skills appear alongside the built in ones and you simply ask for what you need.

Prompt:
Using the PLUGIN NAME plugin, find all the open requests assigned to me, summarise them in a table by priority and draft an update for each one. Check with me before updating anything.

Note: The plugins available to you depend on what your organisation has approved. Cowork asks for your approval before a plugin takes any action on your behalf.

Task 23: Teach Cowork how you like to work

Rather than repeating your preferences in every prompt, you can give Cowork custom instructions that it applies to every task. Open the Customise page in Cowork in the left pane, select the Preferences tab and add something like this:

Note: If the customise option does not exist, click Plugins from the left pane.

Example instructions:

I’m a technical trainer based in the UK. Always use British English. Keep emails short and friendly, start them with Hi and sign off with Thanks, Imran. Use plain English and explain any technical terms. Never book meetings before 9:30am or on Friday afternoons.

From then on, every email, document and meeting Cowork creates follows these rules automatically. Your instructions are personal to you.

Task 24: Change direction while Cowork is working

You don’t have to wait for Cowork to finish before adding something new. If you think of something else while it’s working, just type another message. It’s queued automatically, and if your new message changes the direction of the task, Cowork adjusts its approach.

Prompt:
Prepare a two page Word summary of everything that happened on the Copilot Adoption project this month.

Then, while it’s still working, add:

Prompt:

Also create a five slide PowerPoint version, and book 30 minutes with NAME HERE next week to go through it.

Task 25: Use Cowork on the go

Cowork is also available in the Microsoft Copilot mobile app for iPhone and Android, so you can hand over work while you’re away from your desk, for example between training sessions or on the train home.

Prompt:
I’ve been delivering training all day. Catch me up on anything urgent in my email and Teams since 9am, and draft replies to anything that needs an answer today so I can review them when I’m back at my desk.

You can then pick the task up from your recent tasks when you’re back at your computer.

Note: At the time of writing this post, custom skills aren’t currently supported in Cowork on mobile, so tasks that rely on your own skills are best started on your computer.

What else can Cowork do?

The 25 tasks above are just a starting point. If you’re not sure whether Cowork can help with something, just ask it: “What can you help me with?” or “Can you do this for me?”

I asked Cowork what it can do for me that Copilot Chat can not, response below:

Email (Outlook)

Send, reply to, reply-all and forward emails with attachments, directly from a request.
Act on your inbox: flag, move, delete or mark messages as read, in bulk.
Create mail folders and inbox rules, and set out-of-office replies.

Calendar & Meetings

Cancel, accept, decline or forward meetings, and book rooms, without you opening Outlook.

Teams

Post messages, reply in channel threads, and create chats or channels.

Files, OneDrive & SharePoint

Upload files, create folders, and create or update SharePoint sites, lists and list items.

Creating documents & content

Edit your existing Word, PowerPoint and Excel files in place, including tracked changes, comments and table updates.
Check every page of a finished file for layout problems and fix them before handing it over.
PDFs: merge, split, fill in forms, add watermarks and read text from scanned pages.
Build working, shareable apps such as quiz, attendance or feedback trackers.

Data & analysis

Count, total and compare across hundreds of emails, meetings or files at once, with calculated rather than estimated figures.

Research

Use a browser to fill in web forms, make bookings or get live information from websites.

Automation & productivity

Set up triggers that act when something happens, like a certain email arriving or a file landing in a folder.
Edit OneNote pages: add notes, tick off to-dos, insert tables.

How I work

Finish a whole multi-step job from one request, for example find, analyse, build, save and send.
Work on several pieces in parallel, such as a deck, a handout and an attendee email, then combine the results.

Note: What Cowork can do depends on how your organisation has set it up, including which plugins and connectors are available. Cowork always asks for your approval before it sends, changes or shares anything.

What is the difference between Cowork and Microsoft Scout (now Autopilot)?

Another question I get asked a lot is how Cowork is different from Microsoft Scout. The names are often mixed up, so let me clear this up.

Important: Microsoft Scout has been renamed Autopilot. Microsoft announced the new name on 25 September 2026, so if you see Scout in older articles and videos, it’s the same product as Autopilot. It’s also worth knowing that Microsoft is making this simpler. In its announcement of the new Copilot, Microsoft said “coming soon, you won’t need to choose a mode: simply state what you need to accomplish, and Copilot will route the work to Chat, Cowork or Code, whichever capability is right for the job.” In other words, you won’t need to decide between Chat and Cowork yourself. If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming/latest changes to Copilot, including Microsoft Scout becoming Autopilot, check out my post: The New Copilot, Explained Simply: Home, Code and Autopilot

The easiest way to tell them apart is to ask one simple question: who starts the work?

Cowork waits for you. You give it a task, it plans the steps and carries them out across Microsoft 365, checking with you before anything important happens. When the task is finished, it stops.

Autopilot (Scout) keeps going on its own. Microsoft describes it as a persistent, proactive and personal agent that keeps working even when you’re not. It runs in the background, learns your priorities and acts on them without you having to prompt it each time.

Use Cowork when:

You have a specific piece of work you want done, such as a report, a meeting briefing or tidying your inbox.
You want to review and approve the important steps along the way.
The task has a clear finish line.

Use Autopilot (Scout) when you want ongoing help that doesn’t stop. For example, Autopilot can:

Keep track of follow ups and remind you before anything slips through the cracks.
Spot upcoming deadlines and block time in your calendar so you can prepare.
Keep an eye on a project, then let you know when it has stalled since your last customer call and help you arrange a meeting with the customer.
Coordinate meeting times with people in different time zones, without you having to go back and forth.
Flag the meetings that matter most and pull together the materials you need beforehand.
Notice decisions that have been waiting too long and nudge the right people before they hold the project up.
Watch a Teams channel or email thread and follow up on questions that haven’t been answered.
Send regular project updates to your team without being asked each time.
Act on your behalf within the rules you and your organisation have set.

Note: Autopilot is still in private preview and may not be visible to you at the time of writing this post.

There are a couple of other differences worth knowing. Cowork works as you and uses your permissions. Autopilot (Scout) has its own identity in your organisation, so everything it does is recorded as the agent’s action and stays within the permissions and policies you and your organisation set. And while Scout started life as a desktop app, Autopilot runs in the cloud, so it can keep working even when you’re away from your computer.

Cowork can also run tasks on a schedule or when something happens, as you saw earlier in this post. The difference is that you set each of those tasks up yourself. Autopilot is designed to work out what needs doing next by itself.

