Copilot for M365 (Microsoft)

Lives inside Excel, Word, Outlook, and Teams — no copy-paste shuffle. The clear winner if your firm is already on Microsoft 365.

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Best for

Excel formula generation, debugging, and explanation — describe what you want in plain English in the Copilot pane and it writes (and explains) the formula in place
Outlook 'Catch me up' summarizes a long client thread before you reply, plus draft-reply suggestions tuned to the thread's tone and your past style
Word document drafting from a brief or template (e.g., generate a client engagement letter from a template plus a few bullets of context)
Teams meeting summaries with action items, chronological timeline, attributable quotes, and (as of 2026) a video highlight reel — turn it on in advance of every client review call
Copilot Agents (GA in Word/Excel/PowerPoint as of 2026) — multi-step automation that can trigger Power Automate flows, create tickets, or update CRM records. Useful for repeat advisory workflows like prep packets for quarterly reviews.

Avoid

Client-facing creative writing — output is competent but sterile; Claude or ChatGPT win for warmth and nuance
Multi-document research synthesis — Copilot is single-document focused; use Perplexity or Gemini Deep Research for cross-source work
Anything outside Microsoft 365 — Copilot's value collapses the moment you leave the suite. If your firm is on Google Workspace, Gemini is the equivalent.

Shortcuts

In Excel, select a range → Copilot → 'analyze' for a one-click chart + insight summary, or 'highlight' for conditional-formatting suggestions
In Outlook, 'Coaching by Copilot' reviews your draft for tone, clarity, and length BEFORE you hit send — useful for emotionally-loaded client situations
In Word, type / to invoke Copilot inline without opening the side pane — fastest for short rewrites and tone shifts
Loop components (rolling out across M365) let you embed live Copilot-powered tables and lists that update across Teams, Outlook, and Word simultaneously

Model variants

Backed primarily by OpenAI GPT-4-class models with Microsoft's grounding against your M365 tenant data. You don't pick a model — Microsoft routes per task. Newer agentic features (Copilot Agents) are rolling out via the Copilot Studio surface for custom workflow automation.

Compliance gotchas

This is the most compliance-friendly tier IF you're an M365 Business/Enterprise customer — prompts and outputs stay inside your tenant boundary, inherit your existing M365 DLP and retention policies, and are covered by Microsoft's commercial data-protection terms.
The separate Copilot Pro consumer SKU ($20/mo for individuals) does NOT inherit M365 tenant controls — never use it for firm data. It's a different product despite the similar name.
Even within the enterprise tier, prompts are processed by OpenAI APIs under Microsoft's contract — review your firm's data-residency requirements (some jurisdictions flag any OpenAI processing, regardless of the prime contractor).
Meeting recaps are generated from full transcripts — if a client said something off the record, it WILL show up in the recap. Always notify participants when Copilot is taking the meeting, and review recaps before sharing or saving.

Compliance posture last verified 2026-05-29. Full posture matrix →

Pricing

Two tiers as of May 2026. M365 Copilot Business: $18/user/mo annual (promo through June 30, 2026; rises to $21/user/mo after), up to 300 users, requires a base M365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium license — best fit for most independent and small RIA firms. M365 Copilot Enterprise: $30/user/mo annual ($360/year per seat), requires an underlying M365 E3, E5, or Business Premium license. Free Copilot Chat is bundled with eligible M365 subs. Consumer Copilot Pro ($20/mo) is a different product — not appropriate for firm data. Copilot Studio (custom agents) is priced separately.