Introduction
Most knowledge workers don't struggle with individual tasks. They struggle with the coordination between tasks—the meeting prep that requires pulling email threads, finding the right deck, summarizing recent conversations, and then packaging it all before the call. Each piece is manageable. Stitching them together is where the afternoon goes.
Microsoft 365 Copilot already helps with individual steps: summarize a thread, draft a reply, analyze a file. But what if you could describe the outcome you need and let Copilot carry the work forward across your apps?
That's what Copilot Cowork does. Cowork carries out tasks on your behalf across Microsoft 365. You describe what you need in natural language, and it does the work—sending emails, scheduling meetings, creating documents, posting in Teams, and managing files. It's grounded in your work context, including your emails, meetings, files, and collaboration patterns, so the results reflect your actual environment, not generic output. Instead of prompting for one artifact at a time, you delegate multi-step work and stay in the loop through review, steering, and approval.
Imagine you're an account manager with a customer meeting in two days. You have relevant emails, a previous meeting summary, usage data in a spreadsheet, and talking points scattered across Teams chats. Today, pulling that together takes time away from other work. With Cowork, you describe the goal and let it assemble the briefing, the analysis, and a draft deck—checking in with you along the way.
See it in action:
In this module, you learn how to:
- Differentiate Copilot Chat, agents, and Cowork and choose the right tool for the shape of work in front of you.
- Describe how Cowork carries out multi-step work: from your request through planning, progress, approval, and results.
- Write effective requests that help Cowork produce useful, well-scoped results.
- Identify scenarios where Cowork adds the most value, such as meeting prep, calendar triage, company research, and launch planning.
- Recognize Cowork's current limits and what to expect from a Frontier preview.
By the end of this module, you'll be able to recognize when work is a candidate for Cowork, delegate it with a well-structured request, and confidently review the results.
Important
Cowork is a Frontier program preview feature. Frontier is the early-access program where Microsoft delivers the latest Copilot innovations before general availability. Capabilities, UI, and behavior may change as Microsoft improves the experience. Treat what you learn here as a foundation. Validate outputs before you rely on them, and share feedback to help shape what ships.