u/cloud_9_infosystems

For anyone evaluating this for their org — Microsoft has rolled out Copilot Chat as a native panel inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. Here is what I have found after deploying it for a few clients:

What is free:

• Copilot Chat in Outlook — all eligible M365 users, no extra license
• Web-grounded AI chat, file uploads, Copilot Pages

What needs a license:

• Word/Excel/PPT/OneNote = needs the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license (admin-assigned add-on)
• Enterprise data grounding (searches your emails, files, meetings) — Premium only
• Meeting summaries — Premium only

Key things IT admins should know:

• Prompts are NOT used to train models
• Data stays within your tenant boundary
• You control everything through M365 Admin Center + Cloud Policy
• Web search can be toggled on/off per policy
• Microsoft recommends phased rollout — pilot first, then scale

Deployment is 3 steps:

1. Verify plan eligibility (Business Standard/Premium, E3, E5)
2. Assign licenses in admin center
3. Configure Copilot Control System policies

We wrote up a detailed guide covering licensing comparison, app-by-app features, and deployment steps: https://cloud9infosystems.in/copilot-chat-microsoft-365-apps-guide/

Happy to answer questions if anyone is rolling this out.