How to use Microsoft Copilot: a beginner's guide to the app, voice, Vision, images, memory and Office

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s AI assistant, and it turns up in a lot of places: a website, an app for Windows, Mac and phones, the Edge browser, and inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Microsoft also moved personal users to an updated Copilot app in August 2026. This tutorial covers where to start, how to sign in, how to chat, talk, share your screen, make images and manage what Copilot remembers, and which plan you need for Copilot in the Office apps. It is based on Microsoft’s own help pages and pricing page as of October 2026.

What you need

• A device and a browser or the app. Copilot runs on the web and in the Microsoft Copilot app for Windows, macOS, iPhone, iPad and Android.
• An account to sign in with. A personal Microsoft account works everywhere. On the web, Mac and mobile you can also use an Apple ID or Google account.
• Nothing to pay, to begin with. Chat, image creation and file uploads are free within limits. Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook needs a Microsoft 365 subscription, covered in Step 7.

Step 1: Pick where to use Copilot

A note on the web address. Microsoft’s help page now lists both copilot.cloud.microsoft and www.copilot.com, and says web users are redirected automatically to the updated version of Copilot on the web, so an old bookmark should still get you there.

If you used the older consumer app on a phone, Microsoft says you need to download the updated version. Your chats, images and other content move across, and files you created or shared in the old app move to OneDrive.

Step 2: Sign in

Microsoft says signing in gets you your chat history, more image creation, longer conversations and extended voice sessions, so it is worth doing from the start.

1. Open Copilot on the web or in the app.
2. Choose Sign in.
3. Pick your account type. On the web, Mac and mobile, a personal account can be a Microsoft account, Apple ID or Google account. The Windows app needs a Microsoft account.
4. Check the label next to your profile at the bottom of the left-hand pane. It reads Personal or Work.

That label matters. The updated app lets you sign in with a personal account, a work or school account, or both, and switch between them with the account switcher. Microsoft keeps the two separate. With a personal account, Copilot draws on your own content, such as OneDrive files and Outlook.com email, plus the web. With a work or school account, it uses your organization’s chats, email and files under your employer’s rules. If you pay for Microsoft 365 at home, sign in with the same Microsoft account that holds the subscription, or Copilot won’t see it.

Step 3: Start your first chat

1. Select New chat in the left-hand pane.
2. Type your request in the message box. Be clear and specific about what you want, who it is for and what format you need.
3. Send it with the arrow.
4. Ask follow-up questions in the same chat to narrow the answer, change the format or go deeper.

Microsoft’s help page for personal accounts lists Quick response for fast answers, Think Deeper for harder questions (it takes up to about 10 seconds), Study and learn for explanations and quizzes, Smart, which adjusts how much it reasons, and Search for current information with citations. The mode you pick stays on until you change it, and some modes need you to be signed in.

To work from a document or image, attach it with the + icon. Microsoft lists file uploads among the free features.

Step 4: Talk to Copilot

Copilot Voice is a real-time spoken conversation, and Microsoft lists it for personal accounts as well as work accounts.

1. Open Copilot.
2. Select the Voice icon in the message box.
3. Allow microphone access if your browser or device asks.
4. Wait for the audio greeting to finish, then start speaking.
5. Select the Microphone icon to mute or unmute yourself.
6. Select the X icon to end the session. A text transcript is then available in the chat.

You can interrupt Copilot while it is speaking and it will respond to what you say instead. On Windows, the Copilot key or Windows key + C opens Copilot, and Microsoft also offers an opt-in “Hey, Copilot” wake phrase. Voice sessions can be time limited and may disconnect automatically, and voice is available in a growing but not complete list of languages and regions.

Step 5: Show Copilot your screen or camera with Vision

Copilot Vision lets Copilot look at what you are looking at during a voice chat and talk you through it, whether that is a confusing settings page, a chart or the view through your phone’s camera.

1. Start a voice chat, as in Step 4.
2. On a computer, select the screen share arrow. On a phone, grant camera permission and select the camera icon.
3. Ask your question out loud.
4. To stop, select Stop sharing on a computer or the camera icon again on a phone. This ends Vision but not the voice chat.

Microsoft says Vision may highlight parts of the screen, but it won’t click, type or scroll for you, and it doesn’t carry what it saw from one Vision conversation to the next. The first time, you may be asked to accept a privacy notice. Availability can vary by region during rollout.

There is also a plan requirement. Microsoft’s Vision help page says that with a personal account you need a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium subscription. The pricing page describes paid plans as having “higher usage than free” for visual help from your screen or camera, so what a free account gets may vary.

Step 6: Create an image

Image creation survived the August app update, and Microsoft says it is free subject to limits. In the updated app, images live in the Create section.

