6.4 Copilot in Microsoft 365 Apps

6.4 Copilot in Microsoft 365 Apps

Quick Answer: Put Copilot in the app where the work already lives. Word drafts and rewrites documents. Excel analyzes grids and suggests formulas. PowerPoint builds and edits decks. Outlook triages mail. Teams recaps meetings and chats. Other Microsoft-documented surfaces include OneNote, Loop, SharePoint, Forms, Whiteboard, and Teams Phone. License labels and admin prerequisites decide how deep the experience goes.

Microsoft's skill bullet is: understand capabilities of the Copilot experience in various Microsoft 365 apps. The overview page pairs Copilot with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and others, and then lists OneNote, Loop, and Forms among in-app jobs. The service description adds SharePoint and OneDrive. The requirements article adds Whiteboard and Teams Phone. Teach those documented apps. Do not invent a Copilot for an app Microsoft's current pages do not mention.

Chat experiences in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote vary by tenant configuration and license. Microsoft displays in-product labels so people can see Copilot Chat (Basic), Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic), or Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) / Pro. Premium is the add-on with priority access and full in-app chat. The service description currently marks Edit with Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as a Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) feature, and not currently available in GCC, GCC High, or DoD. Worldwide commercial leaders should still reopen that table before they promise in-grid editing in a sovereign cloud.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

These three are the document-creation core.

Copilot in Word. Microsoft's overview describes help to create, understand, and edit documents. The Basic in-app list is draft, rewrite, and summarize. A legal director opens a vendor paper and asks for an issue list. An HR business partner asks for a first-pass job description in the company's voice. The lawyer or HR partner still owns the file. Copilot Chat (Basic) users, on Microsoft's label chart, do not get Copilot chat inside Word. Do not tell every E3 user they already have Word side-pane Copilot.

Copilot in Excel. Analyze data, generate insights, create formulas and visuals, and answer natural-language questions about the grid. A CFO's FP&A lead asks why margin dropped in the west region. Copilot proposes a view and a formula the analyst verifies. Python-in-Excel analysis has appeared in Microsoft's Copilot release notes for Windows; treat it as a documented direction, and confirm current GA on Learn before you make it a must-have in a regulated close. Government clouds currently call out that Copilot's structured Excel analysis is impacted until Edit with Copilot in Excel ships there.

Copilot in PowerPoint. Draft a new presentation from a prompt or from a Word file using enterprise templates. Chat can summarize and answer questions about the deck. Light commanding adds slides or pictures or applies deck-wide formatting. An operations VP drops a two-page Word brief and asks for a 10-slide plant review. Brand, numbers, and claims stay human-owned.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents inside the Microsoft 365 Copilot app can create files from chat. Microsoft documents that these agents currently depend on Anthropic models being enabled for the tenant, and that licensed users can use Work IQ while Copilot Chat users get web grounding and limited file attachment. Admins can hide the agents by disabling those models. This is a leader fact about availability, not a model-architecture question.

Online Word, Excel, and PowerPoint need third-party cookies enabled. Copilot is not available with device-based licensing for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. The Office Feature Updates task must run for core Copilot in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. These are adoption blockers, not trivia.

Outlook and Teams

Copilot in Outlook. Coaching tips on clarity, sentiment, and tone. Summarize an email thread. Draft replies that can pull from other mail or Microsoft 365 content the user already can access (licensed depth). Microsoft documents classic Outlook and new Outlook on Windows and Mac. Copilot Chat can appear in the left app bar in new Outlook and on the web, and on Android and iOS. Microsoft's requirements page currently says Copilot is not available on group mailboxes, while it does support primary Exchange Online mailboxes and currently states availability on archive, shared, and delegate mailboxes the user can access. Mailbox rules change; reopen the requirements article before you brief IT. Schedule with Copilot and Themes by Copilot are called out as not yet available in GCC, GCC High, or DoD.

Copilot in Teams is available on Windows, Mac, web, Android, and iOS.

