Published November 6, 2026
What the rollout involves
Microsoft 365 Copilot is now named Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is now Microsoft Copilot Chat.
Microsoft Copilot answers from content in Microsoft Graph: email, chats, meetings, calendar and documents. It shows a user only the organizational data that user has at least view permission to.
That makes the permissions model the main risk. A file shared with the whole organization is open to every employee. Copilot can find it and summarize it for any licensed user who asks.
Who gets a license, and when
Copilot Chat is included with eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions at no extra cost. It is mainly web-grounded. In Outlook it can also use the user's email, calendar, meetings and chats.
A Microsoft Copilot license adds grounding across all Microsoft 365 data the user can access, priority access and advanced agents. Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote varies with license and tenant settings.
The decision is who gets the paid license first, and how much cleanup must be done before they do. Licensing a small group early limits exposure while permissions are fixed.
The readiness report in the Microsoft 365 admin center flags the top 25% of unlicensed users by Microsoft 365 app usage each week, for customers who have bought Copilot licenses. Microsoft also names heavy Copilot Chat users as candidates for a license.
The license options
| Option | What it includes | Price on microsoft.com |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot Chat | Chat for users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription. Agent use is metered. | Included |
| Microsoft Copilot (enterprise add-on) | Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps and work-grounded chat. Requires a qualifying plan such as Microsoft 365 E3 or E5. | $30.00 per user per month, paid yearly |
| Microsoft Copilot Business (add-on) | For up to 300 users on Business Basic, Standard or Premium, Apps for Business or Teams Essentials. | $21.00 regular; $18.00 promotional, paid yearly; $25.20 monthly |
| Business Standard with Copilot | Bundle of the plan and Copilot, up to 300 users. | $23.50 paid yearly; $28.20 monthly |
| Business Premium with Copilot | Bundle of the plan and Copilot, up to 300 users. | $32.00 paid yearly; $38.40 monthly |
| Microsoft 365 E7 | E5, Microsoft Copilot, Entra Suite and Agent 365 in one plan. Generally available since May 1, 2026. | $99 per user, per Microsoft's March 2026 announcement |
The $18.00 Copilot Business price runs from July 1 to December 31, 2026, needs an annual commitment, and applies to the first year only.
Copilot licenses cannot be assigned to guests or other cross-tenant users. Copilot is not available with device-based licensing for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise.
The order of the work
- Check prerequisites. Users need a Microsoft Entra ID account, an Exchange Online mailbox for mail and calendar features, and OneDrive for some features. Move Microsoft 365 Apps to Current Channel or Monthly Enterprise Channel; Copilot is not available on Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel.
- Open the network. Allow the whole *.cloud.microsoft domain and WebSocket connections to it. TLS inspection and short proxy timeouts can break Copilot.
- Turn on auditing. Confirm Microsoft Purview Audit is on, so Copilot prompts and responses are captured in the unified audit log from the first day.
- Find the oversharing. Run the Content Management Assessment and the data access governance reports in SharePoint Advanced Management. Start with the most-used sites and sites shared with "Everyone except external users."
- Contain what cannot be fixed in time. Use Restricted Content Discovery to keep high-risk sites out of Copilot and organization-wide search without changing their permissions. Use Restricted Access Control to limit a site to named groups.
- Label sensitive content. Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive. Decide which labels Copilot may process.
- Pilot. License a small group from several business units, chosen for high existing Microsoft 365 use. Collect the questions they ask and the content they should not have seen.
- Deploy in waves. Expand by group, fixing the permissions in each group's sites before its licenses go out.
- Operate. Track usage, rerun the Content Management Assessment every 30 days as Microsoft recommends, and reassign idle licenses.
Where to plan extra time
- Permissions cleanup. By default, SharePoint sets sharing settings to the most permissive option. Organization-wide links and broken inheritance need review by site owners.
