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Start here: your Microsoft 365 Copilot journey

Most people start with Copilot Chat and gradually discover a much larger Microsoft 365 AI environment. This guide helps you understand what you can do now, what becomes possible next, why some features are missing or disabled, and what you should ask your manager or administrator for.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05

Where are you now?

  1. I have Copilot Chat. What can I actually do with it?

    Start by understanding your current access and the useful things already available to you.

    Read guidance

  2. Someone else has a feature I cannot see or use. Why?

    Check licence, admin visibility, configuration, permissions, rollout and billing dependencies.

    Read guidance

  3. I keep hearing about Cowork. What is it and how do I get it?

    See what Cowork does, when it is useful, what needs enabling and how to control spending.

    Read guidance

  4. I want to build or automate something.

    Choose between personal agents, work-grounded agents, SharePoint, Power Automate, Cowork and Copilot Studio.

    Read guidance

  5. I manage a team or budget.

    See how to decide who needs what, how to make good requests to IT and how to review access over time.

    Read guidance

  6. I administer Microsoft 365 or own governance.

    See enablement, access, permissions, lifecycle, health checks and retirement responsibilities.

    Read guidance

Choose the question that sounds most like your situation.

The discovery journey

StageWhat becomes possible
Copilot ChatAsk, draft, summarise, analyse supplied material and research. You can also create simple personal agents.
Basic personal agentsThink of these as saved specialist helpers: reusable instructions plus limited knowledge. They can be useful, but they are not autonomous AI workers and have significant file and organisational-data restrictions.
Microsoft 365 CopilotAdds automatic work grounding through Microsoft Graph and Work IQ, richer Copilot experiences and more capable agent scenarios.
Copilot in appsUse Copilot directly in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.
Copilot NotebooksBring a deliberately selected set of files, SharePoint content, emails, meetings and other supported references into a focused working context.
Richer and shared agentsAgents can become more useful with approved organisational knowledge, broader grounding and sharing — subject to licence, admin controls and source permissions.
SharePoint and organisational workflowsGround AI in approved team knowledge and connect it to governed work processes.
CoworkDelegate defined multi-step jobs that can work across Microsoft 365.
Power AutomateRun predictable processes, triggers and actions automatically.
Copilot StudioBuild governed organisational agents with controlled knowledge, actions, connectors and channels.

This is a practical map of the capabilities people commonly discover as more access is added. In Microsoft 365, the word Agent can describe anything from a saved specialist helper to a more advanced action-taking capability, so do not assume every agent is autonomous or powerful.

Follow the typical discovery path

Move through the guide in the order many staff encounter these capabilities.

Built for awarding organisations

Examples and risks are considered in the context of awarding organisations, including qualification development, centre support, assessment integrity, candidate and centre data, reasonable adjustments, safeguarding, malpractice, complaints, appeals, governance and regulatory responsibilities.

Useful starting points

Sources

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