<aside> ℹ️ M365 Copilot for Busy People. Somebody bought you a licence. Seven minutes here and you will know what it actually bought, the one button that decides every answer you get, five habits worth keeping, six lines to paste, and where it will let you down.
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<aside> ▪️ Not a smarter AI. The same models sit under the free version. What the money bought is that it can now read your work, that you get served first when the service is busy, and two advanced reasoning agents called Analyst and Researcher.
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Quick starts for both: Analyst and Researcher. Free to read.
Copilot can now reach your mail, your files, your Teams history and your calendar. Only the ones your account could already open, so it does not let you see anything you were not already allowed to see. It reads what you already have faster than you can.
On top of that: Copilot inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint rather than only in a chat window, a search box that understands questions instead of matching words, and agents grounded in your own work alongside the prebuilt Microsoft ones.
One thing worth knowing before a colleague corrects you: Copilot Notebooks is not something your licence bought. It arrived on the free side in June 2026 and it is switched on there by default, so the colleague without a licence has it too. One notebook can be shared across a team where only some people have a licence.
The free version answers from the internet. Yours answers from your work.
No paid licence, or reading this for somebody who has not got one? That is the other page. Most of what people call "Copilot" is already free.
Your chat has a Work IQ toggle. Everything below depends on it being in the right position for the question you are asking.
| Work IQ | Where the answer comes from | So ask it things like |
|---|---|---|
| On | What your work account can see. Your mail, your files, your Teams. | What did we promise this client over the last three months? |
| Off | Your account plus the internet. | Explain this regulation and who it applies to. |
<aside> ⚠️ Most disappointing Copilot sessions are this button in the wrong position. "Summarise our Q3 approach" with it off returns a generic essay about Q3 approaches. Check the toggle before you blame the tool. It is the highest-value habit on this page.
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What sits behind that toggle, and what it remembers about how you work: Work IQ in M365 Copilot.
Read the five lines. Open the one you do not already do.