Licence, Admin Controls and the Packaging on Top

Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and is billed separately in Copilot Credits, metered by model use, context retrieval, tool calls and runtime. The model roster: Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-5.5 and an Auto option.

Cowork is off by default. Set access, model availability, plugins, browser-based task execution and spend limits per group in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, and enable browser use explicitly. Then package the work: a kebab-case folder whose name matches its SKILL.md definition, under Documents/Cowork/skills/ in OneDrive, with companion files carrying the detail, tuned until it fires on real phrasing.

A Scheduled Daily Loop With Gates on What May Run

Run a scheduled morning briefing, a manual production block and a scheduled end-of-day wrap-up, with reusable task templates and a weekly refinement pass. Put reporting and preparation on the timer, and keep anything that mutates a live system deliberate and verified.

Five recurring-job patterns are worked end to end against runnable systems: a weekly client report from a pipeline spreadsheet with a Teams notification, a Friday knowledge-base freshness report, weekly meeting prep from a live calendar connector, a monthly report from a standing Project, and a weekly ordering run across three mock supplier portals and a legacy desktop application.

Bigger Jobs Run as Foundry Agent Teams

Run research and writing pipelines as agent teams hosted on Microsoft Foundry, reached from an application over server-sent events, and ship a Cowork plugin as its own Azure Functions worker. Wrap those teams as MCP servers and assemble them into Copilot Cowork plugins, which is what makes them distributable and revocable.

Keep both tiers on one identity plane: Entra Agent ID gives each agent its own identity under the access policies that already govern human users. The failure modes are documented from running them, including the Magentic orchestration configuration that breaks against one Microsoft Foundry API surface and works against the other.

11 modules
business-user enablement: 83 topics, 73 demos, 14 labs
3 daily blocks
scheduled briefing, manual production, scheduled wrap-up
Graph SendMail
app-only mail from a mailbox in your own tenant, no relay
1 preview URL
isolated preview environment, test data and its own addresses

Copilot and Cowork: Envision, Package, Operate, Govern

Envision 2 steps
01

Define the Return Before You Invest

Survey the tasks that consume time for one week, score each for AI suitability, and pick the top five in a 90-minute workshop. Map each selected task to one implementation path and record its baseline KPI before anything is built.
02

The Change Request Arrives as an Email

Pull the request from the mailbox with Microsoft 365 mail intelligence inside the working session and write it up as a documented work item in the same sitting. Deploy the implementation to an isolated preview environment with test data and its own addresses, and hand back a working URL. Promote after the customer's review.
Deploy & Use 5 steps
03

What the Licence Covers and What the Admin Controls

Microsoft 365 Copilot sits inside Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, grounded in tenant data through Microsoft Graph. Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and is billed separately in Copilot Credits, metered by model use, context retrieval, tool calls and runtime. It is off by default. Set access, model availability, plugins, browser-based task execution and spend limits per group in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, and enable browser use explicitly. The model roster covers Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-5.5 and an Auto option.
04

The Packaging Contract That Makes an Automation Usable

Package each automation as a Cowork skill to the exact contract: a kebab-case folder whose name matches its SKILL.md definition file, placed under Documents/Cowork/skills/ in OneDrive so the desktop experience picks it up, with companion files carrying the detail the definition leaves out. Run and tune the description until the skill fires on the phrasing people actually use.
05

A Daily Loop, With Explicit Gates on What May Be Scheduled

Run the day in three blocks: a scheduled morning briefing, a manual production block, a scheduled end-of-day wrap-up, with reusable task templates and a weekly refinement pass. Put read-only reporting and preparation on the timer, and keep anything that mutates a live system deliberate and verified.
06

Five Recurring-Job Patterns, Worked Against Runnable Systems

Work the five patterns end to end against runnable sample systems: a weekly client report compiled from a pipeline spreadsheet that fires a Teams notification when the output is ready, a Friday knowledge-base freshness report scanning an index for stale documents, weekly meeting prep pulled from a live calendar connector, a monthly report from a standing Project that holds the policy, and a weekly ordering run across three mock supplier portals and a legacy desktop application ending in a price-check sheet and an order log.
07

