Overview of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Overview

This article gives a general overview on what the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat offers. Copilot chat is already a part of the list of applications that you can already access with your Columbia College exchange log in, similarly to accessing Word or PowerPoint.

 

How to:

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat includes:

  • Secure, AI chat grounded in the web and powered by the latest models
  • A side-by-side experience that's aware of a user's open content in select Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook
  • IT controls, enterprise data protection and agent management
  • Features like Copilot Pages, file upload, and image generation

 

Copilot Chat includes standard access to capabilities like file upload, image generation, and models (like GPT-5). This means it's subject to service capacity availability to ensure the product works well for everyone. Quality and performance may also vary depending on service availability. If the service isn't available at a given moment, Copilot notifies the user—it doesn't interrupt a task in progress.

 

The Copilot Chat user interface for work and education

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat offers a UI designed for work and education. Users know they're protected by the green shield in the top right of the UI. Users can access agents and their recent chats from the right panel. Additionally, suggested prompts in the center of the UI can help users get started.

Screenshot that shows Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

 

Unlike Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat is not grounded in organizational content like files, emails, or chats as part of the chat experience—it is grounded in data from the web only. If Copilot Chat users would like to use organizational content in their chat, they can do so in three ways:

  • As part of their prompt (such as copying and pasting in content, uploading a file, including a file by typing '/' and selecting it from the ContextIQ menu, or selecting a suggested prompt which contains a file).
  • By using Copilot Chat in select Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook with content they have open. In this scenario, Copilot Chat is aware of the user's open content and is able to engage with it instead of requiring the user to upload a file or copy and paste the content into Copilot Chat.
  • By using a pay-as-you-go agent that has access to organizational content.

 

Users can access Copilot Chat from:

  • Web: m365copilot.com
    • Users with Copilot Chat pinned in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app are redirected to m365.cloud.microsoft/chat. If not, they're redirected to copilot.cloud.microsoft. Get more details on how to pin Copilot Chat.

Microsoft offers Copilot experiences in many products, giving you AI-powered features that deliver tailored insights and intelligent solutions. Find documentation, training, and other technical resources to make the most of the enterprise-grade data-security and privacy features for your organization.

 

Additional resources

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