How to Use Microsoft Copilot in Teams, Word and Excel (2026 Guide)

Say you owe your team a status update on the SPGuides intranet launch, set for 11/16/2026. Open Copilot Chat to draft it, select the Copilot button in the lower-right corner of Word or Excel, and use Open Copilot in a Teams chat to catch up.

The catch is your license. Every work account gets Copilot Chat, but Copilot inside Word, Excel and Teams meetings needs more. I tested all of this today with an account that only has the free tier, so you’ll see exactly where it stops.

In this tutorial, we’ll check which Copilot you have, write a prompt that gets a usable answer, and then use Copilot in Teams, Word and Excel one app at a time. We’ll finish with a fix list for when the Copilot button is missing.

Which Copilot Do You Have? Check This First

Everything else in this guide depends on one label. Here’s how to find yours:

1. Sign in to m365.cloud.microsoft with your work account.
2. Open Copilot Chat, or scroll to the bottom of the home page.
3. Look at the label under your name.

On my test account, the label reads Work – Bijay Kumar – Copilot Chat (Basic):

There are three labels you might see. Here’s what each one means for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote:

Label	Add-on license?	Copilot inside Word and Excel
Copilot Chat (Basic)	No	Not included
M365 Copilot (Basic)	No	Standard access
M365 Copilot (Premium)	Yes, Microsoft Copilot	Full access, priority

So my Basic account can chat, but it can’t open Copilot inside a document. If the names confuse you, I compare every Copilot product in GitHub Copilot vs Microsoft Copilot, including how each tier is licensed.

One more naming note. In 2026, Microsoft renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to Microsoft Copilot Chat. Some screens and license names still use the old ones, so don’t panic if they don’t match.

The Sample Task We’ll Use

To keep this practical, I’ll use one real piece of work in every section: the SPGuides intranet launch on our /sites/SPGuides SharePoint site. Here’s where it stands:

• Go-live date: 11/16/2026.
• Done: the home page and the News web parts.
• Open: the Viva Connections dashboard.
• Files: a Word checklist named SPGuides Launch Checklist 2026.docx in the site’s Documents library.

If you’re building something similar, our SharePoint tutorials cover the site side. Here, we only care about getting Copilot to help with the paperwork around it.

Method 1: Draft with Copilot Chat (Works with Every Work Account)

Copilot Chat is the one part every Microsoft 365 work account gets. It’s the right place to start when you need a draft, a summary of text you paste in, or an answer from the web.

Here’s the prompt I typed at m365.cloud.microsoft/chat:

Write a short status update for my team about the SPGuides intranet launch. Goal: go live on 11/16/2026. Done: home page and news web parts. Open: Viva Connections dashboard. Keep it under 120 words, friendly tone, with 3 bullet points.

Copilot answered with “Here’s a concise team update:”, three bullets, and a closing thanks line. It stayed under 120 words and kept all three facts right:

How does this work?

Microsoft describes four parts of a good prompt: the goal, the context, the source and your expectations. Only the goal is required, but each extra part makes the answer more usable.

In my prompt, “Write a short status update” is the goal. The go-live date and the done and open items are the context. “Under 120 words, friendly tone, 3 bullet points” are the expectations.

There’s no source here, because a Basic account can’t search my mail or files on its own. So I typed the facts in. With a license, you could type / and pick the checklist file instead.

Before you paste anything sensitive, look for the shield icon at the top of the chat. Hovering over it on my account showed this:

Enterprise data protection applies to this chat means your prompts and answers get the same protection as your work email and SharePoint files. If you don’t see the shield, you’re probably signed in with a personal account.

Pro Tip: Compare “Summarize the project” with “Summarize the open risks in the launch checklist for our VP in five bullets, and flag anything overdue.” The second one gives you something you can send without rewriting.

Method 2: Use Copilot in Microsoft Teams

Teams has two different Copilots, and that trips people up. The Copilot Chat app sits at the top of your chat list and needs no extra license, but without one it only answers from the web.

Copilot in your actual chats, channels and meetings is different. It reads the conversation, so it needs the Microsoft Copilot license. My Basic account only gets the first one.

Catch up on a chat or channel

1. Open a busy chat and select Open Copilot in the upper-right corner.
2. Select Summarize what I’ve missed (it appears when there are 8 or more unread messages), or type a question.
3. For a channel post, open its replies and select Summarize thread.

A prompt like “What did we decide about the Viva Connections dashboard in the last week?” works well. Copilot looks back 30 days unless you name a different period.

How does this work?

Copilot only reads the text of the open chat or thread. It can’t read images, Loop components or files shared there, so open those separately. A channel thread needs at least 1,000 characters before it can be summarized.

Rewrite a message before you send it

Type your message, then select Rewrite with Copilot under the compose box. Choose Rewrite for a cleaner version, or Adjust to make it shorter, longer, more casual or more professional. Select Replace to use it.

Use Copilot in a meeting

In a meeting, select Copilot in the meeting controls and ask things like “What action items were assigned, and to whom?” It needs transcription, unless the organizer sets Allow Copilot and Facilitator to Only during the meeting. I walk through every option in how to use Copilot in Teams meetings.

After the meeting, the Recap tab and Copilot need a transcript to answer questions about what was said. If you only want notes, compare the options in our Teams meeting notes AI guide.

Method 3: Use Copilot in Word

Here’s where my test hit the wall. I opened SPGuides Launch Checklist 2026.docx in Word for the web with the Basic account, and there was no Copilot button anywhere. The ribbon only showed Editor.

