What is Microsoft Copilot? Microsoft Copilot is the AI assistant that works inside the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Copilot helps you write text, analyse data, summarise meetings and draft emails, using large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic. It differs from standalone chatbots because it has access to your own documents, emails and chats within your organisation.
How does Microsoft Copilot work?
Microsoft Copilot works by combining large language models with the data in your Microsoft 365 environment. When you ask a question, Copilot uses Microsoft Graph to pull relevant context from your emails, documents, chats and calendars.
That context goes to a language model together with your question, and the model generates an answer based on it. This principle is called retrieval-augmented generation. The language model itself contains no information about your organisation, but receives the relevant documents as context with each question. That makes the answers specific to your work, without your data ending up in the model itself.
The language models behind Copilot come from two suppliers. OpenAI supplies the GPT models that have powered Copilot since its launch. Microsoft also uses Anthropic models. In Edit with Copilot and Researcher, users can choose Claude, and in Word on the web Claude Sonnet 5 has been in the model menu as the default for heavier reasoning tasks since the release note of 25 August 2026. Since 30 September 2026 Microsoft has been rolling out Claude Sonnet 5.5 in Cowork and Copilot Studio, followed in phases by Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Chat; from early November 2026 Claude Fable 5.1 is being added as a model you pay for per use with Copilot Credits. In the EU, EFTA and the UK, Anthropic models are switched off by default; an AI Administrator or Global Administrator switches them on in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. Only the separate setting for Claude in Word, Excel and PowerPoint is on by default for tenants in that region created after 25 March 2026. When Anthropic models are used, processing takes place outside the EU Data Boundary, a trade-off that weighs heavily for organisations with strict data residency requirements.
The way ChatGPT works is similar: the model recognises patterns and generates text, without knowing or understanding anything itself. So always check important output for factual accuracy. Copilot phrases things convincingly, even when the content is wrong.
Which versions of Microsoft Copilot are there?
For business use, Microsoft Copilot has three labels, plus a separate consumer version. Copilot Chat (Basic) is available at no extra cost to anyone with an eligible Microsoft 365 licence, without Copilot chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic) applies to users without an add-on licence who do have standard access in those apps. M365 Copilot (Premium) comes with the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and gives the full experience.
There is a big functional difference between these versions. Copilot Chat (Basic) gives answers based on public web information and can use the context of an open email in Outlook. M365 Copilot (Premium) has access to all your company data through Microsoft Graph and is fully integrated into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams.
Since 15 April 2026 the free in-app Copilot within Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote has been restricted. At large organisations with 2,000 users or more, the feature disappeared completely for anyone without a paid licence. At smaller organisations it remained available, but reduced to standard access, with lower quality and performance at busy times. In both cases Copilot Chat keeps working through the standalone Microsoft Copilot app (formerly the Microsoft 365 Copilot app) and in Outlook for email and calendar. The full in-app experience in Office therefore requires an M365 Copilot licence.
For SMEs, the paid version of Microsoft Copilot is also available as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business. This add-on is intended for organisations with up to 300 users, and you add it to an eligible Microsoft 365 business plan.
Alongside these business versions there is a consumer version, available at copilot.microsoft.com. It works separately from your Microsoft 365 environment and is aimed at personal use. Company data is not accessible here. The standalone Copilot Pro subscription is no longer on sale and support for it ended on 1 August 2026. For individual professionals, Copilot is now included in the Microsoft 365 consumer plans, such as Personal, Family, Premium and the new Pro plan at €110.00 per month, with Copilot in the desktop apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
What can you do with Microsoft Copilot in Office apps?
Microsoft Copilot carries out different tasks in each Office app, matched to what you do in that app. The core function stays the same in every case: generating text and content based on your instructions and your own documents.
For the full experience within the apps you need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, recognisable by the M365 Copilot (Premium) label. Without that licence, it depends on your licence and tenant configuration: with the Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic) label you keep standard access in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote; with the Copilot Chat (Basic) label Copilot only works in Outlook and through the standalone Copilot app.
Word
In Word, Microsoft Copilot helps you draft, rewrite and summarise documents. You can have it generate a first draft from a short instruction or from other files in your organisation. Copilot can make existing text more concise, adjust the tone or summarise a long document.
A common use is drafting reports or proposals in which Copilot combines information from existing documents. The output is rarely ready to publish straight away and always needs checking for substance.
