Cross-app Microsoft 365 work
Turn information from authorized mail, calendar, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint into a coordinated set of Office outputs.
Independent tool overview
Copilot Cowork at a glance
Microsoft Copilot Cowork is an action-taking agent inside Microsoft Copilot that can research, create and edit Office files, work across OneDrive and SharePoint, send Outlook email, schedule meetings, post in Teams, operate websites, and run recurring tasks with approval controls.
Visit the official Copilot Cowork site ↗
- Product type
- Multi-step action-taking agent for Microsoft 365 and the web
- Work/school status
- Generally available since June 16, 2026
- Personal status
- Preview for eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions
- Core work apps
- Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and SharePoint
- Other outputs
- PDFs, research, briefings, and scheduled automations
- Models at GA
- Anthropic Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6; model options can change
- Work prerequisite
- Microsoft 365 Copilot license plus enabled Cowork and usage-based billing
- Cowork entitlement
- No task usage is included with the prerequisite Copilot subscription
- Pay-as-you-go
- $0.01 per Copilot Credit
- Prompt length
- Up to 16,000 characters
- Attachment limit
- Less than 200 MB per attached file
- Local files
- Can be uploaded as inputs but Cowork does not directly browse or edit local storage
- Access points
- Web, Windows and Mac apps, iPhone and Android apps, plus Outlook and Teams for work accounts
Overview
What Copilot Cowork is
Copilot Cowork moves Microsoft Copilot from answering questions to carrying out multi-step work. A user can ask for a briefing, spreadsheet, presentation, email campaign draft, meeting schedule, Teams update, research package, or recurring automation, and Cowork can gather authorized Microsoft 365 context, create outputs, and invoke tools in one tracked task. Work and school access is generally available; personal-account access remains a preview.
Cowork is powerful because it can act through the user's existing permissions, which is also its central risk. Overshared SharePoint content, an incorrect recipient, a hidden website instruction, a misunderstood prompt, or a broad recurring approval can turn a plausible answer into a real data or communications incident. Organizations should remediate access before deployment, constrain users and credits, preserve approvals, audit activity, and begin with reversible internal workflows.
Use cases
Who Copilot Cowork is best for
The strongest fit depends on the job you need the product to complete, not the size of its feature list.
Meeting preparation
Collect relevant files, people, messages, and schedule context into a reviewable briefing and follow-up package.
Document production
Create a first-pass Word document, Excel workbook, PowerPoint deck, or PDF from bounded sources and explicit requirements.
Internal communications
Draft and, after approval, send Outlook or Teams updates with the right source context and recipient review.
Research packages
Research across internal and web sources, preserve citations, and assemble several related files in one task.
Recurring low-risk routines
Schedule a tested briefing or reporting prompt after permissions, sources, approvals, costs, and failure handling are understood.
Capabilities
Core Copilot Cowork features
Multi-step execution
Plans and carries out a task across models, organizational context, tools, and runtime instead of returning one answer.
Outlook actions
Drafts, replies, forwards, and sends email, works with attachments, and manages calendar events.
Teams actions
Posts messages and uses work-context information in Teams for eligible work or school accounts.
Office file creation
Creates and edits Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs.
OneDrive and SharePoint
Finds and works with cloud files the signed-in user is already authorized to access.
Organization search
Searches for files, people, and information across authorized work data through Microsoft 365 context.
Web research and actions
Can browse websites through clicking, scrolling, and typing, subject to site support, safety controls, and user takeover.
Action approvals
Shows a preview and asks the user to approve actions such as Send, Post, Create, payment, personal-data submission, and account changes.
Pause, resume, cancel, and takeover
Lets the user interrupt a task, inspect progress, continue later, or take control when manual interaction is required.
Input and output folders
Organizes files provided to a task and outputs produced by it, with preview and download controls.
Scheduled prompts
Runs recurring prompts and exposes an Automations view to edit, reschedule, or remove them.
Task history
Saves conversations and task results so users can search, review, and resume prior work.
Copilot Credit metering
Charges each task according to model use, context retrieval, tool calls, runtime, and related safety processing.
/cost command
Shows an approximate current-task credit total and remaining monthly limit without consuming additional credits.
Enterprise governance
Uses Entra identity, Microsoft 365 permissions, Purview labels, DLP, audit, retention, eDiscovery, budgets, limits, alerts, and hard caps where configured.
Process
How the Copilot Cowork workflow works
Step 1
Fix oversharing first
Inventory SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, mail, groups, guest access, links, and sensitivity labels before giving an agent the same reach as employees.
Step 2
Enable a narrow pilot
Assign Cowork only to selected users and groups, connect a billing policy, set hard limits, and define prohibited data, systems, and actions.
