# Microsoft 365 Copilot

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/microsoft_365_copilot
> Updated: 2026-06-21
> Categories: AI Tools & Products, Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, Microsoft
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), a free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Quote with attribution.

*See also: [Artificial Intelligence Applications](/wiki/artificial_intelligence_applications), [Large Language Models](/wiki/large_language_model), [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4), and [OpenAI](/wiki/openai)*

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an [artificial intelligence](/wiki/artificial_intelligence) assistant developed by [Microsoft](/wiki/microsoft) that integrates [large language models](/wiki/large_language_model) (LLMs) with the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications. In Microsoft's own words, it "combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet."[1] Announced on March 16, 2023,[1] and made generally available on November 1, 2023,[3] the product combines [OpenAI](/wiki/openai) models with organizational data accessed through the Microsoft Graph to help users draft documents, analyze data, create presentations, manage email, summarize meetings, and automate repetitive tasks.[1] Microsoft 365 Copilot operates across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Loop, and other Microsoft 365 applications.

Since its launch, the product has undergone substantial expansion. The model backbone has evolved from [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4) Turbo through [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt_4o) and [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5) to the GPT-5.4 generation.[17] New first-party agents including Researcher and Analyst were introduced in 2025,[9] and Copilot Cowork, a persistent background task engine, debuted in early 2026.[19] By Microsoft's January 2026 earnings call, the product had reached 15 million paid seats across enterprise customers, a 160% year-over-year increase, though this still represented only about 3.3% of Microsoft 365's 450 million commercial installed base.[27][32]

## History and timeline

### When was Microsoft 365 Copilot announced?

Microsoft first announced Microsoft 365 Copilot on March 16, 2023, during a special event led by CEO Satya Nadella and CVP Jared Spataro.[1] The announcement showcased how Copilot could work across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.[1] Alongside the product announcement, Microsoft introduced Business Chat (later renamed Microsoft 365 Chat), a new conversational interface that could reason across a user's calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and contacts using [natural language processing](/wiki/natural_language_processing).[1]

At launch, Nadella framed the product as a turning point in computing, stating: "Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth. With our new copilot for work, we're giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface: natural language."[1]

At the time of the announcement, Microsoft emphasized that Copilot was grounded in each organization's business data through the Microsoft Graph, ensuring that responses would be contextually relevant and personalized.[1] The system was built on [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4) from [OpenAI](/wiki/openai), and Microsoft pledged to follow its [Responsible AI](/wiki/responsible_ai) principles throughout development.[1]

### Early Access Program (May 2023)

In May 2023, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program, an invitation-only, paid preview.[2] Before this broader preview launched, Microsoft had been testing Copilot with 20 enterprise customers since March 2023, including companies like Goodyear, General Motors, The Walsh Group, and Avanade.[2] The Early Access Program rolled out to an initial wave of 600 customers worldwide, providing feedback that shaped the product's capabilities before general availability.[2]

### General availability (November 2023)

On September 21, 2023, Microsoft announced that Microsoft 365 Copilot would become generally available on November 1, 2023.[3] The GA release was priced at $30 per user per month as an add-on license for enterprise customers running Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, or Business Premium.[3] Early GA customers included Visa, General Motors, KPMG, and Lumen Technologies, all of which had participated in preview testing.[3]

### Copilot Studio launch (November 2023)

At Microsoft Ignite in November 2023, Microsoft introduced Copilot Studio, a low-code platform that allows organizations to customize Microsoft 365 Copilot and build their own [AI agents](/wiki/ai_agents).[4] Copilot Studio enabled enterprises to create standalone agents for customer and employee service scenarios, extend Copilot's functionality with custom knowledge sources, and develop autonomous agents capable of performing long-running operations on behalf of users.[4]

### Copilot Vision and Labs (October 2024)

On October 1, 2024, Microsoft introduced Copilot Labs, an early-access program exclusive to Microsoft Copilot Pro subscribers that allowed users to try features still in active development.[5] Among the first features shipped through Copilot Labs was Copilot Vision, a capability that lets the AI assistant "see" and interpret web pages while the user browses.[5] With Vision enabled, users can ask Copilot to analyze, summarize, or answer questions about on-screen content from any website they are viewing in Microsoft Edge, without having to copy and paste the text manually.[5] Privacy protections apply: content processed during a Copilot Vision session is not stored or used to train models.[5] Copilot Labs also launched Think Deeper at the same time, giving Pro subscribers access to OpenAI's o1 reasoning models for more complex queries.[5]

A broader consumer-facing update announced October 9, 2024, introduced personalized voice and vision features alongside Copilot Daily, a personalized audio briefing combining news and weather updates.

### Wave 2 update (September 2024)

On September 16, 2024, Microsoft announced "Wave 2" of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which introduced several major features across the suite:[6]

- Copilot Pages, a dynamic, persistent canvas for multiplayer AI collaboration
- Copilot with Python in Excel for advanced data analysis including machine learning workflows
- First-party Copilot agents made generally available to all licensed users
- A narrative builder for PowerPoint to help construct logically structured slide decks
- A prioritized inbox in Outlook that analyzes and summarizes email by importance
- Reasoning in Teams that processes both the meeting transcript and meeting chat simultaneously

Teams and Copilot Pages features became generally available in September 2024; Outlook's prioritized inbox entered public preview shortly afterward.[6]

### Copilot Chat and pay-per-use (January 2025)

In January 2025, Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, a free tier available at no additional cost to all Microsoft Entra ID users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription.[8] Copilot Chat, powered by [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt_4o), provided basic AI assistance across Microsoft 365 apps without requiring the full $30/user/month Copilot license.[8] Alongside this, Microsoft announced pay-as-you-go metered agents through Copilot Studio, allowing customers to pay only for the AI capacity they consumed rather than committing to a per-user monthly seat.[8]

### Researcher and Analyst agents (March-June 2025)

On March 25, 2025, Microsoft announced two first-party reasoning agents: Researcher and Analyst.[9] Both agents began rolling out to customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license in April 2025 through the Frontier early-access program.[9] They became generally available to all Copilot licensees on June 2, 2025.[10] (Details on capabilities are covered in the dedicated sections below.)