• Chat / channel: Copilot can summarize up to 30 days of that chat thread before the last message. It uses only that thread. It does not silently pull in other chats, transcripts, mail, or files. Responses include clickable citations. The conversation lives in a side panel and ends when the panel closes.
• Meetings: Users invoke Copilot in meetings or calls in the same tenant. Copilot uses the transcript in real time and answers questions about that conversation. It knows the name of the person typing. After the meeting, people can still access Copilot on that recap. To reference meeting content after the meeting ends, admins must enable transcription or meeting recording.
• Calls / Teams Phone: Copilot captures key points, owners, and next steps on VoIP and PSTN. VoIP Copilot needs a Microsoft Copilot license. PSTN Copilot needs a Teams Phone license, a calling plan, and a Microsoft Copilot license. Transcription or recording must be on. VoIP participants see a notification; PSTN participants hear an announcement.

When Copilot starts in an unrecorded meeting, Microsoft has documented that every participant is notified that Copilot is active. Do not teach a silent-recap fantasy.

The licensed Copilot experience in Teams can reach Graph for broader questions. The in-meeting transcript skill is still transcript-scoped. Leaders should not expect a meeting Copilot to quote a SharePoint contract that was never in the call.

Other documented apps

• OneNote: Draft plans, ideas, and lists; organize information so people can find it. Same Basic versus Premium chat/edit split as Word.
• Loop: Collaborative content creation that others can edit in place. Loop must be enabled for the tenant. People with a Copilot license can use Copilot in Loop when Loop components are pasted into Teams, Outlook, and meeting notes, per Microsoft's Copilot notes. Copilot Pages and Notebooks share storage plumbing with Loop's personal container; that is an admin fact, not a user-interface lesson.
• SharePoint and OneDrive: Copilot in SharePoint and SharePoint agents appear on the commercial service-description table. File restore and some OneDrive management features need users to have OneDrive. Restricted content discovery and SharePoint Advanced Management show up with premium Copilot value to reduce oversharing that would otherwise pollute answers.
• Forms: Draft questions for surveys, polls, and forms.
• Whiteboard: Copilot requires Whiteboard enabled for the tenant.

Do not spend exam minutes on click paths. Spend them on which app owns the process and which prerequisite is missing (no transcript, group mailbox, Loop off, device-based licensing, cookies blocked, sovereign-cloud feature gap).

Leader scenarios across apps

CFO. Excel Copilot explains a variance table. Word Copilot drafts the board narrative from that approved commentary. PowerPoint Copilot turns the narrative into slides. Outlook Copilot summarizes the audit committee thread. Teams Copilot recaps the pre-read meeting because recording was on. If recording was off and no transcript exists, the recap path is broken.

Operations VP. Teams meeting Copilot during the shift huddle (transcript only). Afterward, Word Copilot drafts the customer recovery note. Excel Copilot checks the backlog spreadsheet. PowerPoint Copilot builds the plant review. A vision camera count still does not belong here.

HR. Outlook Copilot coaches tone on a sensitive employee email the HR lead still sends. Word Copilot drafts the policy FAQ. Copilot Chat with a license answers “what is our parental leave policy” from permitted files. Forms Copilot drafts the engagement pulse survey. Résumé routing remains a classifier.

Legal. Word Copilot on the open agreement. Outlook Copilot drafts the mark-up cover email. Teams Copilot on the negotiation channel (that thread only). SharePoint Copilot only if the matter library is permissioned correctly.

Security. Teams Copilot on the incident channel they can already open. Do not use consumer Copilot. Do not assume meeting Copilot can see a private SOC mailbox. Teams Phone Copilot on a PSTN bridge only if Phone, calling plan, Copilot license, and recording announcement are in place.

How this shows up for AB-731 candidates

Match the app to the artifact. Then check the license label and the operational prerequisite. Microsoft will keep moving features; the durable skill is “open the current Copilot overview and service description” rather than memorizing a 2024 blog screenshot.

Official Microsoft pages to reopen

• What is Microsoft Copilot? — in-app feature lists and Basic versus Premium labels
• Microsoft Copilot service description — app availability by cloud, Edit with Copilot, Researcher, Analyst
• App and network requirements for Microsoft Copilot — Teams, Outlook, Loop, Whiteboard, cookies, device-based licensing
• Create files with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents