Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI Assistant in Word, Outlook and Teams

Why we recommend it

If your organisation already runs on Microsoft 365, your company knowledge sits where Copilot searches: SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Teams. That saves you summaries, drafts and searches across scattered documents. The main limitation: Copilot is only as good as your permissions and your filing, and the realistic time saving is smaller than the marketing suggests.

What it does

Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook drafts content, summarises documents and analyses spreadsheets.
Copilot in Teams summarises meetings from the transcript and lists open tasks (only in plans with Teams).
Work chat searches emails, chats, meetings and SharePoint files and answers with source references.
Pre-built and custom agents, including via Copilot Studio, automate recurring tasks.
Copilot Analytics shows admins usage and adoption across the organisation.

A workflow to copy

WorkflowAI stepPersonSystem and dataCheck

01StartCustomer meeting in Teams with transcription, covered by a works agreement
02AICopilot summarises requirements, open questions and dates from the transcript
03AICopilot drafts a quote in Word from the template and price list in SharePoint
04PersonSales checks quantities, prices and terms and corrects the draft
05CheckDiscount above 10 per cent?
yes: Approval by the head of sales
06SystemQuote goes to the customer as a PDF via Outlook, follow-up set in the calendar
07ResultQuote sent and filed in the customer folder

Prices

Copilot Chat: no extra costP in eligible Microsoft 365 plans; web chat without access to your company data in the apps
Copilot Business (add-on, up to 300 people): $18 per user per monthP billed annually (promotion, regularly $21P); billed monthly $25.20 per user per monthP
Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot: $23.50 per user per monthP billed annually
Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot: $32 per user per monthP billed annually
Microsoft 365 Copilot (Enterprise, add-on): $30 per user per monthP billed annually; billed monthly $31.50P
Copilot Credits for Cowork, APIs and agents: usage-based, price per credit not stated

US list prices excluding tax; Copilot Business always requires an annual commitment, even with monthly billing, needs a Microsoft 365 business plan as its base, and Microsoft gives no end date for the promotion.

Data protection and law

Prompts, responses and Graph data are not used to train foundation models.H
Copilot is classed as an EU Data Boundary service and has been covered by the data residency commitments in the Product Terms since 1 March 2024.H
Flex routing: at peak load, processing may run in the US, Canada or Australia; on by default for new tenants since 25 March 2026, can be switched off in the admin centre (Copilot > Settings).H
The contractual basis is the Microsoft Product Terms and the Data Protection Addendum (DPA under Art. 28 GDPR).R
Certifications according to Microsoft: ISO 27001, ISO 27018, ISO 42001; GDPR compliance committed.H
Copilot Analytics and Teams transcripts can make behaviour and performance measurable: in Germany the works council has co-determination rights under Section 87(1) No. 6 BetrVG.R

Limits

Copilot sees everything a person is allowed to see: overly broad SharePoint permissions become visible. You need to tidy up before the rollout.
Costs are hard to plan: on top of the licence come usage-based credits for agents and Cowork.
EU processing is not guaranteed automatically: you have to switch off flex routing actively, and features using Anthropic models sit outside the EU Data Boundary.

Alternatives

Google Gemini for Workspace, ChatGPT Business, Claude for Work

Microsoft 365 Copilot