### GPT-5 integration (August 2025)

In August 2025, Microsoft rolled out [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5) across Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio.[12] GPT-5 introduced a real-time routing system that automatically selected the best model for each query, using fast models for routine questions and deeper reasoning models for complex problems.[12] TechCrunch and the Microsoft 365 Blog confirmed the rollout on August 7, 2025.[12]

### Ignite 2025 and the Frontier Firm vision (November 2025)

At Microsoft Ignite 2025, the company introduced its "Frontier Firm" vision, describing organizations that are human-led and agent-operated.[13] Key announcements included Work IQ, an intelligence layer that enables Copilot to understand users, their jobs, and their organizations at a deeper level; Office agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that can create documents directly from chat conversations; and Agent 365, a control plane for managing and securing AI agents across the organization.[13] Smart recaps for chat and channel conversations in Teams also rolled out in November 2025, with meeting recap support following in December.[13]

### GPT-5.2 and model cadence (December 2025)

GPT-5.2 became available in Microsoft 365 Copilot in December 2025, combining GPT-5.2 Thinking for complex problems and GPT-5.2 Instant for everyday writing and translation.[15] Pricing restructuring was also announced at this point: base Microsoft 365 pricing would increase effective July 1, 2026 (E3 from $36 to $39 per user per month, E5 from $57 to $60), and Microsoft offered a promotional Copilot Business bundle at $18/user/month through June 2026.[14]

### Wave 3 and Copilot Cowork (March 2026)

On March 9, 2026, Microsoft announced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot alongside Copilot Cowork, a new persistent background task engine.[18] Cowork allows users to delegate entire work assignments rather than discrete prompts: users describe a desired outcome and Cowork generates a plan, runs it in the background using Anthropic's Claude models, and surfaces checkpoints for user approval.[19] Wave 3 also introduced the Microsoft 365 E7 "Frontier Suite" tier, generally available May 1, 2026, which bundles Microsoft 365 E5, Copilot, Entra Suite, and Agent 365 at $99 per user per month (a 15% discount compared to purchasing each component separately).[22]

### GPT-5.4 and April 2026 updates

By March 2026, GPT-5.4 Thinking and GPT-5.3 Instant reached general availability within Microsoft 365 Copilot, providing improved reasoning, coding, and agentic workflow capabilities.[17] April 2026 updates added inbox and calendar awareness in Copilot Chat, video recaps for meeting summaries (a narrated highlight reel combining key takeaways with relevant clips), and an Agent Builder approval workflow enabling organizations to review and govern agents before publishing them to their internal Agent Store.[21]

## How does Microsoft 365 Copilot work?

Microsoft 365 Copilot's architecture consists of three primary components: the Microsoft 365 applications (the user interface layer), LLMs from [OpenAI](/wiki/openai) and [Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic), and the Microsoft Graph (the organizational data layer).[23]

### Processing pipeline

When a user enters a prompt in any Microsoft 365 application, the system follows a multi-step pipeline:[23]

1. Pre-processing and grounding: Copilot preprocesses the input prompt through a grounding step that enriches the query with contextual information from the user's Microsoft 365 data.
2. Microsoft Graph retrieval: The Copilot orchestrator queries the Microsoft Graph API to retrieve relevant content from SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, and other Microsoft 365 services. The search uses both keyword matching and vector search, and it respects the user's existing access permissions.
3. LLM inference: The enriched prompt, along with retrieved context, is sent to the LLM for processing. The system applies safety filters, sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview, and a system prompt before the model generates a response.
4. Post-processing: The generated response is checked for compliance with content policies and then formatted for display within the originating application.

### Language model evolution

Microsoft 365 Copilot has used a succession of models since its launch. The table below summarizes the progression:

| Period | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| November 2023 | [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4) Turbo | Launch model |
| 2024 | [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt_4o) | Faster multimodal model; rolled out based on tenant configuration |
| August 2025 | [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5) | Real-time router selecting optimal model per query |
| December 2025 | GPT-5.2 | Combines Thinking (complex) and Instant (routine) modes |
| March 2026 | GPT-5.4 Thinking / GPT-5.3 Instant | Latest GA models with improved reasoning and agentic workflow support |

Starting with the Researcher agent in 2025 and Cowork in 2026, Anthropic models have also been integrated alongside OpenAI models for specific tasks. The Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Office agents announced at Ignite 2025 use Anthropic models for document creation,[13] and Cowork is powered by Claude.[19] Microsoft describes this as a deliberate multi-model strategy, stating that "it is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models. Copilot hosts the best innovation from across the industry and chooses the right model for the job regardless of who built it."[19]

### Microsoft Graph integration

The Microsoft Graph serves as the data backbone for Copilot, providing access to organizational data including emails, calendar events, chat messages, documents in OneDrive and SharePoint, and contact information.[23] Copilot only surfaces data that the requesting user already has permission to access, following Microsoft 365's existing role-based access control model.[23] The grounding mechanism means that Copilot does not expose information across permission boundaries.[23]

Work IQ, announced at Ignite 2025, extends Graph integration with behavioral and relational context: it builds a model of each user's projects, collaborators, habits, and preferences to help Copilot anticipate next best actions and personalize responses.[13]

