Learning how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot – the tech giant’s leading generative AI tool – the right way will be crucial for many organizations in the years ahead. There’s more to getting the most out of this powerful AI assistant than enabling access for yourself or your team.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a resource capable of improving the productivity and performance of your team. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index found that 70% of people using Copilot tools believe they make them more productive. Another 68% say the tool improves the quality of their work.
However, like any resource, it demands the right implementation, configuration, and strategy for use. Here’s your ultimate guide to unlocking the total value of Copilot in Microsoft 365.
What is Microsoft 365 Copilot? A Quick Overview
It’s worth getting a few things straight before we explain how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot effectively. Microsoft 365 Copilot and “Microsoft Copilot” aren’t the same thing. The tech giant has a broad lineup of unique “Copilot” solutions for different use cases.
Versions include Microsoft Copilot (previously Bing Chat/Bing Chat Enterprise), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, Copilot for Sales, and Copilot for Service.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 is the solution that adds generative AI capabilities to your Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, Outlook, and Teams. It has the same foundational capabilities as the broader Copilot solution, such as web grounding and commercial data protection.
However, it also inherits your Microsoft 365 security, identity, privacy, and compliance policies and supports users within the flow of work on specific tools.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 delivers real-time intelligent assistance to team members, using a combination of LLMs, pre-trained models, and content in Microsoft Graph. It’s available as an “add-on” for your existing Microsoft 365 license for $30 per user per month. It includes the recently announced “Microsoft Copilot Studio” for low-code AI customization.
How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot: Getting Started
To use Microsoft 365 Copilot, you’ll need a $30 per user per month license for the add-on and an accompanying Microsoft 365 license. You likely already have the necessary licenses if you use Microsoft 365 E3, E5, or Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise.
You can assign licenses to users as an admin through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center in “Billing > Licenses.” Alternatively, you can assign licenses using the Azure Admin Center or PowerShell.
Other prerequisites include:
- Microsoft Entra ID: All users need a Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) account. You can manage these via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
- OneDrive accounts: Several features for Microsoft 365 Copilot require users to have their OneDrive account (such as features for sharing and saving files).
- Outlook Accounts: Microsoft 365 Copilot works alongside the new Outlook experience for Windows and Mac. Users will need to switch to the new Outlook service in preview.
- Microsoft Teams: To use Copilot with Teams, users will need a desktop or web version of the app. Both the current and “new” versions of Teams are supported.
- Microsoft Loop: To use Copilot features in Loop, you’ll need to enable the Loop service for your tenant. Microsoft provides instructions on how to do this here.
- Microsoft Whiteboard: For Copilot features in Whiteboard, you’ll need to enable the Whiteboard feature for your tenant.
Using Microsoft 365 Copilot in Each Microsoft App
All Copilot functionality spread across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem uses the same technology. However, the generative AI assistant also adapts to the app’s functionality to deliver specific solutions for certain use cases.
Here’s how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot in each productivity app.
How to Use Copilot in Word
In Word, Microsoft 365 Copilot transforms your content efficiently and creatively, allowing users to summarize, create, refine, and enhance documents. Use the app to upgrade your documents and visualize and transform text into a table.
You can also draft new documents by referencing up to 3 existing documents to help create consistency between connected pieces. Users can also access Copilot in Word to reveal changes and revisions made to collaborative documents by team members.
Using Copilot in PowerPoint
With PowerPoint, teams can use Copilot to turn ideas into presentations. The app can transform written documents into slide decks with speaker notes or create brand-new presentations from a prompt. Plus, you can condense lengthy presentations with a click and use natural language commands to reformat text, layouts, animations, and more.
PowerPoint’s Copilot also integrates with DALL-E, the OpenAI image generator, to help create custom images. Microsoft is introducing a new asset and image library that will allow users to bring corporate brand assets into presentations, too.
How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel
In Excel, Copilot works alongside users to analyze and understand data. You can ask the app questions about your data sets, and it will reveal correlations, suggest new formulas, and propose “what-if” scenarios to explore. You can also generate new formulas based on your questions to help you explore your data without modifying it.