Step 3
Choose a reversible use case
Begin with an internal briefing or draft file, not payroll, legal acceptance, account administration, external bulk messages, or purchases.
Step 4
Write an explicit task contract
Name the sources, date range, recipients, output files, accuracy checks, excluded actions, approval points, and stop conditions.
Step 5
Attach or identify approved sources
Use the minimum authorized OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, or web context and avoid broad exploratory access.
Step 6
Monitor execution
Watch intermediate progress and pause immediately if Cowork opens an unexpected site, source, recipient, account, or approval.
Step 7
Inspect every approval
Verify recipient, attachment, permissions, destination, content, price, quantity, date, account, and external data before approving.
Step 8
Review every output
Open files in their native apps, check formulas and citations, test links, confirm accessibility, and reconcile numbers against source systems.
Step 9
Check cost and audit records
Use /cost for an estimate, the admin Cost Management dashboard for budget control, and Purview or audit tools for authoritative activity records.
Step 10
Schedule only after repetition
Convert a task to an automation only after it succeeds consistently and the unattended approvals, data changes, and exception path are understood.
Cost
Copilot Cowork pricing and free plan
Business use has two layers. First, each user needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan and a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Microsoft currently lists Copilot Business at a promotional $18 per user per month paid yearly through December 31, 2026, renewing at the then-current rate; monthly billing is $25.20 per user. Cowork itself includes no task entitlement in that subscription. Every task consumes Copilot Credits based on model, context, tools, runtime, and safety processing. Pay-as-you-go credits cost $0.01 each; prepaid annual commitments can lower the per-credit rate. Personal Cowork is a preview for eligible Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers with unpublished, changeable limits.
Personal preview
Included with eligible Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription
Preview access for personal Microsoft accounts, with features and usage limits subject to change.
- Eligible subscription required
- Personal-account experience is not generally available
- Limits may vary with system conditions
- Not a substitute for organizational governance
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business prerequisite
$18/user/month annually promo or $25.20 monthly
Required Copilot user license for eligible small-business Microsoft 365 customers before Cowork usage charges.
- Separate qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription is required
- $18 annual-commitment promotion is listed through December 31, 2026 for the first year
- Annual renewal uses the then-current price
- Cowork task credits are not included
Cowork pay-as-you-go
$0.01 per Copilot Credit
Variable task charge funded through a connected billing setup and governed in Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Credits vary by model, context retrieval, tool calls, runtime, and safety processing
- The cost cannot currently be checked before a task runs
- /cost is an estimate, not the authoritative invoice ledger
- Admins can assign budgets, alerts, policies, user or group limits, and hard caps
Prepaid Copilot Credits
Annual commitment; discounted tiers
Committed credit capacity for organizations that can forecast stable usage.
- Lower per-credit price than pay-as-you-go
- Best modeled after a bounded pilot with real task distributions
- Organizations can combine prepaid capacity with pay-as-you-go for spikes
- Unused user or group limits and credit behavior should be checked in the current licensing guide
Pricing checked . Check current pricing at the source ↗
Assessment
Copilot Cowork strengths and limitations
Where it stands out
- Can complete real work across the Microsoft 365 applications many organizations already use
- Combines internal work context, web research, file creation, communication, and scheduling in one task
- Uses the signed-in user's existing identity and permissions rather than creating a separate uncontrolled data island
- Action previews and explicit Send, Post, or Create approvals provide important checkpoints
- Pause, cancel, resume, progress, and takeover controls make long-running work observable
- Creates multiple related Office outputs and exposes them in one task workspace
- Supports web, desktop, mobile, Outlook, and Teams entry points
- Scheduled prompts support recurring operational routines
- Purview sensitivity labels, DLP, audit, retention, and eDiscovery can extend existing governance to AI activity
- Microsoft documents prompt injection, unintended actions, financial risk, and user responsibility directly
- Tenant-level Copilot Credit policies, budgets, alerts, limits, and hard caps help control variable cost
- /cost gives users a no-charge way to inspect approximate task consumption
What to consider
- The Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription is only the prerequisite; it includes no Cowork task entitlement
- Task cost is variable and cannot currently be known precisely before work begins
- /cost is an approximate session total and is not an invoice or historical analytics record
- Heavy tasks with broad retrieval, high-end models, many tools, and long runtime can consume substantially more credits
- Cowork can misunderstand instructions, choose the wrong source, create the wrong file, or take an unintended action
- Emails, Teams posts, meetings, files, and browser actions create real external effects after approval
