Microsoft has introduced a new version of its Copilot experience, with changes to the Copilot app and its integration across Microsoft 365. The company has also announced updates covering enterprise AI management.
Home and Office in Copilot
The Copilot app now brings Home, Code and Autopilot into the experience. Home is the new starting point, bringing Chat and Cowork together. It lets users review recent activity, see suggestions for tasks Copilot can help with and continue work across meetings, chats, documents, emails, apps and agents.
Chat handles quick questions, lookups and drafts, while Cowork handles delegated tasks from start to finish. Cowork can be used for work such as:
- RFP responses
- Launch kits
- Customer briefings
- Financial close packages
Microsoft is also bringing Word, Excel and PowerPoint into Copilot. From Home, users can ask Copilot to create a launch brief, model a budget, build a presentation or continue working on a team file. The resulting document, workbook or presentation remains editable and available to the team, while users can refine it alongside the conversation.
PowerPoint can keep presentations on-brand and allow users to fine-tune slides, images and custom templates. In Excel, users can see what Copilot or another collaborator changed and why, while Copilot can recommend a chart for the data. Microsoft 365 Skills bring specialized expertise into apps, including financial skills in Excel and legal skills in Word, with reusable, role-specific workflows for organizations.
Code
Code adds a fourth unit of knowledge work alongside documents, spreadsheets and presentations: small, purpose-built solutions. Users can describe an app, tracker, dashboard, automation or workflow in natural language, and Copilot builds it.
Examples include:
- Persistent desktop widgets for quick reference
- Interactive dashboards for exploring data and testing outcomes
- Cloud-hosted internal apps that can be shared with a team
Code uses the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot. Solutions run in a sandboxed environment and can be hosted securely within an organization’s tenant, while Microsoft IQ provides work context and plugins can synchronize automatically. Developers can continue using GitHub Copilot for day-to-day software development, with additional connectivity to the Copilot platform.
Microsoft is also introducing Copilot Managed Runtime, which provides hosting infrastructure for Code solutions inside a company’s Microsoft 365 environment. IT can govern the environment, while users can share apps, connect live data and access them from different locations. The same foundation supports apps built with Cowork, Code and Copilot Studio and is available to third-party and pro-code developers.
Autopilot
Autopilot, previously called Scout, is a persistent, proactive personal agent. Users provide it with a name, role, goal, objective and boundaries. It can monitor channels, follow up on threads, run recurring work and resume projects later without another prompt.
For a supplier review, Autopilot can create a schedule and workback plan, handle preparation, manage meetings and follow-ups, and contact stakeholders for updates. It runs in the cloud and has its own identity, memory, computer and workspace within the tenant. It uses Microsoft IQ to understand organizational context and can appear in Teams, Outlook, chats, channels and documents, with permissions, auditing and governance.
Microsoft IQ and plugins
Microsoft IQ provides a unified intelligence layer for enterprise AI across Microsoft’s stack, connecting business operations and organizational knowledge in a real-time view for Copilot and agents. Fabric IQ brings trusted data context, including more than 20 million semantic models in Power BI, into Copilot.
Microsoft is also extending Copilot’s business context to Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. For example, when preparing a sales proposal, Copilot can incorporate deal history and support tickets directly into the document.
The new plugin registry brings Microsoft, partner and custom-built plugins into one catalog. Plugins can combine skills, connectors and other capabilities, while IT can approve and manage them centrally.
Copilot billing and FinOps for AI
Microsoft separates everyday Copilot usage from agentic workloads through two licensing approaches. User Subscription License (USL) covers Copilot in Chat, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, along with model selection and new capabilities. Its Auto feature weighs accuracy, speed and cost for each request and selects a suitable model.
Usage-Based Billing (UBB) gives organizations control over model selection and spending for agentic workloads. UBB applies to:
- Cowork
- Code
- Autopilot
- Frontier models such as Astra and Fable
Microsoft is also adding FinOps for AI capabilities across Agent 365, Insights and Microsoft Copilot. These include cost management for Code and Copilot Managed Runtime, API access for spending policies, model-family controls for user groups and credit-request workflows.
Business leaders and administrators can assess which Cowork tasks generate the strongest outcomes and determine where to sustain, expand or optimize usage. End users can view credit usage, remaining balances and usage history in Copilot, while organizations can apply spending guardrails.
Upcoming Copilot features
Microsoft is adding Today to Home as a proactive command center covering mail, calendars, Teams threads, meetings and tasks. It can show what users missed, what needs attention and what can wait, while preparing actions such as drafts, schedule changes and follow-ups with their context.
@Copilot in Teams gives the entire team the shared context and permissions of a channel, group chat or meeting. Users can ask why a product decision was made, while Copilot can use conversation history to provide background. When a decision affects manufacturing, packaging or launch timing, it can also provide a cross-functional review covering:
- Dependencies
- Owners
- Open questions
- Decisions
Availability
Home and Code will start rolling out through the Frontier program in the coming weeks. Code will begin rolling out to Frontier at the end of September, followed by broad availability in the following weeks. Code will enter preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year.
Autopilot will expand to private preview at the end of September, while Copilot Managed Runtime is in preview. Fabric IQ’s integration with Code will arrive through Frontier, and Copilot grounding in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform will roll out in public preview over the next month.
The plugin registry is rolling out now and will become generally available across supported surfaces in the coming weeks. FinOps support for agents built in Copilot Studio is planned for October. Today will enter private preview in October in Copilot, followed by Outlook and Teams, while @Copilot in Teams will enter private preview by the end of September.