In short, Cowork is like a colleague you hand a task to, and Autopilot is like a teammate who keeps work moving in the background. They’re designed to work alongside each other, not replace one another.

And that’s it. I hope you found this post useful. Thanks for reading.

Build an IT Support Agent in Copilot Studio – Step by Step

Posted on October 22, 2026 by Imran Rashid

Reading Time: 9 minutes

In this post, I’ll show you how to build an IT Support agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio. The agent will:

Help users troubleshoot IT issues using articles from cloudbuild.co.uk. However, the knowledge source can be replaced with SharePoint or another application.
Log a ticket in a SharePoint list if it can’t find an answer or if the user requests a ticket to be created. The application could be replaced with an app such as ServiceNow or Jira if needed.
Respond to the user with a ticket number.
Post an Adaptive Card in the IT team’s Teams channel with the ticket details and a View ticket link allowing the IT team to view the ticket in SharePoint.

You don’t need any coding experience.

What you’ll need

Access to Copilot Studio where you can create agents.
A SharePoint site where you have edit rights. This will hold your helpdesk ticket list.
A Microsoft Teams team with a channel for IT support. You need to be a member of it.
About 45–60 minutes to set up this demo.

Note: An Adaptive Card is a neat, formatted message box in Teams. It can show headings, a table of details and buttons, instead of a block of plain text.

Step 1: Create the SharePoint list for IT Helpdesk tickets

The SharePoint list stores every ticket the agent logs. It works like a simple spreadsheet.

Open your IT SharePoint site
Select + New > List
Select Blank list
Name it IT Tickets and select Create
Select + Add column to add each column documented in the table below. Insert the column name as shown in the table below, and select Save.

Note: If you have access to Copilot in SharePoint, click the Copilot icon which appears in the bottom right corner and ask Copilot to create the list and columns for you. If you have already create a blank list, ask Copilot to add all columns.

Column name	Column type	What to enter
Title	(already exists)	Leave as it is. This will hold a short summary of the issue
Issue Description	Multiple lines of text	—
Category	Choice	Hardware, Software, Network, Account/Access, Email, Other
Priority	Choice	Low, Medium, High, Critical (set the default to Low)
Steps Tried	Multiple lines of text	—
Reported By	Single line of text	—
Status	Choice	New, In Progress, Resolved, Closed (set the default to New)

6. Click the Title column, click Column settings, click Show/hide columns, and click ID from the list. Then drag the ID column to the front before the Title column as shown in the image below. We will use the ID column for the ticket reference number.

7. After you have created the SharePoint list, copy the SharePoint List link as you will need it later.

Step 2: Create the agent

Go to https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com and sign in.
Check the environment in the top right corner if using the standard harness, or bottom right corner if using the new GitHub Copilot harness. Your organisation may have a specific environment for agents. I’m using the standard harness for this demo.

3. Click + Create blank agent

4. Fill in these fields:

Agent name: IT Support
Description: Helps employees troubleshoot IT issues using cloudbuild.co.uk guidance and logs a ticket for the IT team when no solution exists.

5. Now, let’s stop the agent from making up answers. With the agent’s general knowledge turned off, the agent answers only from the sources you give it, which in my case will be cloudbuild.co.uk. If the site has no answer, the agent knows to log a ticket instead of guessing. Select Settings (top right).

6. Scroll down to Knowledge and toggle off the option, Allow ungrounded responses

7. Select Save and close settings.

Step 3: Give the agent its instructions

The instructions are where you tell the agent how to behave when users chat with it.

Go to the Overview tab.
Next to Instructions, select Edit.
Type your agent instructions and click Save

You are a friendly IT Support assistant for employees.

1. When a user reports an IT issue, ask short clarifying questions if
   needed (device, app, error message, when it started).
2. Always search the Cloud Build knowledge source (cloudbuild.co.uk)
   first. Give clear, numbered troubleshooting steps and include a link
   to the article you used.
3. After giving the steps, ask: "Did that fix the issue?"
4. If the knowledge source has no relevant information, OR the user says
   the steps did not work:
   - Tell the user you will log a ticket with the IT team.
   - Create a short title and a clear description of the issue.
   - Choose a category (Hardware, Software, Network, Account/Access,
     Email or Other) and a priority (Low, Medium, High or Critical).
     Ask the user if you are unsure.
   - Summarise any steps already tried.
   - Do not use quotation marks in any of the ticket details.
   - Use the "HelpdeskFlow" tool.
   - Then confirm: "Your ticket #[TicketID] has been logged and the IT
     team has been notified in Teams."
5. Never make up troubleshooting steps that are not in the knowledge
   source.
6. Keep answers short, friendly and in plain English.

Step 4: Add cloudbuild.co.uk as a knowledge source

Note: you could also select SharePoint or a third party app as a knowledge source which may be more appropriate in the real world. For the purpose of this demo, I’ll be connecting to my website, cloudbuild.co.uk

On your agent’s Overview page, scroll to Knowledge and select + Add knowledge. Or select the Knowledge tab towards the top of the page.

2. Select Public websites.

3. In the Public website link box, type https://cloudbuild.co.uk and select Add (Replace cloudbuild.co.uk with you own link)

Note: the website must be public. URLs that point to a website requiring authentication or ones not indexed by Bing aren’t supported.

4. Replace the auto filled Description with something more detailed, such as, Troubleshooting guides and how-to articles for Microsoft 365, Copilot, Azure, Outlook, Teams, Excel and general IT issues. Use this first for any IT support question.

5. Select Add to agent.

Step 5: Create the Log IT Ticket flow

This is the main part of the build. The flow is a small automation that does three things:

Creates the SharePoint ticket.
Posts the Adaptive Card to Teams.
Sends the ticket number back to the agent.

5a. Create the flow and its inputs

In your agent, select the Tools tab at the top.
Select + Add a tool > New tool and then Workflows.

3. The flow designer opens with a trigger called When an agent calls the flow. Select it.

We will now add Inputs. Inputs are the details the agent passes to the flow, like filling in a form before you submit it.

4. Select + Add an input and then Text six times and name the inputs along with the descriptions as documented below.

Name	Description
IssueTitle	A short summary of the issue, for example Outlook not opening
IssueDescription	A full description of the issue in the user’s words
Category	One of: Hardware, Software, Network, Account/Access, Email, Other
Priority	One of: Low, Medium, High, Critical
StepsTried	Troubleshooting steps already tried
UserEmail	The email address of the user reporting the issue

5b. Add the SharePoint ‘Create item’ action

Select the + icon below the trigger named When an agent calls the flow, then click Add an action.
Search for SharePoint and select Create item.
If asked, sign in to create a connection.
Fill in these fields:
– Site Address: choose your IT site from the drop down, or paste the address you copied earlier.
– Select your list name: IT Tickets

5. Your list columns should now appear. For each one, click in the box, select the lightning bolt ⚡ (dynamic content) icon and pick the matching input as shown in the image and table below. If they don’t all appear, click Show all next to advanced parameters.