### Is Microsoft 365 Copilot data used to train the models?

Microsoft 365 Copilot inherits the security, compliance, and privacy policies already configured in an organization's Microsoft 365 tenant, and Microsoft states that tenant data and prompts are not used to train the underlying LLMs:[23]

- Tenant data and prompts are not used to train the underlying LLMs.
- Two-factor authentication, compliance boundaries, and existing privacy protections apply.
- Sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview are respected in both input and output.
- All Copilot interactions are logged and auditable through the Microsoft 365 compliance center.
- Work IQ security controls, introduced at Ignite 2025, include sensitivity label enforcement, compliance controls, audit logging, monitoring, and policy enforcement for both Copilot and custom agents.[13]

## How much does Microsoft 365 Copilot cost?

Microsoft 365 Copilot follows an add-on licensing model, requiring users to already hold a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription.[24] The flagship enterprise license is priced at $30 per user per month on top of an existing Microsoft 365 subscription.[3][24]

| License tier | Monthly price per user | Requirements | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Chat (free) | Included with Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Entra ID with eligible subscription | Basic AI assistance in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote; [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt_4o) model; secure web-grounded chat |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (SMB) | $21 | Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium (under 300 employees) | Full Copilot across all apps, Graph grounding, Copilot Pages, agent access |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise) | $30 | Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, or Business Premium | Full Copilot features, priority model routing, Researcher and Analyst agents |
| Copilot Studio | $200/25,000-credit pack | Tenant-wide license or pay-as-you-go | Custom agent building, multi-model support, autonomous agent workflows |
| Microsoft 365 E7 "Frontier Suite" | $99 (bundle) | New top-tier SKU (GA May 1, 2026) | Bundles M365 E5 + Copilot + Entra Suite + Agent 365; 15% discount vs. components |

A promotional Copilot Business bundle at $18/user/month (paid annually) was available December 2025 through June 2026 for organizations purchasing a minimum of 10 bundle licenses.[14] Base Microsoft 365 pricing increases effective July 1, 2026: E3 rises from $36 to $39, and E5 from $57 to $60.[14]

For context, the total monthly cost for an E5 customer with full Copilot access is approximately $90 per user per month (E5 at $60 plus Copilot at $30) as of mid-2026, before any volume discounts. The E7 bundle at $99 provides a meaningful saving once Agent 365 ($15) is factored in.[22]

## Features by application

Microsoft 365 Copilot provides tailored AI capabilities within each Microsoft 365 application. The following table summarizes the core features in each app.

| Application | Key Copilot features |
|---|---|
| Word | Draft documents from prompts or reference files; rewrite and adjust tone; summarize long documents; reference web data, emails, and meetings; Agent Mode for interactive document creation |
| Excel | Generate and explain formulas; create charts and PivotTables; Python integration for advanced analytics; Agent Mode for multi-step financial tasks; Analyst mode for structured data science workflows |
| PowerPoint | Generate presentations from prompts, Word documents, or outlines; narrative builder; speaker notes; "Explain this" for slides and tables; organization-approved image library integration |
| Outlook | Summarize email threads; draft replies with tone coaching; prioritized inbox with AI summaries; meeting preparation summaries; scheduling assistant; meeting time analytics |
| Teams | Real-time meeting transcription and summaries; action item identification; reasoning across transcript and chat simultaneously; smart recaps for channels; Workflows agent for automation |
| OneNote | Summarize notes across sections; create task lists from notes; generate content from outlines; Copilot Notebooks combining notes, files, and AI conversations |
| Loop | Generate and edit collaborative content; change tone and format; track changes; summarize contributions |
| OneDrive | Reason across stored files; compare up to five documents; summarize file contents |

### Copilot in Word

Copilot in Word allows users to generate first drafts by providing a natural language prompt or referencing existing files, emails, and meetings as source material. Users can ask Copilot to rewrite selected passages, adjust tone (formal, casual, or professional), and expand or condense text. The summarization feature distills multi-page documents into key points.

Agent Mode, introduced in November 2025, made document creation more interactive.[13] Users can describe what they need and Copilot handles research, formatting, and structuring. Agent Mode for Word became available to users without a full Copilot license starting in March 2026. The Wave 3 Word agent can create full documents from chat conversations using Anthropic models, handling the entire research-to-draft workflow autonomously.[18]

### Copilot in Excel

Copilot in Excel started with natural language formula generation and data analysis. The Python integration, announced as part of Wave 2 in September 2024, allows users to perform advanced analytics including [machine learning](/wiki/machine_learning) classification, forecasting, risk analysis, clustering, and statistical testing through natural language prompts.[6] Copilot uses popular Python libraries such as pandas, matplotlib, and scikit-learn behind the scenes.

Agent Mode in Excel, which rolled out in November 2025 on Windows through the Frontier program, can plan, execute, and validate multi-step tasks such as building financial models, reshaping tables, and creating charts.[13] The Analyst agent (covered separately below) provides deeper structured reasoning for data science workflows.

### Copilot in PowerPoint

Copilot in PowerPoint generates entire presentations from a text prompt, Word document, or outline. The narrative builder, made generally available in Wave 2, helps users construct slide decks with a logical flow and consistent structure.[6] Users can add speaker notes, generate titles and summaries, and insert captions for visuals using natural language descriptions.

The "Explain this" feature allows users to select an acronym, text box, table, or entire slide and receive a detailed explanation. Organization Images integration connects to company-approved image libraries, allowing users to insert brand-compliant visuals directly from within PowerPoint.