Excel
In Excel you ask Microsoft Copilot questions about your dataset in plain language. Copilot suggests formulas, creates visualisations, identifies trends and builds models based on your data. Since 2026 the COPILOT function even lets you give natural-language instructions directly in a cell.
The Edit with Copilot feature, formerly Agent Mode, takes over larger tasks that would otherwise take a lot of clicking, such as cleaning data, building pivot analyses or writing formulas you do not know by heart. A preview shows in advance which cells Copilot is going to change, so you spot mistakes earlier.
If you work with Claude instead of Copilot, Claude in Excel, Anthropic’s official add-in, places a similar sidebar next to your worksheet.
Always check generated formulas and analyses for substance. Copilot makes mistakes that look plausible at a glance, especially with complex references between sheets.
PowerPoint
Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint creates presentations from a Word document, a prompt or an existing template. You can have existing slides rewritten, add new slides on a specific topic and apply formatting consistently.
The quality depends heavily on the underlying source. Give Copilot a well-structured source file and the output is often a usable starting point. Start from nothing and you get generic slides that still need a lot of editing. In PowerPoint, Copilot is more an accelerator than a replacement for your own work.
Outlook
In Outlook, Microsoft Copilot acts as an assistant for your inbox and calendar. Copilot summarises long email threads, drafts replies in your tone and helps you find information in older messages.
Copilot Chat in Outlook also works without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, but with a limited set of organisational content and less extensive grounding in your company data than the paid version. The full experience requires a licence, as in the other Office apps.
Read the generated text for tone and context before you send it. Copilot sometimes misjudges the mood of an earlier conversation and then responds too formally or too informally for the situation.
Teams
Microsoft Copilot in Teams turns your meetings into a searchable source. During or after a meeting, you ask Copilot for a summary, a list of action points or the answer to a specific question that came up in the meeting.
In chat, you can also use Copilot to summarise messages you have missed. This feature only works if meetings are transcribed or recorded.
The summaries are usually accurate on factual points. Nuance and decision-making need manual checking before you share the output with colleagues.
If you are weighing up Copilot vs ChatGPT, the main trade-off is integration with Office against the broader usefulness of a standalone assistant.
Microsoft Copilot for business use
In a business context, Microsoft Copilot stands apart from standalone AI tools because data stays within the Microsoft 365 tenant and is not used to train the underlying language models. For organisations with compliance requirements around GDPR, NIS2 or sector-specific regulation in financial services, healthcare or government, that is a decisive argument. Rolling out Copilot across a business is one step; making sure everyone in the team uses the Office integrations in the same way is a second, and that last step is part of AI implementation.
Privacy and company data
With Microsoft Copilot, prompts, retrieved data and generated answers fall under the same privacy, security and compliance commitments as your regular Microsoft 365 use. Existing access rights and sensitivity labels remain in force. So an employee cannot use Copilot to reach documents they have no formal rights to.
Since January 2026 Anthropic has operated as a subprocessor for Microsoft, which means Anthropic models fall under the same contractual commitments as the rest of Microsoft 365. For tenants in the EU, EFTA and UK, however, processing with Anthropic models takes place outside the EU Data Boundary. Administrators switch this setting on or off in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. For sectors with strict data residency requirements, that is a trade-off to set down in policy.
Data staying within the tenant does not mean all use is automatically safe. Through Copilot, employees can quickly reach documents they formally do have rights to, but which are sensitive in practice. Oversharing within organisations is a frequently cited risk when rolling out Microsoft Copilot. A clear usage policy set in advance prevents it.
New business extensions in 2026
In 2026 Microsoft Copilot gained two major extensions for business use: Agent 365 and the Microsoft 365 E7 suite. Agent 365 is a central management platform for AI agents within organisations, comparable to how Microsoft Entra works for identities. IT and security teams get one place to register, manage and secure agents, and it has been generally available since 1 May 2026.
The E7 suite, also called the Frontier Worker Suite, is the first new enterprise licence tier since Microsoft 365 E5 in 2015. It bundles Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Agent 365 and Microsoft Entra Suite in one package and became available on 1 May 2026. In the Netherlands, E7 costs €91.92 per user per month with Teams, or €84.51 for the EEA version without Teams, paid annually and excl. VAT. The suite is mainly relevant for enterprise organisations that want to roll out agent-based workflows widely, less so for an SME team starting with one or two processes.