List column	Value
Title	⚡ IssueTitle
Issue Description	⚡ IssueDescription
Category Value	⚡ Category (Click enter custom value, then click the dynamic content icon and select category.)
Priority Value	⚡ Priority (Click enter custom value, then click the dynamic content icon and select priority.)
Steps Tried	⚡ StepsTried
Reported By	⚡ UserEmail
Status Value	Type New

5c. Add the Teams Adaptive Card action

Select the + below Create item, then Add an action.
Search for Microsoft Teams and select Post card in a chat or channel.

3. Fill in these fields:

Post as: Flow bot
Post in: Channel
Team: choose your IT Team
Channel: choose your IT Team channel

Click in the Adaptive Card box and paste the JSON code below:

{
  "type": "AdaptiveCard",
  "$schema": "http://adaptivecards.io/schemas/adaptive-card.json",
  "version": "1.4",
  "body": [
    {
      "type": "Container",
      "style": "attention",
      "bleed": true,
      "items": [
        {
          "type": "TextBlock",
          "text": "🆕 New IT Support Ticket #ID_HERE",
          "weight": "Bolder",
          "size": "Large",
          "wrap": true
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "TextBlock",
      "text": "TITLE_HERE",
      "weight": "Bolder",
      "size": "Medium",
      "wrap": true,
      "spacing": "Medium"
    },
    {
      "type": "FactSet",
      "facts": [
        { "title": "Reported by", "value": "EMAIL_HERE" },
        { "title": "Category", "value": "CATEGORY_HERE" },
        { "title": "Priority", "value": "PRIORITY_HERE" },
        { "title": "Status", "value": "New" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "TextBlock",
      "text": "Issue description",
      "weight": "Bolder",
      "spacing": "Medium"
    },
    {
      "type": "TextBlock",
      "text": "DESCRIPTION_HERE",
      "wrap": true
    },
    {
      "type": "TextBlock",
      "text": "Steps already tried",
      "weight": "Bolder",
      "spacing": "Medium"
    },
    {
      "type": "TextBlock",
      "text": "STEPS_HERE",
      "wrap": true,
      "isSubtle": true
    }
  ],
  "actions": [
    {
      "type": "Action.OpenUrl",
      "title": "View ticket",
      "url": "LINK_HERE"
    }
  ]
}

4. Replace each placeholder in the JSON script with dynamic content. Highlight the placeholder text only, keeping the quotation marks, then select the lightning bolt ⚡ and pick the item as shown below.

Result should look like:

5. Perform the same task for the other placeholders

Placeholder	Replace with ⚡
`ID_HERE`	ID
`TITLE_HERE`	IssueTitle
`EMAIL_HERE`	UserEmail
`CATEGORY_HERE`	Category
`PRIORITY_HERE`	Priority
`DESCRIPTION_HERE`	IssueDescription
`STEPS_HERE`	StepsTried
`LINK_HERE`	Link to item (use the search box if unable to locate Link to item) This will send the IT team a direct link when posting a message in the Teams channel.

Note: Be careful not to delete the quotation marks " " around each placeholder. If one goes missing, the card won’t post.
If a user types quotation marks (") in their issue description, the card can fail to post. If this happens during testing, rephrase the test issue without quotes. For a permanent fix, ask the agent (in Step 3) to avoid using quotation marks in ticket fields.

5d. Send the ticket number back to the agent

Click the Respond to the agent action at the bottom of the flow. If it isn’t there, add it with +.
Select + Add an output > Text.
Name it TicketID, and for the value select ⚡ ID

5e. Save and publish the flow

Select Save draft (top right).
Select Publish.

Your flow should read, from top to bottom: When an agent calls the flow > Create item > Post card in a chat or channel > Respond to the agent.

Step 6: Test the flow by clicking Test

Click Test

2. Enter some dummy data and click Run flow

3. Result – SharePoint list updated

4. Result – Message posted in Teams

5. Back to your agent in Copilot Studio, click Tools and add the workflow you just created. Give the workflow a description of The agent runs this flow when a user wants to log a ticket with helpdesk, and then click save.

6. Now, let’s test via the agent. Open the test pane of the agent in Copilot Studio

I’ll post the following message

“I am receiving the error, DHCP client service won’t start – access denied”

The agent is unable to locate the information, so logs a ticket automatically and provides a ticket reference number.

7. A new record is added to the SharePoint list

8. and sends a message to the IT Helpdesk Teams channel

9. If I ask the agent to help me log a ticket with IT, the agent asks me for further details as instructed and then logs a ticket, as shown in the image below.

I hope you found this post useful. Thanks for reading and see you at the next one.

The New Copilot, Explained Simply: Home, Code and Autopilot

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Imran Rashid

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Microsoft has announced some exciting changes to Copilot, introducing three new capabilities called Home, Code and Autopilot. In this blog post, I will discuss each one including additional topics such as Office, Today, Cost and Governance. These changes will gradually be rolled out so may not be available at the time of writing this post.

At first glance, those names don’t tell us very much. So here’s a quick summary before we dive into each feature in more detail:

Home is your new starting point in Copilot, bringing Chat and Cowork together in one place. Office in Copilot also brings Word, Excel and PowerPoint directly into the experience.

Code is where you build. Describe an app, tracker, dashboard, automation or workflow in natural language and Copilot can build it for you. You do not need to be a professional developer.

Autopilot (previously known as Scout) is where you delegate ongoing work. It’s a digital colleague designed to continue working towards a goal without waiting for you to provide another prompt. It’s an agent which runs in the background in the cloud, so it’s not disrupted when your machine is shut down.

And eventually, Microsoft says you won’t necessarily have to decide which one to use. You’ll describe what you want to accomplish and Copilot will be able to route the work to Chat, Cowork or Code depending on what’s appropriate.

In this blog post I will explain the new features in further detail.

Let’s get started.

If you have used Copilot so far, you will know that it is a clever assistant you chat with. Well, it is growing from something you ask questions to, into something that can start where you left off, build small applications for you, and keep working on your behalf in the background whilst you work on other tasks or whilst you are asleep. Think of it like a helpful colleague who has just been given a desk, a to do list and the keys to the office, rather than someone you can only phone up for a quick answer.

Think of the difference this way.

