Microsoft Copilot: the questions people ask most, answered plainly

What is Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant brand. There is a free general-purpose Copilot on the web, in Windows and as an app, and a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot that sits inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams and can work with your organisation's data.

Is Copilot free or paid?

Both. The standard Copilot experience is free for anyone. Copilot Pro is a paid upgrade for individuals. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a per-user business add-on that requires an eligible work subscription. Microsoft's pricing pages carry the current figures.

Copilot vs Microsoft 365 Copilot: what's the difference?

The free Copilot answers from the web and what you paste in. Microsoft 365 Copilot connects to your work graph - emails, documents, meetings, chats - so it can summarise your inbox, draft from your files and recap your meetings, with enterprise-grade data protection.

Will Microsoft train AI on my company's data?

Microsoft says no for commercial Copilot services: prompts and organisational data in Microsoft 365 Copilot are not used to train foundation models and stay inside your compliance boundary. That commitment is a major reason businesses choose it.

What are the best things Copilot does in Office?

Drafting and rewriting in Word, summarising email threads in Outlook, meeting recaps with actions in Teams, and formula help and trend-spotting in Excel. Every summary links back to its source material so you can check it.

Can I trust Copilot's summaries?

Mostly, with verification. It can misattribute or miss nuance, especially in long meetings and complex spreadsheets. Use the linked citations to spot-check anything you will act on, and treat drafts as drafts.

How does a business deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Buy the add-on licences for eligible Microsoft 365 plans, assign them in the admin centre, and run a pilot with one team first. Tidying SharePoint permissions beforehand matters - Copilot can surface any document a user already has access to.

What does Copilot mean for health and sensitive questions?

Microsoft's research shows health is one of the biggest consumer uses: around 40 percent of health conversations involve understanding symptoms, conditions and treatments, and about 1 in 5 involve someone's own results. Copilot gives useful general information, but it is not a clinician - personal medical decisions still belong with a doctor.

Can businesses build agents with Copilot?

Yes - Copilot Studio is Microsoft's tool for custom agents, and the October 2026 release added persistent agents that sustain customer conversations across sessions, running under configured permissions with connections to business data.

Does Copilot work on Mac and phones?

Yes. There are Copilot apps for iOS, Android and macOS, plus deep integration in Windows and Edge. Microsoft 365 Copilot works inside the Office apps across platforms.

What is Office in Copilot?

Microsoft is integrating Word, Excel and PowerPoint into the Copilot app itself, with a Home hub that unifies Chat and Cowork delegation. Global rollout began in mid November 2026.