How to Use Microsoft Copilot in Word, Excel, and Outlook

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant built directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Instead of switching to a separate AI tool, Copilot appears inside the apps you already use, ready to help you write, analyze, and organize.

To access Copilot, you generally need a Microsoft 365 Business or Microsoft 365 Personal subscription with the Copilot add-on. As of 2026, Microsoft has been expanding Copilot availability — check your account settings to see what is included with your plan. When Copilot is available, you will see a Copilot button (a small sparkle icon) in the toolbar of supported apps.

In Word, Copilot is most useful for drafting. Click the Copilot icon and type a prompt like "Draft a professional letter to my landlord explaining that my heater has not been working for two weeks and asking for repair." Copilot writes a draft that you review, edit, and personalize before sending. You can also ask Copilot to "Summarize this document in three bullet points" — useful when you receive a long document you need to understand quickly. Other Word prompts: "Make this writing more formal," "Shorten this paragraph," or "Add a section about next steps."

In Excel, Copilot helps people who find formulas confusing. Select your data and open Copilot. Describe what you want: "Show me total sales by month" or "Which products had the highest returns?" Copilot creates the formula or chart and explains what it did. This can save significant time for people who know what they want to see but are not sure how to write the formula to get there.

In Outlook, Copilot can summarize your inbox: "What did I miss while I was on vacation?" It reads your emails and gives you a digest. You can also ask it to "Draft a reply saying I am not available Friday but am free Tuesday or Wednesday" — it writes the reply and you review it before sending.

In Teams, Copilot can join meetings and generate a summary of what was discussed and what actions were agreed upon. This is helpful for catching up if you had to step away or for distributing meeting notes.

Important note: Copilot can make mistakes. It may summarize incorrectly or draft something that does not say quite what you intended. Always read the output carefully before sending or saving any Copilot-generated content.

Your data used by Copilot is subject to Microsoft's enterprise privacy commitments — it does not use your business data to train the general AI model.