Previously, you might ask Copilot:

“Summarise this document for me.”

Now we’re moving towards being able to say:

“Complete this piece of work for me.”

“Build me a tool to help me do this.”

“Continue to look after this process for me.”

Let’s dig deeper

Home: Your Starting Point for Copilot

Let’s start with Home as shown in the image below, because this is where Microsoft wants your Copilot experience to come together.

Home brings Chat and Cowork into one place. At the moment, these exist as separate tabs and you have to switch between them, as shown in the image below.

The problem with this is that users are not sure which one to use, whereas with the new version of Copilot, Microsoft’s aim for the future is to allow Copilot to work out which one to switch to, based on what the user asks Copilot, and without users having to figure it out themselves. Cowork uses usage based billing and consumes Copilot Credits. Access and spending can be controlled by your organisation’s administrators through spending policies. I’ll cover licensing/costs later in this blog post.

What is the difference between Chat and Cowork?

Chat is for something you want now. You ask a question and Copilot responds.

For example:

“Summarise the key points from this document.”

“Help me write an email.”

“What have I missed while I’ve been away?”

Microsoft describes Chat as the conversational experience for things such as quick questions, lookups and creating drafts.

Cowork is different and is used for something you want done. Rather than having a conversation with Copilot one prompt at a time, you can delegate a larger task and have it work through that task end to end with less step by step involvement from you. However, you are able to instruct Cowork to check with you before triggering tasks. Microsoft gives examples including creating an RFP response, launch kit, customer briefing and financial close package.

Here is how I think about the differences:

Chat is a conversation between you and Copilot where you are driving the conversation, such as “Summarise this file”, “what are the outstanding tasks that I need to be aware of”, “draft me an email that I can send my manager”

Cowork is used for delegation instead of going backwards and forwards in a conversation, for example, “Take care of this task for me”, whilst you work on other stuff, allowing Cowork to work out what it needs to do itself for a long running task. Cowork processes your task and provides you with an end result with less ongoing input from you.

The image below shows what the combined new experience will look like once it is rolled out. A reminder that Cowork will not automatically launch and start costing your organisation if it has not been enabled for all or selected users. Your Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription continues to cover everyday Copilot experiences, such as Copilot Chat and Copilot in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and Excel, while advanced experiences such as Cowork use Usage-Based Billing and consume Copilot Credits when enabled by your organisation.

Office is coming into Copilot too

There’s another important change inside Home. With Office in Copilot, the full power of Word, Excel and PowerPoint is being built into the Copilot Chat experience.

From Home you can ask Copilot to draft a launch brief, model a budget, build a deck, or pick up a file your team is already working on, and it creates or updates a real, editable document, workbook or presentation, live for your whole team, not just you. Refine it side by side with your conversation, or @mention a teammate and their edits show up as they make them. Things stay in sync between Copilot and the Office apps, so progress travels with you wherever you work.

Code: No need to be a professional developer

This new addition allows you to describe what you need in natural language, and Copilot works out how to build a solution from your description. For example, you can attach a spreadsheet and ask Copilot to develop a live app for you which you could share with your team.

Powered by the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, Code runs in a sandboxed environment and can be hosted securely within your tenant. Microsoft says software developers will continue to use GitHub Copilot for their day to day work, with more connectivity into the Copilot platform. Code is about making smaller, purpose built solutions accessible to a much broader group of people.

Microsoft says Code can create things including:

apps
trackers
dashboards
automations
workflows
desktop widgets
cloud hosted internal applications.

Example,
“Build me a simple dashboard where I can track training courses, number of attendees and satisfaction scores.”

Autopilot: Give Copilot an Ongoing Job

Autopilot is probably the biggest conceptual change of the three.

Instead of thinking about:

“What do I want Copilot to do right now?”

start thinking:

“What responsibility could I hand over to Copilot?”

Until now, most of us have interacted with AI by asking it for something. You type a prompt. AI responds. You give it another task. AI responds again. Autopilot changes that relationship.

Autopilot, previously called Scout, is a new type of AI agent in Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft describes it as a persistent, proactive and personal agent that can keep working even when you’re not actively using Copilot. A simple way to think about it is as a digital colleague that can be given an ongoing responsibility.

How does Autopilot work?

Instead of giving Autopilot just one prompt, you can give it a name, a role and a goal. It can then continue working towards that goal without waiting for you to provide another prompt every time. For example, you could have an Autopilot whose role is to help you stay on top of important work.

Microsoft says Autopilots can stay active in the background and take action without needing to be prompted each time. Microsoft’s example for Scout, now Autopilot, include coordinating meeting times, identifying upcoming deliverables, preparing materials and spotting stalled decisions.

It is also cloud hosted, which means it can keep working while your attention is elsewhere, rather than requiring you to sit at your computer watching it complete its work. Whereas Scout was a desktop application that needed to be installed on your device, Autopilot is cloud hosted, meaning it can continue working even when you’re not at your computer.

Let’s look at a simple Autopilot example

Imagine you work in sales and you’ve been speaking with a customer about a potential deal. You’ve exchanged emails, held meetings and discussed what they need. But you’ve become busy with other work and haven’t contacted the customer for some time. An Autopilot created to help you manage this type of work could potentially recognise that the work needs attention and recommend a next step, such as arranging another meeting with the customer. You could then review its recommendation and, where approval is required, respond with:

“Yes, go ahead and set up a meeting invite between me and the client.”

The important point is that you aren’t relying entirely on yourself to remember that something needs attention. Autopilot is designed to keep working towards the ongoing goal you’ve given it.

Furthermore, Autopilot has its own identity. This is where the idea of a digital colleague becomes interesting. Microsoft says Autopilot has its own identity, memory, computer and workspace within your organisation’s Microsoft 365 environment. Microsoft also says it can appear where people already work, including Teams, Outlook, chats, channels and documents, and you can @mention it like a colleague if you wish to communicate with it in much the same way you might bring a colleague into a conversation.

The key idea is that Autopilot isn’t just something you ask questions of. It’s an AI agent that can be given an ongoing job to do and continue monitoring that work, rather than completing one task and stopping until it receives further instructions.

What can Autopilot access?

Having an AI agent continuously working for you naturally raises an important question: what can it access? Autopilot doesn’t simply get unrestricted access to everything in your organisation. Microsoft says Autopilot has its own identity and operates within the permissions and policies set by you and your organisation. You can think of this in a similar way to a human colleague: they have their own identity and are given the appropriate permissions and access they need to do their job, rather than having unrestricted access to everything.

What is the difference between Cowork and Autopilot?