Wave 3 with Copilot Cowork
Microsoft Copilot also underwent a functional shift in 2026. Wave 3 moves the focus from assistance to what Microsoft calls embedded agentic capabilities: features that carry out tasks on their own instead of only advising. Copilot Cowork, developed together with Anthropic and running on Claude models, can handle long-running multi-step processes. One request is enough, after which Cowork might build a presentation, gather financial data, email team members and block out time for preparation. Since 16 June 2026 Copilot Cowork has been generally available to Microsoft 365 Copilot users, running in the cloud within your own tenant. On top of the Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, Cowork requires Copilot Credits, with the cost per task depending on model use, context, tool calls and run time.
For professionals, this means Microsoft Copilot is gradually changing from a writing assistant into a work agent. That increases the time saved, but also increases the need for checkpoints. The more independently Copilot carries out tasks, the more weight that checkpoint must carry. The four-eyes principle from my banking years becomes more relevant the more the AI does on its own without anyone watching.
Microsoft Copilot compared with other AI assistants
Microsoft Copilot differs from other AI assistants mainly in how it accesses your work environment. Where standalone tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are a separate interface, Copilot lives inside the apps you already use. That direct integration with Microsoft Graph gives Copilot access to your company data without you having to upload files by hand. That is the biggest practical difference from other AI assistants.
The underlying language model is not necessarily better or worse than its competitors’. Copilot uses GPT models from OpenAI and Claude models from Anthropic, the same models that are available elsewhere. The difference lies in the integration, the access to your own data and the manageability within an organisation. Those three factors weigh more heavily than the brand of the language model itself.
Professionals often choose Copilot when their organisation works entirely in Microsoft 365. For independent writing, research or work outside the Microsoft ecosystem, tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude are often a better fit. The choice depends on your main work environment and the type of tasks you do most. In practice, many professionals use several tools side by side, depending on the task.
Who is Microsoft Copilot suitable for?
Microsoft Copilot suits professionals and organisations that work intensively with Microsoft 365 every day. If Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams are your main work environment, the direct integration saves time on tasks such as summarising, drafting and data analysis. The return grows the more structured data your organisation holds in SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, because Copilot automatically pulls that data in as context for your questions.
The tool is less suited to people who work outside the Microsoft ecosystem or mainly with standalone tools. If you mostly work in Google Workspace, Notion or other environments, you miss the integration advantage Copilot offers. In that case a standalone AI tool with a broader interface is often more practical and cheaper.
Copilot is not always the best choice for specialised technical or creative tasks either. For advanced programming, in-depth research or long chains of reasoning, specialised AI tools often perform better.
For organisations, cost weighs heavily. An M365 Copilot licence is a substantial investment per employee, on top of the existing Microsoft 365 subscription. Without a structured rollout, training and clear usage policies, the return often falls short of expectations. Good preparation, with a clear way of working and checkpoints, makes the difference between occasional use and real productivity gains.
If you want to embed Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude as a shared way of working in your team, the tool itself is not the bottleneck; the way of working around it is. In the AI Literacy Course you learn to draw up the policy and the checkpoints, so AI output remains reliable under professional responsibility. I translate the four-eyes principle I bring from banking practice into checkpoints on the scale of an SME team. That way, AI stops being a loose experiment and becomes a fixed way of working.
Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Copilot
If you are considering Microsoft Copilot, you will probably want to know the price per user and how it differs from other products called Copilot.
Does Microsoft Copilot work in languages other than English?
Yes, Microsoft Copilot works in many languages besides English, both with a work or school account and with a personal Microsoft account. Microsoft publishes a list of supported languages for prompts and responses (Dutch is one of them), and Copilot is fully localised in the supported languages. Microsoft does warn that a translated user interface does not mean Copilot also supports that language, so the official list of supported languages is what counts.
How much does Microsoft 365 Copilot cost?
In the Netherlands, Microsoft 365 Copilot for enterprises costs €26.00 per user per month with annual payment, or €27.30 per month if you pay an annual subscription monthly. For smaller organisations there is Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, with a promotional price of €15.60 per user per month on an annual subscription, normally €18.20, and €21.84 on a monthly subscription. All amounts are excl. VAT and come on top of your existing Microsoft 365 subscription. For advanced AI features such as Copilot Cowork, Microsoft also charges per use through Copilot Credits.
Is Microsoft Copilot the same as GitHub Copilot?
No, Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot are two different products, each with its own subscriptions. GitHub Copilot is an AI assistant for programmers that gives code suggestions in your development environment and also works on the GitHub website, from the command line and in its own desktop app. GitHub offers its own plans for it, from Copilot Free to Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise.