Transactional Mail Inside the Tenant That Holds the Mailboxes

Send notification and contact-form mail through Microsoft Graph from a mailbox in the organisation's own tenant: app-only client credentials, the SendMail application permission and admin consent, with no SMTP relay and no third-party mail vendor in the path. The same recipe runs in production on this platform's own API and was reused verbatim on a customer contact form. The signature specification and the mailing automation exist separately and have not been joined into a signature rollout.
Scale & Govern 2 steps
08

Enablement That Ends in a Rollout Decision

Open with the Copilot Business Value Bootcamp: one day, 08:00 to 14:00, the morning on functional business value and envisioning facilitation with scenario and value discovery for the participants' own function, the afternoon on the Microsoft Business Case Builder turning those scenarios into a business case presented back to the room. Feed a pre-deployment usage survey into the rollout plan, which flags the seat cap that triggers the enterprise move. Run the business-user program over 11 modules and 83 topics, 73 demo walkthroughs and 14 hands-on labs on a fictional company backed by 64 real Office source files, closing on seat mix against a three-scenario cost model, identity-provider provisioning, spend limits and audit-log export.
09

Distribute Automation as a Governed Unit

Bundle a command, a house-style skill and an internal connector into one installable pack tracked in version control. Ship the governance with it: boundary rules for irreversible tools, a hard approval gate before anything destructive runs, and stress-testing against adversarial prompts. Name the git-ignored file that holds a credential rather than the credential.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot, and what gets added to it?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is Microsoft's assistant across Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, grounded in your data through Microsoft Graph. The layer added on top is what turns it into daily output: recurring chores packaged as Cowork skills a non-engineer triggers, a scheduled operating loop with gates on what runs unattended, transactional mail through Graph inside your own tenant, and the enablement program that leaves the team running it.
How does an automation reach someone who is not an engineer?
Through the Cowork skill contract: a kebab-case folder whose name matches its SKILL.md definition file exactly, placed under Documents/Cowork/skills/ in OneDrive so the desktop experience picks it up, with companion files carrying the detail. The description decides whether it triggers, so each skill is run and tuned until it fires on the phrasing people use. A pack bundles a command, a house-style skill and an internal connector into one installable unit tracked in version control.
What is safe to put on a schedule?
Read-only reporting and preparation. The five patterns worked end to end in the enablement labs, each against a runnable sample system, are a weekly client report from a pipeline spreadsheet with a Teams notification, a Friday knowledge-base freshness report, weekly meeting prep from a live calendar connector, a monthly report from a standing Project, and a weekly ordering run across three mock supplier portals and a legacy desktop application. Anything that mutates a live system stays deliberate and verified, with a hard approval gate on irreversible tools and boundary rules stress-tested against adversarial prompts.
Can transactional mail run without an SMTP relay or a mail vendor?
Yes. Mail sends through Microsoft Graph from a mailbox in your own tenant using app-only client credentials, with the SendMail application permission and admin consent, and nothing else in the path. The same recipe runs in production behind this site and was reused verbatim on a customer contact form. The signature specification and the mailing automation exist separately: an automated Outlook signature rollout has not been built.
How do change requests get handled once this is running?
The email is the specification. A request arrives as a plain office mail, is pulled and analysed with Microsoft 365 mail intelligence inside the working session, and becomes a documented work item in the same sitting. It is implemented in an agent session and deployed to an isolated preview environment with test data and its own addresses, so what comes back is a working URL to review, promoted after your review.
Does the Microsoft Copilot app rename change security, compliance or enterprise controls?
No. Security, compliance, privacy and enterprise controls are unchanged by the rename. The Microsoft Copilot app rolls out to worldwide mobile and web from mid-August 2026 and to Windows and Mac from mid-September, with the web URL moving to copilot.cloud.microsoft and an automatic redirect from late August. Visual cues separate work and personal accounts: a different background colour per account type and a Work label under the profile in the navigation pane, alongside the existing green data protection shield. Tenant policies, admin controls and existing configurations carry over.
What governs an agent once it is running in the tenant?
Agent 365 costs $15 per user and gives one control plane for agent inventory, permissions, behaviour and activity across the tenant. Entra Agent ID gives each agent its own identity under the same access policies as human users, so an action taken by an agent has a named subject. Purview Audit captures human-to-agent, agent-to-agent and agent-to-tool interactions.