<aside> ℹ️ Copilot for Busy People. Which page is yours depends on one thing: whether somebody bought you a licence. How to tell in thirty seconds, then the full difference side by side, then three tricks that work either way. Seven to nine minutes on your own page gets you five habits, six lines to paste, and an honest list of what it gets wrong.
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Nobody tells you, and the two look similar until you ask them something specific. Microsoft writes the answer next to your name, in the Copilot app and inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Go and look, then read the row you match.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| The words M365 Copilot (Premium) next to your name | Somebody bought you a licence. It settles the question by itself |
| It finds a document you never uploaded or opened | A licence, and the Work IQ button is on |
| It answers about your company in vague general terms | No licence, or the Work IQ button is off |
| Copilot appears in Word or Excel | Nothing on its own. Plenty of people with no licence get Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote |
There are two free versions, and the label next to your name says which one you are on. M365 Copilot (Basic) gets Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Copilot Chat (Basic) does not, and gets chat plus Copilot in Teams and Outlook. M365 Copilot (Premium) is the paid one.
Thirty-second version: ask for a document you never uploaded and never opened. With a licence it can find it. Free Copilot reaches your own files only when you hand them over or already have them open. Seeing Copilot in Word proves nothing either way, which is where most of the confusion in your building comes from.
| What you get | No licence | With a licence |
|---|---|---|
| The AI models underneath | The same ones | The same ones, served first |
| Answers from the internet | Yes | Yes |
| Reads your own mail, files and Teams history | No. You hand it what you want it to see | Yes, when the Work IQ button is on |
| Files you upload, or already have open | Yes | Yes |
| Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote | Only if your label says M365 Copilot (Basic) | Yes |
| Copilot in Teams and Outlook | Yes, on whatever you have open | Yes, plus your history |
| Pages and Notebooks | Yes. Office files and Outlook mail go in | Yes |
| Searching your company's content | No. A keyword search box, not a question | Yes, and it understands the question |
| When the service is busy | You wait behind licence holders | You go first |
| Voice features in Copilot | No | Yes |
One row above does all the work: whether it can read your mail, your files and your Teams history. Everything else on the list follows from that.
No licence needed, and they survive whichever page you land on.
<aside> ▪️ Attach it, do not describe it. Do not type "our policy says something about thirty days notice". Attach the policy and ask. Described from memory gets you a guess, attached gets you the clause.
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<aside> ▪️ Make it question you first. End any vague request with the line below. What comes back afterwards is a different class of output.
Ask me up to three questions before you answer.
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<aside> ▪️ Name the shape you want. "Summarise this" is a coin flip. Ask for what you will actually do with it: five bullets for an email, or one line with the reason underneath.
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<aside> ▪️ Copilot Chat for Busy People. Yours if your label says Basic, or you have no licence at all. What it can and cannot see, and how to work with that.
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<aside> ▪️ M365 Copilot for Busy People. Yours if your label says Premium. What the licence actually bought, and the one button that decides every answer.
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Both are free, and neither asks you for an email.
<aside> ▪️ Keep the whole set. Duplicate this page into your own workspace and both pages under it come with it, prompts and all. From then on it is yours: delete the rows that do not apply to your tenant, add the lines you write yourself.
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