### Copilot in Outlook

In Outlook, Copilot summarizes lengthy email threads into concise bullet points, drafts replies with suggested tone based on conversation context, and coaches users on improving email communication. The Prioritize my inbox feature, introduced in Wave 2, analyzes inbox content by both content and context, automatically generating concise summaries of each email with explanations of why each message was flagged.[6]

Copilot also assists with meeting preparation by surfacing relevant documents, generating context summaries, and suggesting preparation steps. The scheduling assistant recommends meeting times that maximize availability across multiple attendees while respecting working hours, time zones, and preferences. Meeting time analytics let users query how much time they spend in meetings with breakdowns by category and month-over-month comparisons. As of April 2026, Copilot Chat also has calendar awareness, enabling users to query and manage their schedules conversationally.[21]

### Copilot in Teams

Copilot in [Microsoft Teams](/wiki/microsoft_teams) provides real-time meeting assistance, including live transcription, AI-generated summaries of key discussion points, identification of action items, and areas of agreement or disagreement. After a meeting, Copilot generates recap documents that participants can review and share.

With Wave 2 updates, Copilot in Teams gained the ability to reason across both the meeting transcript and the meeting chat simultaneously, providing a more complete picture of what was discussed.[6] Smart recaps for chat and channel conversations rolled out in November 2025.[13] As of April 2026, meeting summaries include a video recap option that produces a narrated highlight reel combining key takeaways with relevant recording clips.[21]

The Workflows agent, introduced alongside Copilot in Teams, helps automate repetitive tasks across Microsoft 365 apps through natural language prompts.

### Copilot in OneNote

Copilot in OneNote helps users manage and synthesize notes. It summarizes content across a section, selected text passage, or specific topics within a notebook. Task list creation extracts actionable items from meeting notes or project documentation. Content generation features can produce event plans, presentation outlines, and meeting agendas.

Copilot Notebooks, integrated into OneNote, allow users to combine notes, documents, links, and Copilot conversations into a focused workspace. These notebooks can reference OneNote pages, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and Microsoft Loop files.

## Copilot Pages

Copilot Pages, announced during the Wave 2 event in September 2024, is a dynamic, persistent canvas designed for what Microsoft calls "multiplayer AI collaboration."[6] Pages transforms AI-generated content from ephemeral chat responses into durable, editable documents that can be shared with team members.[6]

Users create a Page by turning a Copilot response in chat into a side-by-side document. This Page can then be shared through Teams chats and channels, Outlook emails and meetings, or the Pages module in the Microsoft 365 app. Shared Pages support real-time co-editing, and users with a Copilot license can interact with Copilot directly on the Page, iterating on content collaboratively as a team.

Copilot Pages is available to users with a work or school (Entra ID) account who have SharePoint or OneDrive storage, including those without a full Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

## Copilot Vision

Copilot Vision, launched through Copilot Labs in October 2024, allows the AI assistant to see and interpret web page content while a user browses in Microsoft Edge.[5] Rather than requiring the user to copy and paste text from a page, Vision streams the on-screen content to Copilot in real time, enabling the assistant to answer questions, summarize, and assist with tasks based on what the user is currently viewing.[5]

Copilot Vision entered a broader preview in December 2024.[7] Microsoft confirmed that content processed during a Copilot Vision session is not stored or used to train models.[7] The feature operates within the Copilot Labs framework, meaning it requires a Copilot Pro or Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.[5]

Think Deeper, the companion feature shipped alongside Vision in October 2024, gives Pro subscribers access to OpenAI's o1 reasoning models for complex queries within the Copilot interface.[5]

## Copilot Studio

Copilot Studio is Microsoft's cloud-based, low-code platform for building and customizing AI agents.[4] Originally announced at Microsoft Ignite in November 2023, the platform has expanded significantly through 2025 and 2026.[4]

### Core capabilities

Copilot Studio allows organizations to:

- Build standalone AI agents for customer service, employee support, and other scenarios.
- Extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with custom knowledge bases, instructions, and actions.
- Create autonomous agents that perform long-running operations such as sales development, task management, and data processing.
- Connect agents to over 1,400 external systems through [Model Context Protocol](/wiki/model_context_protocol) (MCP), Power Platform connectors, and Microsoft Graph.
- Deploy agents to new conversational channels including WhatsApp and SharePoint.

### Model flexibility

Starting in 2025, Copilot Studio expanded its model options beyond OpenAI models. Makers can choose from [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5) variants, [Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic) models, and other leading third-party models. Built-in agent evaluations help organizations test and compare agent performance across different model configurations.

### Licensing

Copilot Studio is sold as a tenant-wide license with Copilot Credit capacity packs of 25,000 credits priced at $200 per pack per month. A pay-as-you-go metered option is also available. Starting September 1, 2025, the common currency for agent usage changed from messages to Copilot Credits.

### Adoption

As of late 2025, more than 230,000 organizations were using Copilot Studio to extend Microsoft 365 Copilot or build their own agents.[13] Agent Builder, updated in April 2026, added an approval workflow: agents submitted for administrator review before publication to the organization's internal Agent Store, giving IT more governance control over agent distribution.[21]

## Researcher agent

Researcher is one of two first-party reasoning agents introduced by Microsoft in March 2025 and made generally available on June 2, 2025.[9][10] It handles multi-step research tasks that require combining internal organizational data with external web sources.[9]

### Capabilities

Researcher combines OpenAI's deep research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot's orchestration and search infrastructure.[9] When given a research task, it:

- Searches the user's Microsoft 365 data: emails, meetings, files, chats, and calendar events.
- Queries the public web for supplementary context.
- Integrates data from third-party connectors including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Confluence, and similar enterprise systems.
- Synthesizes findings into a structured, cited report.

Benchmark performance: Researcher achieves 26.6% accuracy on Humanity's Last Exam (HLEx) and an average score of 72.6% on the GAIA reasoning benchmark, both of which measure multi-step general-purpose reasoning.