- Scheduled tasks may receive approvals during setup and later run unattended, increasing the need for narrow scopes
- Existing Microsoft 365 permissions can expose overshared information even though Cowork does not bypass access controls
- A user authorized to access sensitive content is not automatically authorized to reuse or send it in a new context
- Web pages, emails, documents, and messages can contain malicious hidden instructions or prompt injection
- Microsoft applies defenses, but its own guidance says users must monitor for unexpected sites and approvals
- Anthropic is an AI subprocessor for current Cowork models; organizations must review the applicable data terms and model settings
- Underlying models can change, and Microsoft may add Microsoft-hosted or other models over time
- AI-generated spreadsheets can contain plausible but incorrect formulas, types, references, or totals
- Presentations and documents can misquote sources, omit caveats, use inaccessible layouts, or create unsupported conclusions
- The agent cannot directly access or edit local-device files; it works with uploaded inputs and OneDrive or SharePoint cloud files
- Cowork cannot delete OneDrive or SharePoint files or folders under the current documented limitations
- Encrypted files may be unreadable, and label rights such as VIEW and EXTRACT affect access
- Attached files must be smaller than 200 MB
- Custom skills are not validated by Microsoft and require separate output and security review
- Some websites block automation or require manual authentication, booking, payment, or protected-content steps
- Personal-account Cowork remains a preview with changeable features and limits
- Audit, retention, DLP, labels, eDiscovery, and security dashboards require correct licensing and configuration; they are not automatic proof of compliance
- High-stakes financial, legal, medical, employment, government, and security actions require qualified human judgment
- Organizations need change management, training, incident response, cost ownership, data governance, and value measurement beyond simply enabling the toggle
Compare
Copilot Cowork alternatives
The right alternative depends on the specific output, workflow, controls and budget your project requires.
Agents
Claude Cowork
Choose Claude Cowork for a more local desktop-oriented agent workflow outside the Microsoft 365 governance and credit model.
Explore Claude Cowork →Agents
Perplexity Computer
Choose Perplexity Computer for a multi-model, research-heavy cloud agent that is not centered on Outlook, Teams, and Office execution.
Explore Perplexity Computer →Business Operations
Microsoft Copilot
Choose standard Microsoft Copilot when assistance inside Microsoft 365 is enough and action-taking, long-running tasks, and separate Cowork credits are unnecessary.
Explore Microsoft Copilot →Questions
Copilot Cowork FAQs
What is Microsoft Copilot Cowork?
Copilot Cowork is an action-taking Microsoft agent that can complete multi-step work across Outlook, Teams, Office files, OneDrive, SharePoint, research, websites, and recurring tasks.
Is Copilot Cowork generally available?
It is generally available for work and school accounts. Personal-account Cowork remains a preview for eligible Microsoft 365 subscribers.
What does Cowork cost?
Work users need a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan and Microsoft 365 Copilot license, then pay for Cowork tasks in Copilot Credits. Pay-as-you-go is $0.01 per credit, and each task's credit use varies.
Does Microsoft 365 Copilot include Cowork credits?
No. Microsoft's current licensing guidance says no Cowork task entitlement is included with the prerequisite Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.
Can I see a task's cost?
Type /cost inside a Cowork task to see approximate credits used and the current remaining limit. It is free to run but is not the authoritative billing record, and it cannot quote the final cost before the task starts.
Which models power Cowork?
At general availability Microsoft listed Anthropic Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6. Other model options, including Microsoft-hosted models, can be added or changed, so the tenant experience is the current source of truth.
Does Cowork ask before sending email or changing files?
Microsoft says it presents approvals for actions such as sending or posting, creating or modifying files, payment, personal-data submission, account changes, and sensitive steps. Users remain responsible for reviewing each approval.
Can Cowork access local files?
It can accept uploaded local files as task inputs, but it does not directly browse or edit files on local device storage. Ongoing file work uses OneDrive and SharePoint.
Is organizational data used to train the models?
Microsoft states that Copilot operates within the Microsoft 365 service boundary and honors enterprise data protection. Procurement teams should still review current service terms, subprocessors, retention, residency, and tenant settings.
What should an organization do before enabling Cowork?
Remediate overshared content, configure identity and Purview controls, choose a narrow pilot, set billing limits and hard caps, preserve approvals, define prohibited actions, train users, and monitor both audit and cost data.
Bottom line
Our Copilot Cowork verdict
Copilot Cowork is most compelling for organizations already committed to Microsoft 365 because it can turn authorized work context into files, meetings, messages, and recurring operations without leaving the platform. It is not simply included Copilot capacity: every real task is separately metered. A careful deployment should prove both safety and return on credit spend before expanding access or scheduling unattended actions.
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