At first, it seems that Cowork and Autopilot are the same. Both involve delegating work to AI, but there is an important difference. With Cowork, you give Copilot a piece of work you want completing. For example:

“Create a customer briefing for my meeting tomorrow.”

Cowork can work through the steps required to complete the task and provide you with the result. Microsoft describes Cowork as being for work you delegate. You define the task and Cowork works end to end to return a completed result. A simple way to remember it is: You give Cowork a task, Cowork works on it and Cowork completes the task.

Autopilot is designed differently. Rather than only giving it an individual task, you can give it a role and an ongoing goal. It can remain active in the background and continue working without waiting for you to prompt it every time. Microsoft describes Autopilots as always on agents. You give Autopilot a role and goal, and then Autopilot continues working towards that goal.

An easy way to remember the difference is, that Cowork is work you delegate. Autopilot is an ongoing responsibility you delegate. Let’s take another example, imagine you had two digital colleagues. You ask the first colleague: “Please prepare a customer briefing for my meeting tomorrow.” This is like Cowork. There is a particular piece of work to complete. Once that work is finished, the task is complete.

Now imagine telling the second colleague: “Help me stay on top of important customer relationships and make sure important work doesn’t get forgotten.” That’s more like Autopilot. You haven’t simply given it one task. You’ve given it an ongoing responsibility.

Does Autopilot keep working when I’m not using Copilot?

Yes. That’s one of the ideas that makes Autopilot different. Microsoft describes Autopilot as cloud hosted, meaning it can continue working while you sleep or while your attention is elsewhere. You don’t need to keep Copilot open and watch it work. This is why describing Autopilot as always on makes sense. It can remain active in the background instead of waiting for you to start every interaction.

When Microsoft announced the new Copilot experience on 25 September 2026, it said that Autopilot was expanding to private preview at the end of the month, so don’t be surprised if you currently open Microsoft Copilot and can’t find Autopilot. As with preview technology, availability and capabilities may change as Microsoft develops the experience further.

Why is Autopilot such an interesting development?

For years, we’ve mainly thought about AI as something that waits for us. We ask and AI answers. Autopilot introduces another way of thinking about AI at work. Instead of asking: “What can AI do for me right now?” we can start asking: “What ongoing responsibilities could I give to a digital colleague?” That may sound like a small difference, but it’s actually a massive shift.

For someone completely new to these concepts, the below points are probably the easiest way to remember it:

Chat: Ask me something.
Cowork: Give me a task to complete.
Autopilot: Give me an ongoing responsibility.

New feature: Today

The Today feature will bring together information across your mail, calendar, Teams threads, meetings and tasks, providing a personalised view of what you missed, what needs your attention now and what can wait in one place This will help massively as you won’t need to run or schedule a prompt to work out what’s outstanding for the day.

Check out the official Microsoft video at the following link: Today

How much do Cowork, Code and Autopilot cost?

Microsoft uses two different approaches to pay for Copilot usage, a User Subscription Licence (USL) and Usage Based Billing (UBB). I’ll break both of these down.

User Subscription Licence (USL)

A user subscription licence (USL) provides the fixed price AI foundation for everyday Copilot usage. This includes Copilot Chat and Copilot experiences across Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. You can use Copilot for everyday productivity tasks such as summarising meetings, drafting content and analysing information. Think of this as your regular Copilot subscription for everyday AI work.

However, some of Microsoft’s newer AI capabilities can take on longer running and more complex work. This is where Usage based billing comes in.

Usage Based Billing (UBB)

Usage based billing (UBB) is used for more advanced AI work where the cost is based on actual usage. Microsoft specifically identifies Cowork, Code and Autopilot as experiences that use usage based billing. These experiences require a user subscription licence for access, and consume additional Copilot credits when used. The easiest way to understand the difference is this, a user subscription licence (USL) is your fixed price subscription for everyday Copilot experiences, whereas usage based billing (UBB) is your additional usage for advanced AI experiences such as Cowork, Code and Autopilot, measured using Copilot Credits.

What are Copilot Credits?

Copilot Credits are Microsoft’s common way of measuring usage across eligible services that use usage based billing. So, having a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription doesn’t mean that every advanced AI workload is necessarily covered by the fixed subscription price. For Cowork, Code and Autopilot, your user subscription licence provides access, while your use of these advanced capabilities consumes Copilot credits. Organisations can obtain Copilot credits through different purchasing options, including, pay as you go billing or prepaid capacity, depending on the service.

Can organisations control the cost?

The idea of usage-Based Billing may immediately raise a concern, such as, if people start using Cowork, Code and Autopilot, could an organisation suddenly receive an unexpected bill? Administrators can use spending policies in the Microsoft 365 admin centre to control access and Copilot Credit spending. These policies can be applied at the organisation, group or user level, allowing different spending controls to be applied to different people or groups. Microsoft provides cost management capabilities that allow administrators to monitor Copilot credit consumption, govern access, configure budget alerts, establish spending controls and manage credit requests. Microsoft is also introducing FinOps for AI to help organisations manage AI spending and understand the value they’re getting from Copilot and agents.

Can users see how many Copilot Credits they’re using?

Yes, in supported experiences.

For Cowork, Microsoft says users can enter /cost to see the approximate Copilot Credit usage for the task they currently have open and how many credits they have remaining for the month. Microsoft has also recently introduced the Usage details option as shown below.

Administrators have a much broader view through the Cost Management dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, where they can see total consumption, users consuming credits, spending policies, usage across supported agents and services, and identify users or policies approaching their limits.

What about governance and security?

As AI makes it easier for people to create their own apps and agents, organisations are concerned about governance and security. In the past, building a business application often required specialist technical skills and support from a development or IT team. With experiences such as Copilot Cowork, Copilot Code, Agent builder and Microsoft Copilot Studio, more people can create agents and apps using natural language if IT has granted permissions. This is powerful, but it raises an important question:

What happens when lots of people across an organisation start creating their own apps and agents?

IT teams cannot supervise every employee while they create an app. Instead, organisations need governance that works at scale, giving people room to innovate while maintaining appropriate controls over security, data and access. To help organisations govern the growing number of apps created through different tools, Microsoft has introduced Microsoft Copilot Managed Runtime.

What is Microsoft Copilot Managed Runtime?

Announced in September 2026 and currently in public preview, Copilot Managed Runtime provides a Microsoft hosted environment for running Microsoft 365 business applications while applying organisational governance, security and compliance controls.

Microsoft says it already powers apps created through Copilot Cowork, Copilot Code and Microsoft Copilot Studio. It is also available to professional developers and third party development tools.