The recently announced “Python in Excel” will also integrate with Copilot, allowing users to perform sophisticated mathematical analysis with one of the world’s most powerful programming languages.
Using Copilot in Outlook
Outlook’s Copilot helps users stay on top of inbox conversations and communicate with message suggestions in seconds. The app can summarize email threads, jump to the source of summarized content, and show suggested action items, replies, and follow-ups.
In 2024, Outlook users can create email thread summaries, draft agendas, create engaging meeting titles, and suggest attendees for conversations. Plus, it can offer times when everyone can meet based on your calendar and help you prepare for upcoming conversations. The system will comb through related emails, pertinent documents, and invitation details for you.
How to Use Copilot in Teams
Copilot for Teams is one of the most feature-rich versions of Microsoft’s generative AI app. The assistant can recap and summarize conversations, organize key discussion points and actions, identify individuals for follow-ups, and create meeting agendas.
From 2024, you’ll be able to learn how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to take collaborative notes during meetings and capture specific content with requests like “Quote Rob.” Users can enable Copilot without transcription to eliminate unnecessary records. Plus, you can use Copilot in Teams channels to synthesize long posts, write messages in various tones, and more.
You can also use Intelligent Recap with Copilot in Teams to catch up on missed meetings with summaries of decisions, action items, and critical points.
How to use Microsoft 365 Copilot in Whiteboard
In Whiteboard, Copilot helps users start and improve the ideation process. It can generate, categorize, and summarize ideas for you. Plus, Copilot will automatically capture and visualize spoken discussion points when using Whiteboard in a Teams meeting. It can also organize those points for you in a format that makes sense based on the meeting.
Using Copilot in Microsoft Loop
Copilot in Loop, Microsoft’s new collaboration app, helps teams to work together more effectively. Loop gives users a flexible canvas for collaboration between generative AI and people. Users can create and share prompts for Copilot together, organize team projects, summarize content, and generate recaps of meetings.
Plus, Copilot in Loop comes with intelligent page creation, suggesting pages from past workflows and adapting them to your current project.
How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot in OneNote
With OneNote, users can access Copilot to help them plan, organize, and manage their content. The assistant can draw action information from notes and respond to individuals’ questions about their notes.
For instance, you can ask Copilot to generate content to make your writing clearer and easier to follow or summarize your existing notes.
Using Microsoft 365 Chat and Intelligent Search
The Microsoft 365 Chat feature combines the power of LLMs with the internet and draws insights from your work and other apps to boost productivity. It can help you draft content, catch up on whatever you’ve missed, and get answers to questions.
Intelligent Search, on the other hand, unlocks the ability to search your complete set of Dataverse apps, such as Dynamics 365 Sales, with natural language prompts.
Power Platform and Graph Connectors
With Microsoft 365 Power Platform, companies can use Copilot to access real-time data from a collection of critical applications. There’s also the option to connect external data sources to Microsoft Graph. You can add up to 500 connected items for each Copilot license, supporting intelligent search and indexing processes.
How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot: Tips for Success
Now you know how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot and its features on a basic level, it’s time to optimize your workflows. Based on Microsoft’s insights and our experience with the Copilot apps, here are some of our top tips for success.
1. Learn How to Prompt the Copilot Effectively
Prompts are the key to a successful experience with any large language model. If you haven’t used one of these tools before, we recommend checking out the list of suggested prompts shared by Microsoft here. You can also find them in the Microsoft Copilot Lab.
When talking to Copilot, start with the output you want in mind. Decide exactly what you want to accomplish to give the app more direction. It’s also essential to:
- Set the stage: Give Copilot as many relevant details and as much context as possible. If you’re creating an agenda for a meeting, explain what it’s about, what you want to accomplish, who will be involved, and what the topics will be.
- Define parameters: Specify which information sources and data Copilot should use to give you the best results. Tag specific files or determine which date ranges to focus on. You can also ask Copilot how it arrived at a particular response.
