Microsoft Copilot Cowork is an AI assistant that can take actions on your behalf across your Microsoft 365 environment, with your approval at every important step.

Instead of just suggesting what you could do, Cowork actually does the work you describe, such as:

• Sending emails in Outlook – drafting, replying, forwarding, and sending messages.
• Scheduling meetings – creating calendar events, adding attendees, and organizing your day.
• Creating documents – building Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint decks, and PDFs from scratch or refining existing files.
• Posting in Teams – sending updates to channels and chats, including 1:1 and group conversations.
• Searching your organization – finding documents, messages, and information across your company’s resources.
• Managing files – browsing and organizing content in OneDrive and SharePoint, including creating and reorganizing folders.
• Conducting deep research – synthesizing information from multiple sources into comprehensive reports.
• Preparing briefings – generating daily briefings and meeting intelligence summaries.
• Drafting communications – preparing stakeholder updates, announcements, and follow-ups.
• Automating recurring work – running prompts on a schedule so repeat tasks happen automatically.

Cowork is available for both work or school accounts (generally available) and personal accounts (in preview), with similar capabilities. You can use it in a browser at m365.cloud.microsoft, in the Microsoft Copilot desktop app (Windows and Mac), and in the Microsoft Copilot mobile app (iPhone and Android).

Cowork is designed so that you stay in control of every important action.

Here’s how control and oversight work in practice:

• Step-by-step visibility: Cowork shows each step it’s taking in your session, so you can follow along as it works.
• Approval before sensitive actions: Before it sends an email, posts in Teams, or schedules a meeting, Cowork pauses and asks for your approval. The button label clearly matches the action (for example, Send or Post).
• Risk indicators: For medium- and high-risk actions, Cowork displays a risk level indicator so you can make an informed decision.
• Flexible control options:
  • Approve to let Cowork proceed.
  • Use the dropdown to skip future prompts for similar low-risk actions if you’re comfortable.
  • Cancel to stop a specific action.
  • Pause the session at any time and resume when you’re ready.
• Interrupt and steer: You can interrupt Cowork mid-task to add context, clarify your request, or change direction.
• Review results: After Cowork finishes, you can review documents, check messages, download files, and ask for edits before you share anything more broadly.
• Feedback loop: You can rate responses, leave comments on documents, and share general feedback to help refine how Cowork supports you.

Behind the scenes, Cowork adheres to the data protection policies described in Privacy, security, and compliance in Microsoft OneDrive, helping you align with your organization’s standards.

Cowork is built around specialized skills that map to specific types of tasks. As you work, Cowork loads the skills it needs and shows them in a side panel so you can see what’s active.

Built-in skills include:

• Content and documents: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Communications.
• Email and scheduling: Email, Scheduling, Calendar Management, Meetings, Daily Briefing.
• Information and research: Enterprise Search, Deep Research.
• Automation and experiences: Adaptive Cards and other skills that support workflows and interactions.

Custom skills

• You can create your own custom skills to reflect your team’s specific processes or data sources.
• Cowork automatically discovers these custom skills at the start of each session.
• You can create up to 50 custom skills, giving you room to reimagine how different departments or projects work.

Plugins from the Microsoft 365 App Store

• Cowork supports plugins that add new skills and connectors.
• Plugins can provide specialized expertise (for example, financial analysis or legal research) or connect Cowork to external data sources and services.
• Your organization’s admin can deploy plugins so they’re available to everyone, helping you standardize how teams use Cowork.

Together, built-in skills, custom skills, and plugins let you reshape and extend Cowork so it aligns with your existing workflows rather than forcing you to start from scratch.