A conversational feature of Microsoft Copilot open to eligible subscriptions with no Copilot licence needed. Earlier it carried the name Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, and some admin centre labels may not have caught up.
Also called Microsoft Copilot Chat; formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Copilot Chat in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Microsoft Copilot
Licensed users get this workplace AI assistant, which grounds large language models in organisational data from Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps. It respects existing permissions, so people see only what they could already open; without the licence, people use the web-grounded Microsoft Copilot Chat instead.
- Licence
What entitles one particular user to the services a subscription offers. Each product licence is made up of several service plans (one per app or service), and before giving it to someone an admin has to record that user's usage location.
- EARLIER
Within nested DAX row contexts, lets an inner calculation read a column as it stood in an outer pass; EARLIEST jumps to the outermost. Most people now use variables, which read more clearly.
- Microsoft Copilot Chat
A secure AI chat that comes with qualifying Microsoft 365 licences and draws mainly on the web. Unlike the licensed Microsoft Copilot, it only works with organisational content that a user uploads, has open in Outlook or Teams, or reaches through a pay-as-you-go agent.
Related terms
- Analyst
A reasoning agent built by Microsoft that comes alongside Researcher for people with a Microsoft Copilot licence, and writes and runs code to work through raw data such as multiple spreadsheets. Agent settings don't govern it, because it belongs to the core Copilot Chat experience.
- Billing policy
Ties an Azure subscription and resource group to the whole tenant or to one group, so that pay-as-you-go Copilot usage (SharePoint agents or agents in Copilot Chat, for instance) gets charged. Admins create them in the Microsoft 365 admin center, can have 50 at most, and a budget on one only raises alerts.
- Copilot controls
A three-part approach covering security and governance, management controls, and measurement and reporting, used to govern Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Chat and agents. Admin centres you already have deliver it; it is not a separate purchase.
- Copilot Cowork
Give it a job with several steps, such as writing and sending email, arranging a schedule or assembling documents, and this Microsoft Copilot agentic system does it, checking with the user before anything with consequences. Purview DLP can restrict its inputs using the Copilot and Copilot Chat location.
- Copilot pay-as-you-go billing
Charges selected Copilot services, for example SharePoint agents and agents in Copilot Chat, to a connected Azure subscription based on use. Admins configure it with billing policies, and the people using those services then don't need a Copilot licence.
- Copilot Search
Unlicensed users get Microsoft Search, while licensed ones automatically get this: AI-driven searching through the Microsoft Copilot app across Microsoft 365 and linked third-party sources, with a handover to Copilot Chat. It cannot be enabled on its own.
- DSPM for AI
Purview solution securing data used by Copilot, agents and AI apps. Its one-click recommendations generate policies, for example DLP scoped to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat, which you then adjust in the solution that owns them rather than in DSPM.
- E1
Microsoft's entry-level enterprise subscription, available under both Office 365 and Microsoft 365 branding. Anyone on it can use Copilot Chat, and SharePoint Advanced Management accepts it as a qualifying base.