Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and the other Microsoft 365 apps. It is licensed per user on top of your existing plan, so the question for most businesses is who should have it and whether it pays for itself.
What it is good at
Copilot is strongest at summarising and drafting: catching up on a long email thread, recapping a meeting you missed, turning notes into a first draft, and finding a document from a rough description.
Where it is weaker
It is less reliable with complex spreadsheets and anything that needs precise numbers. It works from what is in your Microsoft 365, so if your files are disorganised or out of date, its answers will be too.
Who benefits most
People who spend their day in email, meetings and documents get the most from it: managers, sales, project leads and administrators. Staff who work mainly in a line-of-business system get less.
The cost beyond the licence
Copilot can surface any file a person already has access to. Loose permissions that nobody noticed become visible overnight. Tidying up sharing and access before rollout is real work and should be counted.
Run a proper trial
License a small group across different roles for a couple of months. Give them training and specific tasks to try. Ask what they used it for and how much time it saved, and compare that against the cost.
Training decides the result
People who are shown how to ask for what they want use it daily. People who are handed a licence and nothing else stop within a fortnight.
A sensible starting point
Start with the roles that gain most, fix permissions first, and expand based on what the trial shows.
Getting ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot? Copilot and AI data readiness
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