### Multi-model intelligence

In March 2026, Microsoft introduced two enhancements to Researcher: Critique and Council.[16] Critique has the agent review its own output against the source material before finalizing a report.[16] Council runs an OpenAI model and an Anthropic model simultaneously, with each producing a standalone report; the agent then synthesizes the two into a final answer.[16] These additions were designed to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of confident-sounding errors. Researcher can now be powered by either OpenAI's deep reasoning models or Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.1.[16]

## Analyst agent

Analyst is the second first-party reasoning agent introduced alongside Researcher in March 2025 (GA June 2, 2025).[9][10] Where Researcher focuses on synthesizing information from disparate sources, Analyst focuses on quantitative analysis of structured data.[9]

### Capabilities

Analyst is built on OpenAI's o3-mini reasoning model and uses chain-of-thought reasoning to progress through problems iteratively.[9] Its core workflow:

1. Takes raw data from Excel sheets, OneDrive files, or connected data sources.
2. Generates a structured analysis plan.
3. Writes and executes Python code to perform the analysis (using pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, and related libraries).
4. Shows users the code in real time so they can review the logic before accepting results.
5. Produces structured output with charts, tables, and written commentary.

The Analyst agent replaced the earlier "App Skills" feature in Excel in February 2026, becoming the primary vehicle for deep-reasoning data science work within Microsoft 365. Users do not need Python knowledge; natural language instructions are sufficient to drive the full analysis pipeline.

## Copilot Wave 2

Announced September 16, 2024, Copilot Wave 2 represented the most significant product update between the November 2023 launch and the Ignite 2025 announcements.[6] The central theme was combining web, work, and pages into what Microsoft described as "a complete new design system for work."[6]

Key Wave 2 deliverables and their availability dates:

| Feature | Status (at announcement) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Pages | GA September 2024 | Persistent, shareable AI canvas |
| Python in Excel | GA September 2024 | Advanced analytics via natural language |
| Copilot agents (first-party) | GA September 2024 | Available to all licensed users |
| Narrative builder in PowerPoint | GA September 2024 | Structured slide deck generation |
| Teams transcript + chat reasoning | GA September 2024 | Simultaneous analysis of both sources |
| Prioritize my inbox in Outlook | Public preview late 2024 | AI-ranked inbox with summaries |
| Web reference in Word | GA late September 2024 | Reference web and work data in documents |

## Copilot Wave 3

Announced March 9, 2026, Wave 3 centered on agentic capabilities and introduced Copilot Cowork as the headline feature.[18] The framing shifted from "AI-powered features inside apps" to "Copilot as a coworker that executes work on your behalf."[18] Jared Spataro, Microsoft's chief marketing officer for AI at Work, characterized the moment as a turning point, saying: "We really believe right now is an inflection point. The inflection point for us is Copilot taking on these agentic capabilities and going from assistance to real doing."[19]

| Feature | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Cowork | Frontier preview March 2026; GA May 1, 2026 | Persistent background task execution; uses Anthropic Claude |
| Agent 365 | GA May 1, 2026 | AI agent identity and governance control plane |
| Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite | GA May 1, 2026 | New top-tier SKU at $99/user/month |
| Multi-model intelligence in Researcher | GA March 2026 | Critique and Council features; Anthropic + OpenAI simultaneously |
| Office agents for Word, Excel, PowerPoint | GA March 2026 | Create documents from chat using Anthropic models |
| GPT-5.4 Thinking / GPT-5.3 Instant | GA March 2026 | Latest model upgrade |

### Copilot Cowork

Cowork is the defining Wave 3 capability. Users describe a desired outcome, such as preparing a competitive analysis or synthesizing customer feedback into a strategy brief, and Cowork generates a step-by-step execution plan.[19] The plan runs in the background, grounded in the user's emails, meetings, files, chats, and data from connected sources.[19] Users receive checkpoints at defined intervals and can approve, modify, or pause execution at any step.[19]

Cowork is built on [Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic)'s Claude models.[19] Microsoft worked directly with Anthropic to integrate Claude into the Cowork system.[19] The feature began as a research preview with a limited set of customers in March 2026 and became generally available through the E7 Frontier Suite tier on May 1, 2026.[20] The integration was underpinned by a broader Microsoft-Anthropic partnership, including a multibillion-dollar Azure compute commitment, that reflects Microsoft's intent to offer multiple model providers within a single Copilot surface.[19]

## How many people use Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Microsoft 365 Copilot's adoption has grown steadily since its November 2023 launch, though penetration of the overall Microsoft 365 installed base remains limited relative to the total user count.

### Seat and usage metrics

- 15 million paid seats as of Microsoft's January 2026 earnings call, representing approximately 3.3% of the 450 million Microsoft 365 commercial installed base.[27][32]
- 160% year-over-year growth in paid seats as of Q2 FY2026.[27][32]
- Approximately 20 million weekly active users as of mid-2025 (including free-tier Copilot Chat users).[27]
- A 35.8% workplace conversion rate: roughly 36% of employees with Copilot access use the tool actively.[27]
- 70% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot in at least one department as of late 2024, though most remain in pilot or phased rollout rather than enterprise-wide deployment.[31]
- Large enterprises account for more than 60% of total Copilot licenses, driven by bulk contracts.[27]
- More than 230,000 organizations use Copilot Studio to extend Copilot or build custom agents.[13]

### Notable enterprise customers

Enterprise customers that have publicly discussed their Microsoft 365 Copilot deployments include Visa, General Motors, KPMG, Lumen Technologies, Goodyear, The Walsh Group, and Avanade. These organizations participated in early preview and pilot programs.

