6.3 Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat on Web and Mobile

6.3 Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat on Web and Mobile

Quick Answer: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (Microsoft Learn also titles it Microsoft Copilot Chat) is included with eligible Microsoft 365. On the web and in the Copilot, Outlook, Teams, and Edge experiences it is a secure, primarily web-grounded chat. Work-based chat that searches the user's Microsoft 365 corpus needs a Copilot license. Mobile is a documented surface, not a different product.

Microsoft's skill bullet is: understand capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat web and mobile experiences. AB-731 candidates describe what the chat can do for a team, where people open it, and what remains off-limits without a license. They do not memorize pixel-level chrome. If a vendor screenshot shows a button Microsoft's current Learn page does not mention, do not teach the button.

What Copilot Chat is

Microsoft's Copilot Chat overview calls it a secure AI chat for eligible Microsoft 365 users. It combines LLMs, enterprise-grade protections, and grounding from web data and, in specific contexts, organizational data. It is the entry point into the Copilot family for most knowledge workers.

Using Copilot Chat does not require a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Eligibility requires an eligible Microsoft 365 (or listed Office 365 / Teams) license and an Entra ID account. Microsoft's minimum-requirements article also tells admins to turn on web search, assign an AI Administrator role for least-privilege management, and pin Copilot Chat in Microsoft 365 apps. Pinning is on by default for most eligible users across the Copilot app, Teams, and Outlook on web, mobile, and desktop.

Students under age 13 are not eligible. Education tenants that want Copilot Chat for students 13 and older must follow Microsoft's extra admin steps. Do not promise Chat to an elementary classroom.

Where people open it (documented surfaces only)

Microsoft currently lists these access paths. Teach the list; do not invent a custom toolbar.

• Web: m365copilot.com (pin Copilot Chat). Users with Chat pinned in the Copilot app are redirected to m365.cloud.microsoft/chat. Unpinned users can still open chat there in a temporary state until they pin it.
• Microsoft Copilot app: web, Windows, Mac, and mobile.
• Outlook: web, Windows, Mac, and mobile — full pane in the left navigation and a side pane, as Microsoft documents.
• Teams: web, Windows, Mac, and mobile — full pane in the left navigation.
• Microsoft Edge: Copilot Chat side pane (web browser only; the side pane is not a Chrome feature).
• Other URLs Microsoft still lists for Copilot Chat (Basic) include bing.com/chat, copilot.com, and copilot.ai. For work, instruct people to use the Entra-signed-in Microsoft 365 Copilot paths so they stay under EDP.

Copilot Chat supports Microsoft Edge and other major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. There is no Copilot Chat API. Customers who want to extend Chat use Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio, which are later topics.

Web-grounded versus work-based chat

This is the same split as the previous section, applied to Chat.

Web-grounded Copilot Chat researches and summarizes from the internet, generates and rewrites content, analyzes uploaded files, creates images (standard access), and talks to agents that are in scope. Organizational content is not automatically in the prompt. Users add it by pasting, uploading, referencing supported files, using agents that have knowledge, or working in supported app context.

Work-based chat with a Microsoft Copilot license uses Graph, Work IQ, and semantic indexing so Copilot can reason across mail, meetings, calendars, chats, documents, and sites the user can already access. Microsoft's comparison table says Graph, Work IQ, and semantic indexing are no for Copilot Chat and yes for Microsoft Copilot.

Copilot Chat in Outlook is the documented exception leaders trip on. Even without the add-on, eligible users in supported Outlook experiences can ask across a bounded set of emails, calendar items, meetings, chats, and related files. Microsoft is explicit that this is still reduced Graph grounding compared with the licensed experience. Example prompts Microsoft publishes include summarizing last week's emails on a named project, asking when the next 1:1 is, and drafting an update from this week's escalations. Teach the idea, not a fake ribbon control.

Outside Outlook, unlicensed Copilot Chat does not provide the broad Microsoft 365 organizational grounding Work IQ and semantic indexing give licensed users.