Copilot Managed Runtime also integrates with Work IQ and connectors. Work IQ is Microsoft’s intelligence layer for work, helping Copilot understand organisational data and context so that apps and AI experiences can work with relevant business information, while access remains governed by the organisation. A simple way to understand it is this, Copilot makes it easier for people to build apps. Microsoft Copilot Managed Runtime provides a managed and governed environment in which those apps can run.

Microsoft says applications hosted by Copilot Managed Runtime automatically inherit organisational governance, security and compliance controls from the moment they are created. This gives different groups across the organisation a shared environment where:

Users can discover and use apps available to them.
Makers and developers can build apps using different creation experiences.
Administrators can govern apps across the organisation.

I hope you found this post useful. Thanks for reading.

Microsoft 365 Copilot tasks you can try in Outlook

Posted on May 6, 2026 by Imran Rashid

Reading Time: 11 minutes

Email is still one of the tools many of us use every day, and it’s also one of the areas where Microsoft 365 Copilot can save a significant amount of time. From drafting emails and replying more effectively to summarising long threads or adjusting tone, Copilot can help with a wide range of everyday email tasks.

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing a collection of practical Copilot prompts you can try yourself to see how Copilot can support the way you work with email.

Important:

Most of the examples in this post require a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Some of the features demonstrated may not yet be available in your environment. Microsoft 365 Copilot features are rolled out gradually, so availability can vary depending on your tenant, region, and release cycle. Additionally, the experience may differ depending on the version of Outlook you are using (for example, classic Outlook vs the new Outlook), and the platform (desktop, web, or mobile). To ensure the best experience, make sure you are using the latest version of Outlook and that Copilot is enabled in your organisation.

Let’s get started

Task 1: Summarise an email conversation

Launch Microsoft Outlook
Select the Copilot icon in the top‑right corner
Select the Work tab
– The Work tab allows Copilot to use your Microsoft 365 organisational data (such as emails, meetings, and files) to provide more relevant responses.
– The Work tab will automatically appear if your organisation has assigned you a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
Enter a prompt (Example below):

Summarise the email conversation about the Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption – Project Kick off project. List the team members involved and highlight any outstanding actions I need to be aware of in table format.

Task 2: Find out when you last had a meeting with a colleague

Prompt:

When did I last have a meeting with my colleague Andrew Doe?

You could also press the / (forward slash) key on your keyboard and start typing your colleague’s name.

Task 3: Ask Copilot to check when you and your colleague are next available for a meeting

Prompt:
When is Andrew Doe available for a Teams call in the week commencing 18 May? Please suggest suitable 30‑minute slots that work for both of us.

Task 4: Ask Copilot in Outlook to draft you an email

Prompt:

Draft a polite follow‑up email to Darren O’Malley suggesting one of the available 30‑minute Teams meeting slots for the week commencing 18 May. Insert this into a new email

Note: Click the edit and Send button and check your drafts folder in Outlook for the email. Review and send.

Did you notice?

My email started with:

Hi,
Hope you’re doing well 🙂

and ended with:

Thanks,
Imran

This is because I’ve asked Copilot to always start and end my emails using this format through Copilot Instructions.

To do this:

Select the three dots (⋯) as shown in the image below.

Select Settings.

Select Personalisation, and then Custom instructions.

Task 5: Rewrite an email to adjust the tone

Open the draft email
Select the Copilot icon in the top-right corner

Example prompts:
– Rewrite this email to sound more friendly and conversational.
– Make this email more concise without losing the key message.
– Rewrite this email to better match Andrew Doe’s communication style.
The email is changed directly inside the draft email as shown in the image below. You can go back to the previous draft if needed. When you’re happy with the final version of the email, click Replace.

It is also possible to make changes to the email by clicking on the copilot pencil icon as shown in the images below

Task 6: Summarise an email directly from the message

Open an email or email thread in Microsoft Outlook.
Select Summary by Copilot at the top of the email.
Review the summary, which highlights the key points and any actions for that specific email thread.

Task 7: Ask Copilot to generate a reply to an email

Prompt:
Chase Andrew for an update on the draft proposal. Remind him that the draft proposal is due this Friday.

Task 8: Ask Copilot to schedule a follow-up reminder

Prompt:
Schedule a follow-up reminder for me if there’s no response by Friday 1pm GMT+1

Switch to Allow Actions

Note: You need to be part of the Frontier program to get early access to new Microsoft 365 Copilot default experience in Outlook. Frontier connects you directly with Microsoft’s latest AI innovations. Frontier previews are subject to the existing preview terms of your customer agreements. As these features are still in development, their availability and capabilities may change over time.

Task 9: Ask Copilot to help you catch up on unread emails

Prompt:
Summarise my unread emails and draft suggested replies for the ones that require my action, so I can review them before sending.

Task 10: Turn emails into a clear list of actions

Prompt:
Review my recent emails and create a concise list of actions I need to complete, including who the action is for and any suggested deadlines.

Task 11: Prioritise emails that need your attention

Prompt:
Review my emails and highlight the most important messages I should focus on first.

Task 12: Catch up on emails after time away

Prompt:
I’ve been away from work. Summarise what I’ve missed in my inbox over the last 5 days and highlight any messages that require my attention or action.

Task 13: Check emails which need urgent replies

Prompt:
What emails need urgent replies? List in a table format.

Task 14: Prepare for an upcoming meeting using email context

Prompt:
Review my recent email and Teams conversations with Andrew Doe and summarise any relevant context, key discussion points, and questions I should be prepared to discuss in my upcoming meeting.

Task 15: Schedule a meeting directly from an email

Steps:

Open an email in Microsoft Outlook that contains a discussion which would benefit from a meeting.
In the email ribbon, select Schedule with Copilot.

3. Review the meeting details Copilot suggests, such as:

Attendees
Suggested time
A draft agenda generated from the email content

4. Make any changes if needed, then send the meeting invitation.

Task 16: Ask Copilot to create an Outlook rule using natural language

Prompt
Create an Outlook rule that moves newsletters and automated updates into a separate folder called newsletters so I can keep my inbox focused on emails that need my attention.

Task 17: Summarise email attachments without opening them

Open an email in Microsoft Outlook that contains an attachment (for example, a Word, PowerPoint, or PDF file). Select Summary by Copilot for the attachment (shown in the reading pane). Review the AI‑generated summary to quickly understand the contents without opening the file.

Task 18: Catch up on emails using Copilot voice (audio summary)

Microsoft documents Copilot Voice as a way to listen to and talk to Copilot while on the move, including catching up on email and calendar content hands‑free. Ask Copilot when your next meeting with your manager is via voice.