- Tell Copilot how to talk to you: Outline how the app should respond, such as “Explain this as if I was a beginner-level coder.”
- Iterate and experiment: Have an actual conversation with the bot. Ask it to adjust things, edit its response, or explain a concept in more detail. Provide additional guidance to ensure you’re getting the proper outcomes.
2. Turbocharge Adoption with the Right Strategy
The hype around Copilots and similar tools means many of your team members will likely be excited to use this new technology. However, not everyone in your team will feel comfortable interacting with AI. That’s why explaining the benefits, training your teams, and sharing the correct information is essential.
Consider the different employees in your workforce and which objections and concerns they might have related to Copilot. For instance, if your executive board is concerned about security, remind them that Copilot doesn’t use customer data to train its tools.
If your employees are concerned about “being replaced by bots,” drive adoption by telling them how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve and enhance their workflows. Keep in mind, Microsoft’s Work Index found:
- 70% of employees want to use AI to plan their day.
- 73% want it to make them more creative at work.
- 76% are looking for help with technical admin tasks.
- 79% want assistance with analytical work.
- 80% are hoping to summarize meetings and action items.
- 86% want help finding information and answers.
3. Customize the Copilot Experience
Learning how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot effectively also means infusing it with the correct information. Remember, any AI is only as smart as its sources. Copilot takes information from Microsoft’s LLMs and the Microsoft Graph.
Configuring your content connected to the Microsoft Graph through tools like Search, Viva Topics, and SharePoint will help you to define the most authoritative content for Copilot to use.
You can also take your customization of Microsoft 365 Copilot to the next level with Copilot Studio. This low-code tool allows companies to adapt their Copilot to their specific enterprise use cases and scenarios. You can also build, test, and publish custom GPTs.
Copilot Studio comes included in your Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription and should help to increase the relevancy of the responses your AI apps deliver.
4. Keep Copilot Secure
Microsoft follows “Responsible AI” guidelines with Microsoft 365 Copilot. This means it ensures you maintain complete control over your data. Plus, no bots or LLMs are trained using personal business information. However, it’s still up to you to implement the right level of security.
Train your team members on using Microsoft 365 securely, ensuring they’re not over-sharing sensitive content from the business where possible. Encourage your administrators to take advantage of the security tools in the Microsoft ecosystem.
For instance, admins can use Purview to apply sensitivity labels and retention policies to different types of content. You can create your own retention and archiving policies on Teams and the web versions of your Microsoft apps. Plus, you can set up access controls, multi-factor authentication, and other policies for every Microsoft 365 user.
5. Remember the Limitations of Copilot
The results should be incredible once you learn how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot effectively. Microsoft says Copilot helps to accelerate workflows, improve creativity, and even enhance onboarding. However, it’s worth remembering that it’s not foolproof. The app has its limitations.
Like any generative AI tool, Copilot doesn’t always know the difference between “good” and “bad” responses. It can only deliver information based on the data it has. This means if some of the documents in your Microsoft ecosystem contain inaccurate information, Copilot may deliver incorrect responses, too.
This means it’s essential to think carefully about what data you ask Copilot to use when asking questions. It’s also crucial to ensure you review responses carefully and question their accuracy. Don’t assume every response you get from Copilot will be perfect.
How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot – The Right Way
Now that the solution is generally available, countless companies worldwide will learn how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to empower and transform their teams. Microsoft’s research and numerous reviews and case studies from companies demonstrate how powerful this tool can be.
Copilot can take your experiences with crucial apps, from Word to Teams, to the next level. It can reduce the time employees spend on monotonous tasks that drain their energy and reinvigorate their creative spirit.
But, like any tool, Copilot can only be effective if used correctly. Ensure your team members understand how to use Copilot in each of the Microsoft 365 apps mentioned above. Stay updated with each app’s latest changes and evolutions, and follow our top tips to protect, empower, and support your workforce.
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