Capabilities Microsoft documents across web, mobile, and desktop

The Copilot Chat FAQ states these features are available across web, mobile, and desktop except where noted. Use this as your inventory. Do not add unofficial gadgets.

• Copilot Pages — take generated content onto a persistent canvas people can edit and share in real time. Microsoft notes a SharePoint license is required.
• File upload — Word, Excel, PDFs, and more; standard access and upload limits apply. Uploaded files are stored in the user's OneDrive for work. Users can delete them. They are not used to train the model under EDP.
• Image generation and image upload (photo, upload, or paste), with standard limits.
• Previous chats — return to or continue a thread.
• Agents — from simple prompt agents to more autonomous ones, plus Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents that turn ideas into files inside Copilot Chat. Licensed users can use Work IQ with those agents; Copilot Chat-only users get web grounding and limited attachment, per Microsoft's agent documentation.
• Edge-only extras: contextual prompt suggestions from open pages; page summarization for a webpage or PDF in Edge. Rewrite in Edge is listed as upcoming on the FAQ, so do not treat it as GA in an exam answer unless the current FAQ says it is shipping.
• Code interpreter — Python-based analysis, visualization, and math inside Chat.
• Dictation and read aloud.
• Real-time voice — converse by voice. Microsoft's FAQ currently says this is available for licensed Microsoft Copilot users only.

Model selection is documented: Auto (router), Quick response (speed), and Think deeper (reasoning). Microsoft describes a model selector in the chat UI. Do not invent additional modes.

Researcher is documented as available on iOS and Android in the Copilot mobile app for the licensed agent. That is a mobile fact for the licensed experience, not a promise that every Chat-only phone user gets Researcher.

Standard access means file upload, image generation, and frontier models can be capacity-limited. If the service is busy, Copilot notifies the user; Microsoft says it does not interrupt a task already in progress. Priority access is the paid upgrade.

Admin, privacy, and network facts leaders need

• EDP: For Entra-signed-in users, prompts and responses are covered by Microsoft's Data Protection Addendum story. Microsoft states prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models under EDP, and that data is not available to OpenAI or used to train OpenAI models.
• Logging: With EDP, prompts and responses can be retained for audit, eDiscovery, and Microsoft Purview capabilities depending on the underlying plan.
• Ads: Microsoft states Copilot Chat is ad-free for Entra-signed-in work and education users.
• Citations: Chat distills multiple web sources and provides linked citations so people can verify.
• HIPAA / FERPA: Microsoft documents support for properly configured implementations on prompts and responses. Those commitments do not apply to web search queries, which sit outside the DPA/BAA story Microsoft describes.
• EU Data Boundary: Microsoft documents Copilot Chat participation in the EUDB commitment.
• SafeSearch: Chat works with Bing SafeSearch settings, including Strict.
• Government: Feature availability and default web grounding differ. Reopen the service description.
• Network: Admins must allow Microsoft 365 and Copilot endpoints, including *.cloud.microsoft and WebSockets. Blocking copilot.cloud.microsoft to stop personal Copilot also breaks work Copilot. Use Tenant Restrictions instead of a blunt URL block.

A CISO cares that Chat is a governed work surface when people use Entra, and a leak path when they switch to MSA. An HR leader cares that policy answers from web Chat are not the same as answers from the intranet policy library. A CFO cares that included Chat is real value and still not Graph-wide Q&A.

How this shows up for AB-731 candidates

If the stem says included, web, mobile, Edge side pane, file upload, or EDP, think Copilot Chat. If it says reason across the whole mailbox, SharePoint corpus, and meeting history without uploading, think work-based chat and the add-on. If it says public API, the documented answer is that Copilot Chat does not offer one.

Official Microsoft pages to reopen

• Overview of Microsoft Copilot Chat
• Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Copilot Chat
• Minimum requirements for Microsoft Copilot Chat
• License options for Microsoft Copilot
• Researcher agent FAQ — mobile availability for Researcher