Microsoft 365 Copilot can help summarise, draft and analyse information in Microsoft 365 apps. Agents and connectors can extend it with other business information and supported actions. What your team can use depends on the product, licences, permissions and configuration. Start with an actual task and check the available native option before commissioning custom work.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft uses Copilot across several products and plans. Microsoft 365 Copilot can help with work in Microsoft 365 apps and approved organisational information. Check the exact product, licence, tenant settings and available features; this guide does not quote a universal seat price.
Compare the actual product in your tenant rather than treating free versus paid as a complete feature map. Work data access, agents and usage charges can depend on the configuration and plan.
It inherits Microsoft 365's permissions - Copilot can only surface content the signed-in user can already open. That makes tenant hygiene matter: loosely shared folders become loosely shared answers.
What Copilot does in each app
Outlook: thread summaries and drafted replies. Word: first drafts and rewrites from a prompt or a reference document. Excel: natural-language analysis, formula suggestions and charts. Teams: live meeting recaps with decisions and action items. PowerPoint: first-draft decks from a document or outline.
- Outlook - summarise an email thread, draft a reply in a chosen tone, pull out commitments and dates.
- Word - produce a structured first draft from a brief, rewrite for tone or length, summarise a long document before a meeting.
- Excel - ask plain-language questions of a table, generate formulas, highlight trends. Strongest on clean tabular data.
- Teams - recap meetings with who-said-what, decisions and actions; catch up on a meeting you missed without watching the recording.
- PowerPoint - turn a Word document into a starting deck, restyle slides, condense content.
A draft still needs accuracy, context and suitability checks. Measure the benefit on your own tasks, including editing and review time; there is no fixed percentage of drafting work that Copilot will complete.
How agents and connectors extend Copilot
Copilot can be extended with agents and connectors that use external business information and supported actions. The exact capability depends on the installed tool, licence, permissions and configuration. It is incorrect to say that Copilot is confined to the document a person has open.
Microsoft documents prebuilt and custom agents, and connectors for bringing enterprise information into Copilot. Check an existing option before building a replacement.
Reading information and changing it are different permissions. Confirm the specific action and review process; an external connection does not automatically grant access to every record or business function.
Copilot or a custom AI workflow?
Start with the task and check the available native features, prebuilt agents and connectors. A custom workflow may be appropriate when a useful requirement remains uncovered and the necessary access can be established.
Compare the complete scope: configuration, licences or consumption, connections, review controls, testing and support. Custom work can itself be built within the Microsoft ecosystem; the choice is not a strict split between Copilot and custom software.
Where the stack is Microsoft-heavy, a custom workflow can sit alongside Copilot comfortably - reading the same mailboxes and SharePoint libraries through the same permission model, which is how we approach AI automation inside Microsoft 365.
Official sources
Product information checked on 2026-09-29. Availability and permissions should be confirmed for your account.