- Ownerless and inactive sites. Someone has to decide whether each one is archived, deleted or given an owner. Site lifecycle policies detect these sites, email owners and apply the enforcement actions you configure.
- Labeling. Agree the label taxonomy with legal, HR and records management before configuring it.
- Waiting on data. Usage report data typically arrives within 48 hours of the end of a day. Copilot Dashboard data processing takes up to seven days after licenses are assigned.
Details plans leave out
- Teams meetings. Copilot can use a meeting's content after it ends only if transcription or recording is turned on. Settle the recording policy with HR and legal first.
- Encrypted files. When a label applies encryption, the user needs the EXTRACT usage right as well as VIEW for Copilot to return the content.
- Label inheritance. New content created by Copilot in Word, PowerPoint and Outlook from a labeled file inherits the label. Users can override it unless labeling is mandatory.
- Content Copilot cannot read. Copilot does not return S/MIME-protected email, and cannot read password-protected documents unless the user has them open. It is not available in group mailboxes.
- Privacy controls. Turning off connected experiences that analyze content removes Copilot from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.
Cost and compliance
SharePoint Advanced Management is included with the Microsoft Copilot license. Some Purview capabilities need additional licenses. Check the Purview service description against the controls you plan to use.
The Copilot price on microsoft.com is an annual subscription that auto-renews. Microsoft states the prices shown may not reflect the actual list price.
Prompts and responses are stored in the user's mailbox. They can be searched in eDiscovery and kept or deleted with retention policies that use the "Microsoft Copilot Experiences" location. Set retention before rollout, so records and legal teams agree what is kept.
Purview data loss prevention has a location for Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat. It can stop Copilot from processing prompts with sensitive information types, or files and email with specific labels.
In the EU, Copilot is an EU Data Boundary service. Microsoft states that Anthropic models used as a subprocessor are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary, and admins decide whether to enable them.
Skills and operations
The work spans SharePoint administration, Purview, Entra ID, desktop engineering, network and training. The AI Administrator role gives access to Copilot administration without Global Administrator rights.
Measure adoption with the Microsoft Copilot usage report in the admin center. It shows enabled users, active users and the active users rate over 7, 28, 90 or 180 days, with each user's last activity date. Opening the Copilot pane does not count as activity; submitting a prompt does.
The Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights groups licensed users by habit. Microsoft defines power users as averaging 15 or more Copilot actions a week and active in at least 9 of the past 12 weeks.
Train by role, using the tasks each group does every week. Early adopters who become champions can take first-line questions from peers.
Settle these first
- Which sites are shared with everyone, and who owns them?
- Which content must stay out of Copilot, and by which control: permissions, labels, Restricted Content Discovery or DLP?
- Who gets the first licenses, and what has to be fixed before each wave?
- Are Teams transcription and recording allowed, and on what terms?
- How long are Copilot prompts and responses retained?
- What active users rate will trigger reassigning a license?
Questions
- Is Microsoft 365 Copilot the same as Microsoft Copilot?
- Yes. Microsoft renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to Microsoft Copilot Chat. Some licenses and price pages still use the old names during the transition.
- How much does a Microsoft Copilot license cost?
- On October 17, 2026, microsoft.com listed the enterprise add-on at $30.00 per user per month, paid yearly, on top of a qualifying plan. Copilot Business for up to 300 users listed at $21.00, with an $18.00 promotional price through December 31, 2026.
- Can Copilot show users files they should not see?
- Copilot shows only content the user already has at least view permission to. If a file is overshared, Copilot can surface it. Fix permissions, or use Restricted Content Discovery for sites that cannot be fixed before rollout.
- Which Office update channel does Copilot need?
- Copilot is available in all Microsoft 365 Apps update channels except Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel. Microsoft recommends Current Channel or Monthly Enterprise Channel.
- How do we measure Copilot adoption?
- Use the Microsoft Copilot usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center for enabled users, active users and the active users rate. The Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights adds trends and usage groups.