Copilot Cowork

by
David Berry

by
David Berry

David has over two decades of architecture and delivery experience across Fortune 1000 and public sector enterprises with Avanade, Booz... more

Copilot Cowork is the delegated-work capability that is part of Microsoft 365 (M365) Copilot. Rather than answering prompts as with Copilot Chat, Cowork takes a user’s desired result and executes the multistep task needed to deliver that result across e-mail, meetings, files, Teams, and Office apps—planning, running in the background, and pausing for user approval before it acts. It still requires a user-based license for M365 Copilot and bills all usage separately through Copilot Credits. Unlike Chat, it executes work rather than assisting the user, and unlike agents and robotic process automation (RPA), it targets actual user-delegated office work across a range of scenarios.

Product: Copilot Cowork

License: Copilot Cowork

Near-Term Roadmap (Mid-2026–2027)

Cowork moved from preview to general availability in June 2026, shifting it from an experiment to a paid enterprise service. The main roadmap theme is Microsoft’s move from chat-based assistance to background work execution across Microsoft 365 (M365). Usage of Cowork is not covered by user-based Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses and brings a second cost layer that consumes Copilot Credits, so adoption planning must include demand modeling, budget controls, and usage reporting. Expect Cowork to keep expanding through the models offered, plug-ins available, custom skills and browser actions available, and scheduled work performed, making M365 governance and procurement controls central to rollout decisions and overall budget management.