Microsoft 365 Copilot
AI assistant in every Office app — grounded on your enterprise data
In this guide
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What Does Microsoft 365 Copilot Do?
Copilot is an AI assistant embedded directly in the Office apps you use every day. Unlike Copilot Chat (which is a standalone chatbot), M365 Copilot is grounded on your enterprise data — your emails, files, meetings, calendar, and Teams conversations.
flowchart LR
COP["M365 Copilot
$30/user/mo"]
GRAPH["Microsoft Graph
Your emails, files,
meetings, calendar"]
APPS["Where It Works
Word · Excel · PPT
Outlook · Teams
OneNote · Loop"]
LLM["AI Model
GPT-4 class
Enterprise-grade"]
COP --> GRAPH
COP --> APPS
COP --> LLM
What It Does in Each App
| App | What Copilot Does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Word | Draft, rewrite, summarise documents | “Draft a project proposal based on last quarter’s report” |
| Excel | Analyse data, create formulas, generate charts | “What are the top 5 trends in this sales data?” |
| PowerPoint | Create presentations from prompts or documents | “Turn this Word doc into a 10-slide deck” |
| Outlook | Summarise email threads, draft replies, schedule | “Summarise this 47-email thread in 3 bullet points” |
| Teams | Meeting recap, action items, catch-up summaries | “What did I miss in the 2pm meeting?” |
| OneNote | Organise notes, generate summaries, draft plans | “Create a project plan from these meeting notes” |
| Loop | Co-author with AI, brainstorm, draft collaboratively | “Help me brainstorm 10 marketing campaign ideas” |
Copilot Chat vs Microsoft 365 Copilot
This is the #1 confusion point:
| Feature | Copilot Chat (Free) | M365 Copilot ($30/mo) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $30/user/month |
| AI chat interface | ✅ | ✅ |
| Access to your enterprise data | ❌ | ✅ |
| Works inside Office apps | ❌ | ✅ |
| Meeting summaries in Teams | ❌ | ✅ |
| Email summaries in Outlook | ❌ | ✅ |
| Available in Word/Excel/PPT | ❌ (removed April 2026) | ✅ |
💡 Plain English: Copilot Chat is like talking to ChatGPT — it doesn’t know your work. M365 Copilot knows your emails, files, meetings, and calendar. That’s the $30/month difference.
Which Plans Support Copilot?
| Base Plan | Copilot Add-On? | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|
| M365 E3 ($39) | ✅ | $69/user/mo |
| M365 E5 ($60) | ✅ | $90/user/mo |
| M365 E7 ($99) | Included | $99/user/mo |
| Business Standard ($14) | ✅ | $44/user/mo |
| Business Premium ($22) | ✅ | $52/user/mo |
| Business Basic ($7) | ✅ | $37/user/mo |
| Office 365 E1/E3/E5 | ✅ | Base + $30 |
| Frontline F1/F3 | ✅ | Base + $30 |
The list is wider than people expect. Microsoft also allows the add-on on Microsoft 365 Apps, Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Planner and Project, Visio, and Clipchamp plans. If you’re on a Microsoft plan at all, it’s worth checking rather than assuming you’re excluded — the full eligibility list is on Microsoft Learn ↗.
💡 Tip: If you’re on E5 and buying Copilot ($90 total), compare with E7 at $99 — you get Copilot PLUS Agent 365 and the full Entra Suite for $9 more.
💡 Smaller org? If you have up to 300 seats on a Microsoft 365 Business plan (Basic / Standard / Premium), you can buy Microsoft 365 Copilot Business instead — the same capabilities at a lower list price (around $21/user/month, annual commitment). Organisations above 300 seats use the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on above. Copilot Business FAQ ↗
What the Seat Doesn’t Cover
The $30 seat is not always the whole bill. Cowork tasks draw on Copilot Credits, which are consumption-based and charged separately from the licence.
Agents are the part people get wrong. If a user has the $30 Microsoft 365 Copilot seat, Microsoft charges no extra fee for using connectors, agents or plugins ↗ — those are covered by the licence. Credits come into it when someone without the add-on uses Copilot Chat against shared tenant data, or when you run agents on pay-as-you-go.
Credits are roughly $0.01 each on pay-as-you-go, where you are billed only for what you actually use. Prepaid capacity packs are the other model — those replenish monthly and unused credits don’t roll over. So a seat is a fixed cost, and credits are a variable one alongside it.
If you’re building a budget, these are worth reading before you commit:
- Copilot Credits explained — what a credit is and what burns them
- Copilot messages vs Copilot Credits — two things that sound the same and aren’t
- Cowork pricing and cost management — what Cowork actually costs to run
- Copilot cost management — caps, alerts, and keeping the bill predictable
Requirements Before Deploying
- Qualifying base licence — see table above
- Entra ID authentication — users must sign in via Entra (formerly Azure AD)
- Latest apps — New Outlook, current Teams, OneDrive enabled
- Data governance review — Copilot surfaces data the user can access. Review permissions first!
- Network — No special requirements, but ensure Teams/Office connectivity
⚠️ Critical: Copilot will surface everything a user has access to. If your SharePoint permissions are overly broad, Copilot will expose data that was technically accessible but practically hidden. Audit permissions before deploying.
Deployment Strategy
Most organisations don’t deploy Copilot to everyone at once. The recommended approach:
flowchart LR
P1["Phase 1
5-10% of users
Executives + Champions
1-2 months"]
P2["Phase 2
20-30% of users
Knowledge workers
2-3 months"]
P3["Phase 3
50-100% of users
Broad rollout
Ongoing"]
P1 --> P2 --> P3
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is Copilot worth $30/user/month?
It depends on the user. For knowledge workers who live in Outlook and Teams, the meeting summaries alone can save 30+ minutes per day. For users who rarely use Office apps, it’s probably not worth it.
2. Can I try Copilot before committing?
Yes. Microsoft offers trial licences (typically 25 seats for 30 days). Ask your Microsoft rep or partner.
3. Does Copilot store my prompts?
Copilot follows your Microsoft 365 compliance and data residency policies. Prompts are not used to train the AI model. Data stays within your tenant’s geographic boundary.