### Deployment challenges

Despite growing seat counts, many enterprises have been slower to reach full workforce deployment than initially anticipated. Forrester Research reports that most enterprises remain in pilot mode and cite data readiness and ROI measurement as the primary barriers.[26] Surveys indicate 72% of respondents report employees struggle to integrate Copilot into their daily routines, and 57% experienced user engagement decline shortly after implementation.[27] Security concerns (data governance, oversharing risk) delay full rollout for approximately 35% of organizations.[26]

## How does Microsoft 365 Copilot compare to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Glean?

### Comparison table

The following table compares Microsoft 365 Copilot against its three main enterprise AI competitors: [ChatGPT](/wiki/chatgpt) Enterprise from OpenAI, Gemini for Google Workspace, and [Glean (company)](/wiki/glean).

| Dimension | Microsoft 365 Copilot | ChatGPT Enterprise | Google Workspace Gemini | [Glean](/wiki/glean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (approx.) | $30/user/month add-on (+ M365 base) | Custom pricing; typically $25-$60/user/month | Bundled into Workspace plans (no add-on) | Custom pricing |
| Model backbone | GPT-5.x (OpenAI) + Anthropic Claude (selected tasks) | GPT-5.2 (OpenAI) | Gemini 3 (Google) | Model-agnostic; supports 15+ LLMs |
| Suite integration depth | Deep across M365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams) | Limited app integration; works via browser/API | Deep across Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Gmail, Meet) | Ecosystem-agnostic; 100+ connectors |
| Ecosystem requirement | Microsoft 365 required | None; sits above any stack | Google Workspace required | None |
| Agent building | Copilot Studio (low-code; Power Platform-oriented) | Custom GPTs; API-based integrations | Gemini Gems | Agentic Engine 2 (semantic search-optimized) |
| Context window (end-user) | ~400,000 tokens | Up to 1 million tokens | Up to 1 million tokens | Varies by LLM chosen |
| Data governance | Microsoft Purview integration; existing M365 RBAC | Enterprise admin controls; SAML SSO; SCIM | Google Workspace DLP and Vault | Glean Protect Plus (paid SKU) |
| Primary strength | Breadth of Office app integration; Graph grounding | Flexibility; model quality; broad integrations | Price-performance for Google shops | Cross-app semantic search; model neutrality |
| Primary weakness | Cost adds up on E5; relatively low active usage rate | No native productivity app integration | Weaker in Sheets and Slides vs. Copilot in Excel/PowerPoint | Custom pricing; narrower brand recognition than Microsoft/Google |

### Google Workspace Gemini

Google rebranded Duet AI as Gemini for Google Workspace in February 2024. A key competitive differentiator is pricing: since January 2025, Gemini AI features have been bundled into all Google Workspace Business and Enterprise plans at no extra charge.[25] This covers the Gemini side panel assistant, "Help me write" in Gmail and Docs, meeting notes in Google Meet, and data analysis in Sheets. By contrast, Microsoft's full Copilot experience requires a $30/user/month add-on on top of existing Microsoft 365 subscription costs.[25]

In integration depth, Copilot is considered more mature across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, while Gemini's integration is strongest in Google Docs and Gmail, with more limited feature parity in Sheets and Slides as of early 2026.[25] Google announced Gemini Enterprise as a "unified platform where employees interact with Gemini to access any internal tool or data" on October 9, 2025, signaling an intent to match Copilot's breadth.[25]

Gemini's API offers a context window of up to 2 million tokens for developers and 1 million for end users; Copilot's LLM capacity sits at roughly 400,000 tokens.

A Recon Analytics survey of 150,000 enterprise users found that when workers have access to all three major platforms (Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT), 70% select ChatGPT as their primary tool, 18% choose Gemini, and 8% prefer Copilot.[30] This suggests that deep suite integration alone does not ensure high engagement among users who have unconstrained choice.

### ChatGPT Enterprise

[ChatGPT](/wiki/chatgpt) Enterprise, operated by OpenAI, provides unlimited faster access to OpenAI's latest models with enterprise-grade privacy (OpenAI does not train on customer data).[30] It supports SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, role-based access control, configurable data retention, and regional data residency.[30] It connects to third-party platforms including Salesforce, Google Drive, Dropbox, and HubSpot.[30]

ChatGPT Enterprise does not include native integrations with Office applications; it operates primarily through a browser-based chat interface and an API.[30] Its strength is model quality and flexibility for organizations that use a multi-stack environment rather than a single productivity suite. Pricing is negotiated and typically falls between $25 and $60 per user per month.[30]

### Glean

[Glean (company)](/wiki/glean) approaches enterprise AI from the perspective of workplace search rather than productivity suite integration. Its platform centers on a permissions-aware knowledge graph (the Enterprise Graph) that indexes content, people, activities, and relationships across 100 or more enterprise applications.[29] The Enterprise Graph combines a company-wide knowledge graph with a personal graph for each employee, capturing projects, collaborators, and work style to generate personalized search results.[29]

Glean's third-generation AI Assistant incorporates deeper behavioral personalization: writing style inference, task continuity across connected data sources, and adaptive planning through Agentic Engine 2.[29] Agentic Engine 2 introduces parallel sub-agent orchestration for complex multi-step workflows.[29]

Key competitive differentiators for Glean versus Microsoft 365 Copilot:

- Ecosystem-agnostic: works across any combination of enterprise apps, not just Microsoft 365.
- Model-neutral: supports more than 15 LLMs, compared to Copilot's primary reliance on OpenAI models.
- Semantic search depth: Glean's knowledge graph is specifically optimized for retrieval accuracy, which early adopters report surpasses Copilot's Microsoft Graph-based retrieval for queries spanning many different systems.