Check out a short demo at: Copilot Voice Demo

Task 19: Understand why an email is important

Prompt:

Explain why this email has been marked as important and whether it requires my action.

Task 20: Compare different email drafts before sending

Prompt:
Create two alternative drafts of this email:
one that is more concise and direct, and another that is more friendly and conversational.

Task 21: Set up custom draft instructions for Copilot

Instruct Copilot to always respond in a way that matches your preferred style. For example, you could ask it to always start your emails with: “Hi, I hope you’re doing well.”

Select the three dots (⋯) as shown in the image below.

Select Settings.

Select Personalisation, and then Custom instructions.

Task 22: Create an executive summary across related emails

Prompt:

Review my email conversations from the last 14 days related to the Copilot Adoption project and create a one‑page executive summary covering key updates, decisions made, open questions, and next steps.

Task 23: Create an email based on a financial income statement in a Word document

Using /Income Statement Q1 FY26.docx, draft a clear, professional email summarising the key financial results for senior stakeholders.

Task 24: Create an FAQ from an email conversation

Prompt:
Review this email thread and create an FAQ that includes:

the most common questions raised
clear, concise answers based on what was agreed
any open questions that still need confirmation

Write it so it can be shared with people who were not part of the original email conversation.

Task 25: Adapt one email for different audiences

Prompt:

Rewrite this email in three versions:

for senior leadership (high‑level, concise)

for a non‑technical audience (plain English)

for the project team (more detail and context)

Keep the core message consistent. I will review and decide which version to send.

Task 26: Get a critical review of an email before sending

Prompt

Review this email and act as a critical stakeholder.

What assumptions am I making?

What questions might the recipient push back on?

What risks, ambiguities, or misunderstandings could this message create?

Do not rewrite the email. I want feedback only.

Task 27: Identify missing information in an email

Prompt

Review this email and tell me:

what important information might be missing
what assumptions the recipient would need to make
what follow‑up questions the recipient is likely to ask

Do not rewrite the email. I want feedback only.

Task 28: Get started with Copilot Cowork (Frontier preview)

What is the Microsoft 365 Frontier programme?

The Microsoft 365 Frontier programme provides early access to Copilot features that are still in development. It allows organisations to safely trial, evaluate, and provide feedback on upcoming AI capabilities before they reach general availability. Because these features are in preview, behaviour and availability may change over time, and some capabilities may be limited to specific tenants or regions.

What is Copilot Cowork?
Copilot Cowork is an agentic Copilot experience designed for long‑running, multi‑step work across Microsoft 365. Copilot Cowork is powered by Anthropic’s Claude model, which enables more advanced reasoning, planning, and the ability to manage multiple tasks in parallel, while keeping the human in control through explicit approvals.

Unlike standard Copilot prompts (which respond and stop), Cowork:

creates a plan
carries work forward over time
coordinates tasks across apps
can pause for your explicit approval before taking actions

Microsoft describes Cowork as moving Copilot from assistant to collaborator, while still keeping the human in control.

What can Copilot Cowork do?

Cowork can:

Draft, reply to and send emails (with approval)
Schedule and manage meetings
Create and edit files across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
Post updates in Teams
Coordinate multi‑step workflows (for example: monthly reporting or executive briefings)
Track progress and show each step as it works

All actions are visible, reviewable, and require user approval before execution.

Step‑by‑step: Accessing Copilot Cowork

Open the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.
Go to the Agent Store.
Find Copilot Cowork and install it.
Pin Cowork to the left‑hand navigation.
Open Cowork to start a new task.

Note: The prompts below are intentionally detailed to show what Cowork can handle. You don’t need to be this specific when you start. Cowork will ask follow‑up questions if needed.

Prompt 1:
Help me organise my inbox. Please review my email from Outlook.

First, review my inbox from the last 24 hours and show me a summary:

Total number of emails and a rough breakdown
Any emails from my manager or my management chain
Any urgent emails – look at the subject, contents, and if it is marked as high importance

Let’s do a basic triage of each email. Ask me before making any changes.

If spam, let’s delete the email.
If not important to me, like a broad email update, let’s provide a synopsis and archive it.
If a meeting invite, let’s accept, decline, or mark as tentative.
If requiring a reply, let’s draft a reply and save it as a draft.
If urgent, let’s draft a reply together. Let’s even SEND the reply!

Start with the easiest changes first. Once I approve each change, take the action directly in my inbox one at a time.

After we complete the last 24 hours, let’s offer to review the last few days (or weeks) of emails.

Prompt 2:

Help me organise my week. Please review my Outlook calendar.

First, review my calendar and show me a summary:

Total meetings and hours spent in meetings
Where I have focus time (e.g. 2+ hours)
Days with the most meetings

Before making any changes, ask clarifying questions and look up information. For example:

My manager and management chain – note if they are on a meeting
How many attendees are included on the meetings, and if they would be easy to move
What I’m trying to accomplish this week
How should I prioritise meeting conflicts based on attendees or topics
Any commitments not on my calendar, like personal events in the evening
Which types of meetings I should decline or shorten
Personal commitments or boundaries I want to protect

Then show me a few proposed changes with explanations:

Meetings to accept (if not already), decline, or reschedule
Meeting conflicts to resolve, including emailing the organisers
Focus blocks to add to ensure I can get work done

Start with the highest-impact changes first. Once I approve each change, make the edits directly in my calendar one at a time.

Prompt 3:
Help me prepare for an upcoming meeting. Please review my Outlook calendar, emails, and Teams messages.

First, find my next meeting (or ask me which one) and show me:

Meeting title, time, duration, and location (or virtual link)
Who organised it and the full attendee list
Any agenda, attachments, or notes included in the invite
Whether I’ve accepted, declined, or not yet responded

Then gather context by reviewing:

Recent email threads and Teams messages with the attendees related to the meeting topic
Any documents or files shared in those threads
Notes or outcomes from the last meeting with the same group, if one exists
Open action items assigned to me from previous discussions

Ask me a few questions before drafting my prep:

What’s my role in this meeting – am I presenting, contributing, or just listening
Are there specific topics I want to raise or decisions I need
Any concerns or blockers I should flag
Do I need to prepare any materials (slides, data, demos)

Then create a meeting prep summary:

Background context – a brief recap of what led to this meeting
Key attendees and what they care about
My talking points, ordered by priority
Questions I should be ready to answer
Questions I want to ask
Any materials or documents I should have open during the meeting

Share the prep summary in the chat. Offer to save it as a document, or send it to myself via email so I can review it before the meeting.