That’s expected. Microsoft says the Copilot button only appears for users with Copilot access, and Copilot Chat (Basic) doesn’t include Word. With M365 Copilot (Basic) or (Premium), you’d see it.

Where the Copilot button is now

Older tutorials say to select Copilot on the Home tab. In 2026, Word, Excel and PowerPoint moved it to a floating Copilot button in the lower-right corner of the document, on Windows, Mac and the web.

You can also press Alt+C on Windows, Cmd+Control+I on a Mac, or F6 anywhere. To put it back on the ribbon, right-click the button and select Move to ribbon.

Draft, rewrite and summarize

• Draft: open Copilot and describe the topic, audience, tone and length. Type / to base it on a file, then select Generate.
• Rewrite: select text, choose Copilot on the mini toolbar, then Auto Rewrite or describe the change, and select Replace or Insert below.
• Summarize: type “Summarize this document” in the Copilot pane.
• Ask without edits: select Chat only so Copilot answers without touching the document.

For our checklist, a good draft prompt would be: “Using /SPGuides Launch Checklist 2026, write a one-page launch announcement for all staff. Friendly tone, end with the 11/16/2026 date.”

How does this work?

The / reference is the source part of the prompt, so Copilot reads the checklist instead of guessing. With the paid license, Word can also show an automatic summary at the top of documents of 200 words or more saved in OneDrive or SharePoint.

If you need the same document every week, Copilot isn’t the only option. You can create a Word document from a SharePoint list item with Power Automate, or build an agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot that writes Word documents.

Method 4: Use Copilot in Excel

Excel works the same way: open a workbook and select the Copilot button in the lower-right corner. Like Word, it needs M365 Copilot (Basic) or (Premium), so my Basic account can’t use it.

Excel’s Copilot has three modes, and it helps to know which one you’re in:

• Allow editing (the default) changes the workbook: formula columns, sorting, filtering, conditional formatting, charts and PivotTables. Microsoft used to call this Agent Mode.
• Plan shows the steps before it changes anything.
• Chat only answers questions and leaves your data alone.

Say our launch tasks live in a sheet with Task, Owner, Due Date and Status columns. Here are prompts I’d use:

Add a column named Days Left that shows the days between today and Due Date.
Highlight rows where Status is Open and Due Date is before 11/16/2026.
Create a PivotTable of open tasks by Owner.
Which owners have the most overdue tasks?

How does this work?

Each prompt names the exact columns, which is Microsoft’s top tip for Excel. The first three run in Allow editing mode and change the sheet. The last one is a question, so Chat only mode is enough.

Your data doesn’t have to be an Excel table anymore, but clear headers matter. If your tasks are in a SharePoint list, you can open the SharePoint list in Excel first and then ask Copilot about it.

Pro Tip: If you used the =COPILOT() worksheet function, stop. Microsoft retired it on 09/14/2026, and cells that recalculate now show #NAME?. Use the Copilot pane instead.

Which Method Should You Use?

You want to	Use	License needed
Draft text, ask the web, summarize pasted text	Copilot Chat	Any work account
Catch up on a Teams chat or channel	Open Copilot in Teams	Microsoft Copilot
Ask questions during a meeting	Copilot in meeting controls	Microsoft Copilot
Draft or rewrite inside a document	Copilot in Word	M365 Copilot (Basic) or (Premium)
Add formulas, charts or PivotTables	Copilot in Excel	M365 Copilot (Basic) or (Premium)

If you only have Copilot Chat (Basic), Method 1 is your daily tool. Paste the text in, ask, then copy the result into Word or Teams yourself. And if you’re weighing it against other tools, see whether Copilot is better than ChatGPT.

Why Can’t I See Copilot in Word or Excel?

Work through this list in order. The first two cover most cases I’ve seen:

• Look in the lower-right corner. The button moved off the Home tab in 2026.
• Check your label. Copilot Chat (Basic) doesn’t include Copilot in Word or Excel, exactly like my test.
• Refresh the license. After an admin assigns one, go to File > Account > Update License and restart the app.
• Sign out of personal accounts. Being signed in with a personal and a work account at once can stop the license from working.
• Check the update channel. Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel doesn’t get Copilot; Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel do.
• Turn on connected experiences. Under File > Account > Account Privacy, both content analysis and all connected experiences must be on.

In Teams, also check that the meeting wasn’t created outside your organization and that the organizer didn’t set Copilot to Off. And if Copilot shows up where you don’t want it, see how to uninstall Copilot in Windows 11.

Things to Keep in Mind

• Copilot respects permissions. It only shows content you can already open, so an overshared site is the real risk. Check site permissions in SharePoint before a rollout.
• Labels carry over. Copilot inherits sensitivity labels, so a protected document can block Open in Word. Create sensitivity labels in Microsoft 365 if you don’t have any yet.
• Check every number. Copilot’s draft is a start. My status update was right because I typed the facts in myself.
• Co-authors see Excel changes. Use Undo or version history when Copilot edits a shared workbook the wrong way.
• Meeting prompts can be retained. Even without a transcript, your company’s retention policies can keep Copilot prompts and answers.

A few more Copilot and Teams guides I’d keep open next to this one:

• Microsoft Teams AI Note Taker: How to Use It to Never Miss a Thing in Meetings
• How to Add a Public Website as a Knowledge Source in Copilot Studio
• Create a New Agent Using Microsoft Copilot Studio [Step-By-Step]
• Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Copilot Studio: Which One Wins for Your Team?

Frequently Asked Questions