Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft · United States
What it is
Microsoft’s AI assistant. It comes in two very different forms. One is a free consumer assistant in Windows, Edge and Bing. The other is Microsoft 365 Copilot, a paid layer inside the Office apps — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams — that drafts, summarises and answers questions grounded in your own work content. A third form, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, sits between them. (GitHub Copilot, the developer coding tool, is a separate product on separate terms and is not covered here.)
How it works
Copilot is a product built around large language models, not a single model. Microsoft 365 Copilot orchestrates three things: the models, the content in your Microsoft Graph (the emails, chats and documents you already have access to), and the Office apps. It answers grounded in tenant data you are permitted to see, and can also ground answers in the web through Bing. The models are multi-model: OpenAI’s GPT models run on Azure OpenAI, and since January 2026 Anthropic’s Claude models are also available, with Anthropic named as a subprocessor.
Who is behind it
- Owner
- Microsoft Corporation, a publicly listed United States company (CEO Satya Nadella). Microsoft is a major investor in and partner of OpenAI, and now also uses Anthropic’s Claude models within Copilot.
- Founded
- Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen; the Copilot line dates from 2023.
- Headquarters
- Redmond, Washington, United States.
Plans
- Microsoft Copilot — free / Copilot Pro · Consumer (free / paid)Personal Microsoft account; the assistant in Windows, Edge and Bing.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Business) · TeamLicensed add-on for smaller organisations, signed in with a work or school account.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Enterprise) and Copilot Chat · Enterprise / WorkspaceLicensed, Entra ID sign-in; the enterprise-data-protection tier.
- Azure OpenAI Service · API directThe model layer Microsoft 365 Copilot runs on, available to developers through Azure.
How it handles your data
The two forms handle data very differently, and the difference is the whole point. Consumer Copilot trains on your conversations by default, and its human review of some conversations cannot be switched off. Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat, signed in with a work or school account, are the opposite: Microsoft’s terms say prompts, responses and Graph data are not used to train the foundation models, human review is opted out, your data stays within your organisation’s tenant, and administrators control retention through Purview. The EU Data Boundary keeps EU users’ processing in the EU; for New Zealand users processing may still occur in the United States or other regions, and Anthropic’s models sit outside that boundary. The safe footing for confidential work is the licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot, not the consumer assistant.
Sources for this description
- Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot — Microsoftlive sourcePerma.cc recordas at 30 May 2026
- Enterprise data protection in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat — Microsoftlive sourceas at 31 May 2026
- What is Microsoft 365 Copilot? — Microsoftlive sourceas at 31 May 2026
- Privacy FAQ for Microsoft Copilot (consumer) — Microsoftlive sourcePerma.cc recordas at 30 May 2026
- Anthropic as a subprocessor for Microsoft Online Services — Microsoftlive sourceas at 31 May 2026
- About Microsoft (company facts and leadership) — Microsoftlive sourceas at 31 May 2026
What is safe, on which plan
Each cell summarises what the provider’s terms and the applicable rules say. The colour is our summary of the sources, not advice — select a cell to read the reasoning and follow the sources yourself.
- Green
- Amber
- Red
- Black
- Not yet assessed
| Data category | Consumer (free / paid) | Team | Enterprise / Workspace | API direct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Public information | ||||
| 2. Internal non-confidential | ||||
| 3. Internal confidential (non-privileged) | ||||
| 4. Legally privileged | ||||
| 5. Personal information (Privacy Act 2020) | ||||
| 6. Sensitive personal information | ||||
| 7. Children’s information | ||||
| 8. Court-protected material |
1. Public information
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
2. Internal non-confidential
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
3. Internal confidential (non-privileged)
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
4. Legally privileged
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
5. Personal information (Privacy Act 2020)
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
6. Sensitive personal information
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
7. Children’s information
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
8. Court-protected material
- Consumer (free / paid)
- Team
- Enterprise / Workspace
- API direct
Select any cell to see what the sources say and why.
Statements about provider terms, plans, and defaults will go stale. This profile names its last review date above.
Where to next
Our framework
The reference behind every answer: the eight kinds of information, the five plans, and what each colour means.
Our frameworkGuidance
Our view on the four questions to ask before you use a tool — confidentiality, privilege, privacy, and the professional rules.
GuidanceAbout us
Who is behind this, how we keep it reliable, and why you can trust it.
About us