Note: The prompts (Cowork) above are intentionally detailed to show what Cowork can handle. You don’t need to be this specific when you start. Cowork will ask follow‑up questions if needed.

I hope you found this post useful. Thank you for tuning in.

Practical Microsoft 365 Copilot Tasks You Can Try in Excel

Posted on April 23, 2026 by Imran Rashid

Reading Time: 8 minutes

In this blog post, I share a number of practical Microsoft 365 Copilot tasks in Excel that focus on real, everyday data analysis and reporting scenarios.

These examples demonstrate how Copilot can help with understanding data, creating formulas, and uncovering insights. While this post includes a selection of tasks, they are intended to get you thinking. Copilot in Excel can support many more scenarios, especially when working with larger or more complex datasets.

My goal is to provide ideas and practical prompts that you can try yourself and build upon as you explore further.

Note: A Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required to use Copilot in Excel.

Let’s get started.

Task 1: Explore what the dataset contains

Prompt:
summarise what the dataset contains in bullet point format

Result

Task 2: Identify missing values

Prompt:
Highlight missing values in red

Task 3: Calculate and populate empty fields

Prompt
Calculate and populate any empty fields with the correct values

Result: Cells F14, F15, F16 and F17 populated

Task 4: Replace all names with new demo names

In this task, I will use Copilot to replace the existing names in the dataset with new demo names.

Prompt:
Replace all existing demo names with new, unique names in every row, ensuring each includes a first name and surname.

Task 5: Change the date format

Prompt:
Change the date format to MM/DD/YEAR format and remove the time

Task 6: Extract surname and add to a new column

Prompt:
Add a new column named “Surname” after the “Full Name” column by extracting the surname from “Full Name”. Rename the “Full Name” column to “First Name”

Task 7: Explain the Total Sales calculation

Prompt:
Explain the formula used to calculate Total Sales

Task 8: Identify the top 5 highest‑value orders

Prompt:
Show top 5 highest value orders

Task 9: Identify low‑performing products or regions

Prompt:
Find low‑performing products or regions

Task 10: Review sales trends with a line chart

Prompt:
Create a line chart showing sales over time. Insert into a new sheet

Task 11: Visualise sales by product with a bar chart

Prompt:
Build a bar chart of sales by product. Insert into a new sheet

Task 12: Highlight top‑performing orders using conditional formatting

Prompt:
Highlight the top 5 performing orders in green

Task 13: Analyse summer sales performance

Prompt 1:
How did we perform over the summer?

Copilot requests for additional information as shown in the image below:

I respond as shown in the image below, and Copilot in Excel then completes my request.

Response from me: 1 and 1

Prompt 2:
Add this information to a new sheet

Task 14: Compare sales performance across regions

Prompt:
Compare sales by region

Task 15: Insert a row to calculate total sales

Prompt:
Add a row calculating total sales only

Task 16: Create an email summarising sales performance

Prompt:
Draft a professional email providing a simple summary that I will send to my colleague Andrew Doe summarising all sales, lows and highs.

Task 17: Work out the average order value

Prompt:
Calculate average order value

Task 18: Filter sales for a specific region

Prompts:
Filter sales for from the UK only

Task 19: Add a VAT (20%) calculation column

Prompt:
Calculate and add a column for VAT (20%) after the total sales column

Task 20: Generate a sales dashboard

Prompt:
Create me a dashboard, surprise me

Task 21: Sort names alphabetically

Prompt:
Sort the first name field in alphabetical order

Task 22: Protect customer identity in the dataset

Prompt:
Anonymise customer names

Task 23: Generate 10 additional rows of demo data

Prompt:
Add another 10 lines of demo data

Task 24: Analyse customer sentiment

Prompt:
Analyse customer reviews and label each review as positive, negative, or neutral.

Result

Task 25: Extract information from a Word document and create an Excel table

Prompt:
Extract the information from the following word document and create a nice table / attach filename

Result:

Task 26: Identify the main trends in the data

Prompt:
What are the main trends in this data?

Task 27: Identify date formatting issues and data inconsistencies

Prompt:
Check for date formatting and data inconsistencies

Task 28: Summarise the data in another language

Prompt:
Summarise the data in 2 paragraphs in the french language

Task 29: Translate the spreadsheet content into another language

Prompt:
Change the language in the spreadsheet to German

Task 30: Verify the Total Sales values and correct any errors

Prompt:
Check whether all Total Sales values are correct and fix any errors.

Task 31: Add a column for initials based on customer names

Prompt:
Create a new column after Column C containing initials based on the names in this table.

Task 32: Capitalise the first name

Prompt:
Capitalise the first name

Task 33: Create a PivotTable to summarise sales by region and product

Prompt:
Build a PivotTable summarising Total Sales by region and product.

Task 34: Clear any conditional formatting rules

Prompt:
Remove conditional formatting

Task 35: Identify trends, anomalies, or outliers in the data

Prompt:
What trends, anomalies, or outliers do you see in this data? Add to a new sheet

Task 36: Create a 12‑month revenue forecast

Prompt:
Forecast revenue for all areas of the business for the next 1 year. Use the year-over-year growth rate from the annual totals to project monthly figures. Add this to a new sheet

Task 37: Assess the impact of a 10% cost increase on profit

Prompt:
What happens to profit if all costs increase by 10%? Add this to a new sheet

Task 38: Detect duplicate records in the dataset

Prompt:
Identify any duplicate records in this dataset and highlight them in purple

Task 39: Analyse the drivers behind changes in sales performance

Prompt:
Explain the key factors contributing to changes in sales performance over time

Task 40: Recommend actions to improve sales performance

Prompt:
Based on this data, suggest three actions to improve sales performance.

Task 41: Model how price increases impact revenue

Prompt:
Create a what‑if scenario showing how revenue changes if prices increase by 5%, 10%, and 15%. Add to a new sheet

Task 42: Identify which variables drive total sales

Prompt:
Which variables have the biggest impact on total sales? Show this clearly

Task 43: Improve and standardise column headers

Prompt:
Rename the column headers to make them clearer and more business‑friendly

Task 44: Identify the best visualisation for the data

Prompt:
Suggest the most appropriate visualisation for this data and explain why

Task 45: Generate a one‑page summary for senior stakeholders

Prompt:
Create a one‑page executive summary of all data for senior stakeholders.

Task 46: Tailor the summary for a beginner audience

Prompt:
Summarise this so a beginner who is new to finance can understand the data

That’s it. I hope you find these Copilot in Excel tasks useful.

If you have other examples or use cases for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel, feel free to share them in the comments below.