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Which Copilot feature should you use?

Answer five questions to see what fits your task best.

question 1 of 5

What should your task produce?

Pick all that apply.

Answer a question to see a match.

All Copilot features

Explore the features available in Copilot and learn when to use them.

Commonly mixed up

These features are easy to confuse. Here's how to tell which one fits.

Notebook, agent, saved prompt or scheduled prompt?

You want Copilot to answer from the same project files each time

You want a go-to specialist you can share with the team

You ask the same thing the same way each time

You want it to run without you asking

Power Automate or Copilot Studio?

It only moves or copies things, the same steps every time

The steps are fixed, but one step needs reading or judgment

It decides what to do, answers people, or acts across systems

Copilot in the file or Skills?

You want AI help on the file you're working on

You want a task done the same way each time (Excel and PowerPoint)

Power Automate or Power Apps?

Something should happen on its own, behind the scenes

People need screens to click through: forms, buttons, their own view

Accurate as of October 9, 2026. Microsoft changes features and plans often.

Copilot feature FAQ

What are the main Microsoft Copilot features?

Copilot is more than the chat window.

The main features are Copilot Chat for quick answers, Copilot in Outlook for your inbox and calendar, Notebooks for ongoing projects, agents for jobs you repeat, Researcher and Analyst for cited reports and data, scheduled prompts that run on their own, and Copilot Studio for agents that take actions and connect to other systems.

Which one fits depends on the task, and that's what the finder above sorts out.

Do I need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license?

Not for everything.

Copilot Chat, Copilot in Outlook for your own inbox and calendar, Pages, Notebooks and agents that use only instructions and public websites are usually included with a Microsoft 365 work account.

Researcher, Analyst, scheduled prompts, meeting prep in Outlook and editing documents with Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint need the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license, which is about $30 per person per month on enterprise plans or $21 on the Business plan for companies under 300 people.

Copilot Studio and Copilot Cowork use credits your IT team funds.

What are Copilot Notebooks?

A Notebook is a workspace for one project in Copilot. You add the files, pages, meeting notes and links you keep using, plus instructions for how Copilot should answer, and Copilot answers only from what you added. You don't re-upload or re-explain the project each time.

Use one for ongoing work like a campaign, a client or a quarterly report. Free lesson: set up your first Copilot Notebook in under 15 minutes →

What are Copilot agents?

An agent is a specialist for one area of your work, with its own instructions and reference files. You can reuse it or share it with your team.

Use one for a job you do the same way each time, like drafting briefs from a template or answering questions from your brand guidelines. For agents that take actions or connect to other systems, you need Copilot Studio.

What can Copilot do in Outlook?

Copilot in Outlook can read your own inbox and calendar, so it can summarize threads, draft replies and catch you up on what you missed without the paid license. That makes it one of the easiest places to start.

Meeting prep, which pulls related emails, files and past meetings into a summary, needs the paid Copilot license, and IT has to turn on meeting insights.

> who made this

Hi, I'm Riley. I spent a decade doing marketing strategy for Disney Parks and Macy's, and the last two years learning everything I could about AI and teaching others what I learn. I built this to help you find the features you're not using yet.

Riley Beresini · Founder, Chasing Next

What's the difference between Copilot Researcher and Analyst?

Both are agents that usually need the paid Copilot license. On work accounts they share about 25 runs per person per month.

Researcher searches the web and your work files and writes a report with citations. It can take up to 45 minutes.

Analyst writes and runs Python code on your spreadsheets and data files, and shows you the code.

Use Researcher for a question that needs sources, Analyst for a question about numbers.

Why is my team only using Copilot for the basics?

Most people don't know everything their tools can do, or how to set them up for their work, so they're stuck on the surface.

Copilot can do a lot more than chat, like Notebooks that hold a project's files, agents that handle a repeat job, and scheduled prompts that run on their own.

Chasing Next creates custom programs that help teams get more out of their tools, with everyone building workflows for their own work. See how it works →