Work IQ in Copilot Studio (preview)

Important

• This is a preview feature.
• Preview features aren't meant for production use and might have restricted functionality. These features are subject to supplemental terms of use. Microsoft makes preview features available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

Note

Work IQ (preview) is powered by the GitHub Copilot harness which uses Copilot Credits for usage-based billing.

Add Work IQ to your agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio to enhance what they can understand and do. Work IQ is the intelligence layer that grounds Microsoft 365 Copilot and your agents in real-time, shared context across your organization. It enables personalized search, advanced reasoning, and deeper semantic understanding by connecting signals across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and your business systems. Work IQ applies an extensive understanding of your work to help Microsoft 365 Copilot and your agents deliver insights, recommendations, and actions that closely align with the reality of your business.

Work IQ is built on three tightly integrated layers: Data, Memory, and Inference. These layers work together to give Microsoft 365 Copilot and your agents continuous, contextual understanding of work.

• Data unifies signals from files, emails, meetings, chats, and business systems across Microsoft 365 to capture how work happens across the organization.
• Memory builds persistent understanding of how people and teams work, enabling Agent 365–managed agents to stay aligned to priorities and remain consistent across tasks, apps, and sessions.
• Inference brings together models, skills, and tools so agents can reason and take action—using Work IQ MCP tools—while the Agent 365 control plane ensures those actions remain observable, governed, and compliant. Copilot and your agents don't just understand your work, they actively move it forward.

Extend your agents by adding Work IQ (preview) in Copilot Studio so you can experience more accurate, relevant, and personalized responses that are grounded in your work, line-of-business, and web data.

Learn how to get started with Work IQ (preview) in Enable your tenant for Work IQ.

Important

Work IQ (preview) is available in Microsoft Copilot Studio and uses consumptive billing. Learn more about usage-based billing and cost management in the following articles:

• Understand usage-based billing and cost management for Copilot Credits.
• Managing AI experiences enabled by usage-based billing.
• Discovery setting for AI experiences enabled by usage-based billing.

Work IQ (preview) key features

Extend your agents' capabilities by using Work IQ (preview). It's secure, scalable, and compliant by design. Key features include:

• Centralized governance: Admins manage Work IQ MCP in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• Enterprise‑grade security: Agents are secure and operate within compliance boundaries through scoped permissions, policy enforcement, and runtime observability.
• Continuous evaluation: The Work IQ MCP server undergoes rigorous testing across diverse datasets and models to ensure production-grade robustness and consistent performance. The evaluation measures:
  • Accuracy
  • Latency
  • Reliability
• Integrated developer experience: Tooling infrastructure is built into GitHub Copilot CLI, Microsoft Foundry, and Copilot Studio.

Note

• Microsoft 365 Work IQ is read only unless an administrator explicitly turns on write operations in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• Admins need to create a separate spending policy for Work IQ usage.
• The ability to allow or disallow tooling and MCP servers in Microsoft 365 admin center might not be available in your region yet.

Add Work IQ (preview) to your agents

Get started by learning what steps to take to extend your agents with Work IQ (preview) in Copilot Studio.

Connect your agent to Work IQ (preview)

Extend your agents with Work IQ (preview) to connect your agent to the Work IQ service, so it can access real-time work insights and context.

You can connect your agent to Work IQ (preview) in Copilot Studio. The following steps guide you through the process of adding Work IQ (preview) to your agent. Work IQ (preview) provides your agent with insights and context from your emails, calendar, and Teams, so it can understand and act on content in a more informed way.

1. Select or create your agent.

2. Select the Tools tab and select Add Tool.

   

3. On the Add tool page, select Model Context Protocol to see Work IQ (preview) and other tools.

4. Select Work IQ (preview) and expand the connection dropdown to select Create New Connection.

   

5. Select Create.

6. Provide your credentials and complete the sign-in process.

7. Select Add and Configure to complete the process.

8. Test the agent. Select Test and then type a prompt that requires email context to see the Work IQ MCP in action. For example, you can use the following prompt: Send an email to <your test tenant email address> and ask how the hands-on lab is going.

   

9. Select Enter.

10. When asked to allow the Work IQ MCP to connect and use services, select Allow.

After a few moments, you receive an email.

The agent can now read the email content, understand the context, and respond accordingly.

Related content

• Create and use shared tools from the Tools page
• Microsoft 365 admin center help