As one of those involved in ushering in a new age of artificial intelligence (AI) for business purposes, Microsoft developed Copilot to eliminate repetitive customer service, sales, and operational tasks. You can integrate Microsoft Copilot in multiple environments, including Dynamics 365. Since its initial rollout in late 2023, Copilot has evolved significantly. It has expanded from a simple AI assistant into a broader ecosystem that now includes Copilot Chat, Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot in Dynamics 365, and Copilot Studio for building custom AI agents.
Below is an overview of how to enable Microsoft Copilot across your organization.
Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant powered by large language model (LLM) technology. It draws information from different parts of the Microsoft ecosystem to help users find solutions to everyday tasks. Businesses that enable Copilot for the workforce can help them streamline workflows, increase productivity, and become more efficient.
Copilot is now embedded across the Microsoft 365 suite, including Teams, Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, and is also available as a standalone chat experience through Copilot Chat, which comes at no additional cost with eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
One of the most significant advantages of Copilot is its deep integration with Microsoft’s suite of tools. Organizations looking to boost efficiency can leverage Copilot’s automation to reduce manual workloads, allowing employees to focus on strategic initiatives. Whether drafting documents in Microsoft Word or analyzing trends in Excel, Copilot brings AI-powered insights directly into daily workflows.
Microsoft Copilot licensing has evolved into a tiered structure since its initial launch. Your organization needs an eligible Microsoft 365 plan, such as Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, E3, or E5, before adding Copilot.
Here’s how pricing currently breaks down:
Copilot is now available across the full Microsoft 365 suite, including Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Loop, and Power Platform. No separate phased rollout is required; once licenses are assigned, users can access Copilot features immediately in supported apps.
Here’s how to activate Copilot: Once you’ve purchased a Microsoft plan, you must ensure those solutions are available and enabled for your tenant.
Copilot services connect to Microsoft 365 endpoints. Businesses must ensure their network settings align with Microsoft 365 connectivity principles, which keeps latency at a minimum. Solutions like Loop, Teams, and Excel use WebSocket connections, so your organization needs to enable those as well.
Administrators can assign Copilot licenses through the Microsoft 365 admin center. Navigate to Users > Active Users, select the user(s), click Manage product licenses, and enable the appropriate Copilot license. You can also use PowerShell or the Microsoft Graph API to handle bulk license assignments. Follow the steps in this setup guide if you haven’t already provisioned tenant users.
Once you assign them a Copilot license, users can access the technology within a Microsoft application. Some, like Word, put up a Copilot dialog box, while others require you to select the Copilot button from the menu ribbon.
Copilot is now built into Windows 11 as a generally available feature, and there is no need to jump through hoops to install or activate it.
To access Copilot in Windows 11, users can open the Copilot app from the Start menu, use the Win+C keyboard shortcut, or click the Copilot icon if it appears in the taskbar. If the icon isn’t visible, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar and toggle the Copilot option on.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft’s approach to Copilot in Windows has shifted. In March 2026, Microsoft announced plans to scale back Copilot integrations from several built-in Windows apps, including Notepad, Photos, Snipping Tool, and Widgets, in response to user feedback that the AI integrations felt intrusive. The company has stated it will take a more intentional approach, focusing Copilot on experiences that are “genuinely useful and well-crafted.”
For businesses, Copilot in Windows 11 can be managed through Group Policy or Microsoft Intune. Administrators can enable or disable Copilot across managed devices, control whether the taskbar icon appears, and configure access policies to align with organizational security requirements.
Copilot works alongside users when they use Microsoft applications to complete business tasks. Microsoft also provides Business Chat, which works in all Microsoft 365 apps. It lets users initiate actions using natural language prompts. Examples include:
If your application already has access to Copilot, users can switch it on from within an application from the Copilot ribbon menu.
Keep in mind that there’s an important distinction between Copilot Chat and the full Microsoft 365 Copilot experience. Copilot Chat, available at no extra cost with eligible subscriptions, provides AI assistance grounded in web data. However, it doesn’t access your organization’s emails, files, or Teams conversations. For that deeper integration with workplace data, a paid Copilot license is required.
You can enable Copilot from within specific Dynamics 365 modules. In many regions, Copilot is now turned on by default for organizations with an Azure OpenAI Service endpoint available. For all other organizations, an admin must first provide consent for cross-region data movement in the Power Platform admin center before enabling Copilot in individual apps.
For example, to set up Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales, you need to go through the following steps:
Admins can also control Copilot access at the tenant level through the Power Platform admin center. Navigate to Copilot > Settings > Dynamics 365 Sales > Copilot to specify which environments or environment groups can use Copilot capabilities. This gives administrators granular control—you can enable Copilot for production environments while keeping it off in development or sandbox instances.
Instructions will vary for other modules like Customer Service. That’s why it’s helpful to have a Microsoft partner like Internet eBusiness Solutions (IES) to guide you through the setup.
It’s also worth mentioning Copilot for Sales, which is a distinct product from the Copilot features built into Dynamics 365 Sales. Copilot for Sales is included with higher-tier subscriptions (Enterprise and Premium) at no additional license cost. It extends Copilot capabilities into Outlook and Teams, allowing sellers to update CRM records from Outlook, get AI-generated email drafts grounded in CRM data, and receive real-time meeting summaries in Teams.
To deploy Copilot for Sales, administrators should install it as an integrated app from the Microsoft 365 admin center and then create setup policies in the Teams admin center to assign it to users.
Teams makes it easier to keep up with important conversation points from a meeting. If someone forgets to take notes, Copilot can summarize the conversations in a document outlining crucial decisions and tasks assigned to team members. The technology can also review the pros and cons from a meeting to help make future gatherings more productive.
You can add Copilot within Teams with the following steps:
Admins can make Copilot available for specific chats, meetings, and channels. They can also configure Copilot settings from the admin center.
Copilot in Teams now provides real-time summaries during calls and meetings, generates follow-up action items, and can pull key information from chat threads on demand. For meetings, Copilot can answer questions about what was discussed even if a participant joined late or missed the meeting entirely.
To get the most out of Copilot in Teams meetings, administrators should ensure transcription is enabled. In the Teams admin center, go to Meetings > Meeting policies, select the Global policy, scroll to Recording & transcription, and turn on the Transcription toggle. Without transcription enabled, Copilot won’t be able to generate meeting summaries or answer questions about meeting content.
Beyond the built-in Copilot experiences, Microsoft also offers Copilot Studio, a platform for building custom AI agents tailored to your organization’s specific workflows. All Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users get access to Copilot Studio for creating internal-facing agents at no additional cost.
For organizations that need to publish agents to external channels like websites or customer-facing apps, a standalone Copilot Studio license is available at $200 per 25,000 Copilot Credits per month. Credits are consumed each time an agent completes a task or generates a response. Pay-as-you-go pricing through Azure is also an option for teams with variable usage.
Put your company at the forefront of Microsoft’s latest innovations by partnering with IES. Whether you’re figuring out how to set up Copilot for the first time, evaluating the right licensing tier for your organization, or looking to enable Copilot across Dynamics 365, Teams, and Microsoft 365, our team can help you navigate the process. Learn more about our services by contacting one of our representatives.