1. Open Create from the Apps and more icon in the Copilot app or on the web, or go straight to the “What do you want to create?” page.
2. Select Create an image.
3. Describe the picture you want in the prompt box, or pick a template under Explore images to fill in a starting prompt.
4. Optionally, attach a reference image with the + icon and Add an image.
5. Choose a style, such as Photorealistic, Surrealism or Anime, and optionally a color palette.
6. Choose a size: Square (1024 x 1024), Portrait (1024 x 1536) or Wide (1536 x 1024).
7. Select the arrow to generate, then save or copy the result, or refine it with Transform with AI and the edit and text tools.

Paid plans raise the limit: Microsoft lists “higher usage than free” for AI image creation on Personal and Family, “extensive” on Premium and the highest on Pro. Our guide to the best AI image generators compares Copilot with the other options.

Step 7: Use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

This is the part that costs money. Copilot inside the desktop Office apps comes with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Premium and Pro.

1. Open Word, Excel or PowerPoint and sign in with the Microsoft account that holds your subscription.
2. Look for Copilot on the Home tab or in the sidebar.
3. For bigger jobs, select Tools, then Edit with Copilot, in the Copilot prompt box. Microsoft says this feature, previously called Agent Mode, uses Anthropic models and builds the document, spreadsheet or deck in front of you.
4. Type a detailed request. Microsoft’s examples include a seven-slide executive brief, a two-page customer brief with a 30-day checklist, and a five-slide explainer for a particular age group.

Microsoft’s features page sums up the rest. In Word, Copilot drafts a first version from a prompt and your notes. In Excel, it turns raw data into insights, but the file must be saved to OneDrive with AutoSave on. In PowerPoint, it builds a presentation from an outline. In Outlook, it summarizes your inbox so you can decide what to deal with first.

Two catches. On Family, Premium and Pro, Microsoft says Copilot is for the subscription owner only; other people on the plan get the apps and storage but not Copilot. And on Premium and Pro, the pricing page lists Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote as web and mobile only. If you would rather keep using ChatGPT in Office, our guide to ChatGPT for Excel, Word and PowerPoint covers OpenAI’s add-in, and how to turn off Copilot explains how to hide Copilot in each app.

Step 8: Manage what Copilot remembers

Copilot can remember details about you, such as your interests or how you like answers written, and use them in later chats. The simplest controls are conversational:

• See what it knows: ask “What do you know about me?”
• Add something: ask it to remember it, for example “Remember that I like gardening.”
• Remove something: ask it to forget that item.

In the Copilot app Microsoft documented before the August update, the main switch is under your profile icon, then Memory, then Personalization and memory, with a Delete all Memory option on the same page. Turning personalization off makes Copilot forget its memories, while your past conversations stay visible. Microsoft notes that the updated app has its own privacy page, so the labels may differ slightly in your version. The same page explains how to stop your conversations being used for model training, using the Training on conversation activity and Training on voice conversations switches under Privacy, and says Copilot keeps conversation history for 18 months unless you delete it. For a walk-through of clearing chats across assistants, see how to delete AI chat history.

Which plan do you need?

Personal, Family and Premium come with a one-month free trial, though eligibility varies by region. Personal and Family include AI credits, and when you use them up a feature may stop working until your allowance resets; you can check what is left under Services & subscriptions in your Microsoft account.

Premium is also where newer features land first. Cowork, which plans and carries out multi-step tasks, is a preview feature for Premium and Pro, and Browse with Copilot, which clicks and types in Edge for you, is rolling out to Premium subscribers in the US. Microsoft warns that Browse with Copilot is experimental and should not be used for banking or sensitive data; our best AI browsers guide covers it alongside rivals. For a fuller breakdown, read Microsoft Copilot plans explained.

Tips for getting more out of Copilot

• Start free. Use the app for a week before paying. Move to Personal if you want Copilot in Word and Excel, and to Premium only if you keep hitting limits.
• Match the mode to the question. Search for anything recent, Think Deeper for problems with several steps, Study and learn when you want to understand rather than just get an answer.
• Use the right account. If Copilot doesn’t appear in Word, check you are signed in with the account that owns the Microsoft 365 subscription.
• Don’t look for retired features. Microsoft removed Group Chat, Podcasts and Deep Research from the consumer app on August 18, 2026. You can download existing podcasts from your library, and Copilot Tasks users are being moved to Cowork.
• Check the output. Copilot can misread speech, numbers and instructions. Review anything before you send it or rely on it.

Where to go next

For an overall verdict, read our Microsoft Copilot review, and see the Copilot profile for product facts. If you are choosing between assistants, compare Copilot vs ChatGPT or read our guide to choosing an AI assistant. For writing help across tools, see the best AI writing assistants.