Glean's revenue reached $200 million ARR by mid-2025 (approximately double its fiscal year ending January 2025 figure), and a June 2025 Series F valued the company at $7.2 billion.[28]

The core use-case boundary: Glean helps users find and understand information across their company; Copilot helps users create and process information within Microsoft apps. Organizations with a heavy Microsoft 365 footprint tend to find more value in Copilot. Organizations with complex multi-vendor environments often find Glean's cross-app retrieval accuracy more useful.

## Criticism and concerns

### ROI and business value

One of the most persistent criticisms of Microsoft 365 Copilot is the difficulty of measuring return on investment. At $30 per user per month on top of existing Microsoft 365 subscription costs, the total per-seat expense for enterprise customers is significant. Multiple surveys and analyst reports have found that measurable ROI remains elusive for many organizations, with half of technology leaders surveyed uncertain about the tool's worth after one year of use.[26]

Forrester notes that most enterprises remain in pilot mode and are 12 to 18 months away from scaled deployment, citing data readiness and ROI measurement as the primary barriers.[26] The 35.8% conversion rate (active usage among those with access) indicates a majority of licensed users are not engaging regularly.[27]

### Accuracy and reliability

Enterprise customers have reported accuracy problems when Copilot retrieves partial, stale, or restricted documents and synthesizes responses without clear provenance indicators. The outputs can sound authoritative while lacking verifiable sources, creating a risk of users acting on incorrect information. Sluggish response times under high organizational load have also been cited as a factor reducing Copilot's appeal in fast-paced environments.

### Data security and oversharing

A significant concern for enterprise security teams is the risk of Copilot exposing sensitive information through oversharing. Because Copilot surfaces data based on existing access permissions, organizations with poorly configured permission structures may inadvertently expose confidential documents through Copilot queries.[26] Research indicates that 67% of enterprise security teams express concerns about AI tools exposing sensitive information, and over 15% of business-critical files may be at risk from oversharing.[27] Governance remains a primary adoption blocker, with organizations calling for stronger controls and clearer data boundaries.[26]

### Integration friction and change management

Some organizations report that integrating Copilot into existing workflows requires more change management effort than anticipated. The 72% of respondents reporting that employees struggle to incorporate Copilot into daily routines, combined with the 57% who observed engagement decline after initial implementation, suggest that the tool's adoption curve is steeper than marketing materials imply.[27] This challenge is distinct from technical readiness: the organizational habits and workflows that make Copilot useful require deliberate redesign rather than drop-in deployment.

### Cost structure

The pricing model draws specific criticism from organizations evaluating Gemini for Google Workspace, which bundles AI features into existing plan costs.[25] For a Microsoft 365 E5 customer, adding Copilot brings the total seat cost to approximately $90/user/month. The Recon Analytics survey result (8% primary-tool selection when users have access to all three platforms) suggests that the premium pricing may not be delivering differentiated value in all contexts.[30]

## Responsible AI development

Microsoft states that Microsoft 365 Copilot is developed in accordance with its AI principles and Responsible AI Standard. A multidisciplinary team of researchers, engineers, and policy experts reviews AI systems for potential harms. Microsoft encourages users to review, fact-check, and adjust AI-generated content based on their own subject-matter expertise.

Work IQ security controls, introduced at Ignite 2025, include sensitivity label enforcement, compliance controls, audit logging, monitoring, and policy enforcement for both Copilot and custom agents built through Copilot Studio.[13] These controls are designed to ensure that Copilot respects existing organizational governance policies.

The Agent Builder approval workflow, released in April 2026, requires agents to pass administrator review before publication to the organization's Agent Store.[21] This change reflects broader enterprise pressure for human-in-the-loop governance over autonomous agent deployments.

## Reception

Initial enterprise reception was mixed. The product launched with significant enthusiasm from organizations already invested in Microsoft 365, but early reviews noted accuracy gaps, sluggish response times, and a learning curve that reduced immediate productivity gains. Analysts at Gartner and Forrester both flagged the ROI measurement problem as a structural challenge.[26]

By 2025, reception had improved. The Wave 2 update, the Researcher and Analyst agents, and the January 2025 introduction of the free Copilot Chat tier all addressed specific criticisms.[8] The free tier in particular lowered the adoption barrier substantially, and the addition of Researcher and Analyst gave power users workflows that were harder to dismiss.

The comparison with [Glean (company)](/wiki/glean) and [ChatGPT](/wiki/chatgpt) Enterprise remains an active evaluation point for enterprise buyers. Copilot's advantage is its native depth within Microsoft 365 apps and its tight governance integration with Microsoft Purview. Its disadvantage is that the value is largely bounded by the Microsoft ecosystem: organizations operating across Google, Slack, Salesforce, and other platforms find Copilot's cross-platform retrieval less capable than competitors built for heterogeneous environments.

## See also

- [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4)
- [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt_4o)
- [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5)
- [OpenAI](/wiki/openai)
- [Microsoft](/wiki/microsoft)
- [Microsoft Copilot](/wiki/microsoft_copilot)
- [Large Language Models](/wiki/large_language_model)
- [Gemini](/wiki/gemini)
- [GitHub Copilot](/wiki/github_copilot)
- [Copilot Studio](/wiki/copilot_studio)
- [Glean (company)](/wiki/glean)
- [ChatGPT](/wiki/chatgpt)
- [Natural Language Processing](/wiki/natural_language_processing)
- [Prompt Engineering](/wiki/prompt_engineering)

