Copilot in M365 Apps: Word, Excel, Teams & More
Explore what Copilot can do inside each Microsoft 365 application — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneNote — with practical scenarios for business leaders.
AI in every app you already use
Imagine every M365 app had a brilliant colleague sitting next to you, ready to help.
In Word, that colleague drafts documents and rewrites paragraphs. In Excel, they analyse data and write formulas. In PowerPoint, they create presentations from a single sentence. In Outlook, they draft replies and summarise long email threads. In Teams, they summarise meetings you missed.
That’s Copilot for Microsoft 365 — AI assistance built directly into the tools your teams use every day.
App-by-app capabilities
Word — Draft, rewrite, summarise
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Draft from prompt | Create a full document from a text description | ”Draft a project proposal for our CRM migration” — first draft in seconds |
| Draft from files | Create a document based on existing files (reports, emails) | “Write an executive summary based on these 3 quarterly reports” |
| Rewrite | Rewrite selected text in a different tone or style | Change a technical section to plain English for the board |
| Summarise | Create a summary of a long document | Condense a 40-page contract into key points |
| Visualise as table | Convert text into a formatted table | Turn meeting notes into an action item table |
| Chat in document | Ask questions about the document content | ”What are the key risks mentioned in this report?” |
Excel — Analyse, formulate, visualise
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Analyse data | Identify trends, outliers, and patterns | ”What are the top 3 trends in this sales data?” |
| Generate formulas | Create complex formulas from plain English | ”Add a formula that calculates year-over-year growth” |
| Create charts | Build visualisations from data descriptions | ”Create a chart showing revenue by region” |
| Sort and filter | Apply data transformations via natural language | ”Highlight all rows where profit margin is below 10%“ |
| Add formula columns | Create new calculated columns | ”Add a column that shows the percentage of total for each product” |
| Chat about data | Ask questions about the spreadsheet | ”Which product had the highest growth rate last quarter?” |
Excel Copilot works best with formatted tables
Copilot in Excel performs best when data is in a formatted Excel table (not just a range of cells). The table structure helps Copilot understand column headers, data types, and relationships.
Tip for leaders: when rolling out Copilot, include basic Excel table formatting in your training programme. Clean data = better AI results.
PowerPoint — Create, design, organise
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Create from prompt | Build a presentation from a text description | ”Create a 10-slide deck on our 2025 AI strategy” |
| Create from file | Turn a Word document or PDF into slides | Transform a written report into a board presentation |
| Add a slide | Insert a new slide on a specific topic | ”Add a slide about competitive landscape” |
| Organise slides | Restructure and reorder the presentation | ”Move the financial slides to the beginning” |
| Designer integration | Apply professional design to slides | AI-powered layout, images, and formatting |
| Summarise presentation | Create a summary of the deck’s content | Quick overview of a colleague’s 50-slide deck |
Outlook — Draft, summarise, prioritise
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Draft replies | Generate email responses based on context | Reply to a client request with a professional response in seconds |
| Draft from scratch | Write new emails from a prompt | ”Write an email inviting the leadership team to an AI strategy workshop” |
| Summarise threads | Condense long email conversations | Get the key points from a 30-message thread in seconds |
| Coaching | Get suggestions on tone, clarity, and sentiment | Ensure a sensitive email strikes the right tone before sending |
| Calendar prep | Get meeting context and preparation materials | ”Prepare me for my 2pm meeting — who’s attending and what documents are relevant?” |
Teams — Meetings, chats, channels
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting summary | Summarise what was discussed after a meeting | Catch up on a meeting you missed in 30 seconds |
| Meeting recap | Recap action items, decisions, and key topics | ”What decisions were made in the budget review?” |
| Copilot during meeting | Ask questions in real-time during a live meeting | ”What has been said about the timeline so far?” |
| Chat catchup | Summarise unread messages in a Teams chat | Return from holiday and catch up on 200+ messages |
| Channel summary | Summarise recent activity in a Teams channel | ”What’s happened in the Engineering channel this week?” |
| Compose messages | Draft Teams messages with AI assistance | Write a professional announcement for the all-company channel |
OneNote — Summarise, generate, organise
| Capability | What it does | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Summarise notes | Create a summary of meeting notes or brainstorms | Distill a page of raw notes into structured takeaways |
| Generate content | Draft plans, lists, or outlines from prompts | ”Create a project plan outline for the office move” |
| Rewrite | Improve or restructure existing notes | Clean up messy brainstorm notes into a professional format |
| Ask questions | Query your notebook content | ”What action items did I capture from last week’s meetings?” |
🔄 Tomás picks top 3 apps for PacificSteel’s pilot
Tomás needs to choose which M365 apps to focus on for PacificSteel’s Copilot pilot with 100 users. He analyses where the most time is spent:
1. Teams (selected) — PacificSteel runs 50+ cross-site meetings per week. Engineers in Auckland, Christchurch, and Hamilton miss meetings across time zones. Meeting summaries and catchup would save an estimated 6 hours per person per month.
2. Excel (selected) — Production managers spend 3 hours daily building reports from raw manufacturing data. Copilot’s formula generation and data analysis could cut this to 30 minutes.
3. Outlook (selected) — Shift managers receive 80+ emails daily. Thread summarisation would save 45 minutes per day for 20 managers alone.
Word and PowerPoint (deferred) — Important but lower impact. Document drafting is valuable but doesn’t affect as many people as Teams, Excel, and Outlook.
Why prioritising apps matters for pilots
A common mistake in Copilot rollouts is trying to train users on AI in every app at once. Tomás’s approach is smarter:
- Focus on 3 apps where the time savings are measurable
- Choose apps that affect the most people (Teams and Outlook are universal)
- Pick one “power app” where the impact is dramatic (Excel for production data)
- Defer lower-impact apps to Phase 2 once users are comfortable
The exam may test this principle: successful pilots focus on high-impact use cases, not broad rollouts.
Tomás, the digital transformation lead at PacificSteel, asks: 'I need to analyse 6 months of manufacturing data to find trends and create charts for the board.' Which M365 app with Copilot best supports this?
Elena missed a critical 2-hour strategy meeting with a key client. She needs to know what was discussed, what decisions were made, and what action items were assigned. Which Copilot experience helps most?
🎬 Video coming soon
Next up: Copilot Studio and Microsoft Graph: Building Smarter Solutions — learn how to extend Copilot’s capabilities with custom agents and organisational data.