## References

1. Microsoft. "Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot: your copilot for work." The Official Microsoft Blog, March 16, 2023. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/
2. Microsoft. "Introducing the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program and new capabilities in Copilot." Microsoft 365 Blog, May 9, 2023. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/05/09/introducing-the-microsoft-365-copilot-early-access-program-and-new-capabilities-in-copilot/
3. Microsoft. "Announcing Copilot for Microsoft 365 general availability and Microsoft 365 Chat." Microsoft 365 Blog, September 21, 2023. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/09/21/announcing-microsoft-365-copilot-general-availability-and-microsoft-365-chat/
4. Microsoft. "Introducing Microsoft Copilot Studio and new features in Copilot for Microsoft 365." Microsoft 365 Blog, November 15, 2023. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/11/15/introducing-microsoft-copilot-studio-and-new-features-in-copilot-for-microsoft-365/
5. Microsoft. "Introducing Copilot Labs and Copilot Vision." Microsoft Copilot Blog, October 1, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/blog/2024/10/01/introducing-copilot-labs-and-copilot-vision/
6. Microsoft. "Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Pages, Python in Excel, and agents." Microsoft 365 Blog, September 16, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2024/09/16/microsoft-365-copilot-wave-2-pages-python-in-excel-and-agents/
7. Microsoft. "Copilot Vision now in preview: a new way to browse." Microsoft Copilot Blog, December 5, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/blog/2024/12/05/copilot-vision-now-in-preview-a-new-way-to-browse/
8. Microsoft. "Copilot for all: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat." Microsoft 365 Blog, January 15, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/01/15/copilot-for-all-introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-chat/
9. Microsoft. "Introducing Researcher and Analyst in Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft 365 Blog, March 25, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/03/25/introducing-researcher-and-analyst-in-microsoft-365-copilot/
10. Microsoft. "Researcher and Analyst are now generally available in Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft 365 Blog, June 2, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/06/02/researcher-and-analyst-are-now-generally-available-in-microsoft-365-copilot/
11. TechCrunch. "Microsoft adds AI-powered deep research tools to Copilot." March 25, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/25/microsoft-adds-ai-powered-deep-research-tools-to-copilot/
12. Microsoft. "Available today: GPT-5 in Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft 365 Blog, August 7, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/08/07/available-today-gpt-5-in-microsoft-365-copilot/
13. Microsoft. "Microsoft Ignite 2025: Copilot and agents built to power the Frontier Firm." Microsoft 365 Blog, November 18, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-ignite-2025-copilot-and-agents-built-to-power-the-frontier-firm/
14. Microsoft. "Advancing Microsoft 365: New capabilities and pricing update." Microsoft 365 Blog, December 4, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/12/04/advancing-microsoft-365-new-capabilities-and-pricing-update/
15. Microsoft. "Available today: GPT-5.2 in Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft 365 Blog, December 11, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/12/11/available-today-gpt-5-2-in-microsoft-365-copilot/
16. Microsoft. "Introducing multi-model intelligence in Researcher." Microsoft Community Hub, March 2026. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/introducing-multi-model-intelligence-in-researcher/4506011
17. Microsoft. "Available today: GPT-5.4 Thinking in Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft Community Hub, March 2026. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/available-today-gpt-5-4-thinking-in-microsoft-365-copilot/4499746
18. Microsoft. "Powering Frontier Transformation with Copilot and agents." Microsoft 365 Blog, March 9, 2026. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/powering-frontier-transformation-with-copilot-and-agents/
19. Microsoft. "Copilot Cowork: A new way of getting work done." Microsoft 365 Blog, March 9, 2026. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/copilot-cowork-a-new-way-of-getting-work-done/
20. Microsoft. "Copilot Cowork: Now available in Frontier." Microsoft 365 Blog, March 30, 2026. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/30/copilot-cowork-now-available-in-frontier/
21. Microsoft. "What's New in Microsoft 365 Copilot - April 2026." Microsoft Community Hub, April 2026. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/what%E2%80%99s-new-in-microsoft-365-copilot--april-2026/4510935
22. CNBC. "Microsoft adds higher-priced Office tier with Copilot as it tries to juice sales with AI." March 9, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/microsoft-office-365-e7-copilot-ai.html
23. Microsoft. "Microsoft 365 Copilot architecture and how it works." Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-architecture
24. Microsoft. "Microsoft 365 Copilot Plans and Pricing." https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing
25. Microsoft. "Compare Copilot vs. Gemini Enterprise." https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/copilot-vs-gemini-enterprise
26. Computerworld. "Microsoft 365 Copilot rollouts slowed by data security, ROI concerns." https://www.computerworld.com/article/3542000/microsoft-365-copilot-rollouts-slowed-by-data-security-roi-concerns.html
27. Stackmatix. "Microsoft Copilot Adoption Statistics and Trends (2026)." https://www.stackmatix.com/blog/copilot-market-adoption-trends
28. Futurum Group. "Glean Doubles ARR to $200M. Can Its Knowledge Graph Beat Copilot?" https://futurumgroup.com/insights/glean-doubles-arr-to-200m-can-its-knowledge-graph-beat-copilot/
29. Glean. "Glean Introduces Third-Generation AI Assistant, New Enterprise Graph." Business Wire, September 25, 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250925784461/en/Glean-Introduces-Third-Generation-AI-Assistant-New-Enterprise-Graph-to-Enable-the-Superintelligent-Enterprise
30. IntuitionLabs. "Claude vs ChatGPT vs Copilot vs Gemini: 2026 Enterprise Guide." https://intuitionlabs.ai/articles/claude-vs-chatgpt-vs-copilot-vs-gemini-enterprise-comparison
31. Microsoft. "Ignite 2024: Why nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot." Microsoft News, November 20, 2024. https://news.microsoft.com/en-hk/2024/11/20/ignite-2024-why-nearly-70-of-the-fortune-500-now-use-microsoft-365-copilot/
32. Office365itpros. "Microsoft FY26 Q2 Results: 450 Million Microsoft 365 Seats." January 30, 2026. https://office365itpros.com/2026/01/30/microsoft-fy26-q2-results/