Copilot from personal plans can now be used on work docs

Microsoft has announced that those with personal Microsoft 365 subscriptions can now use Copilot on their work documents, even if they don’t have a M365 Copilot licence from their organisation.

With multiple account access for Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps now enabled, this means an employee who has a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium plan can invoke Copilot (using their personal subscription) on work documents.

The personal Microsoft 365 account does not gain any access to the work file and Copilot will only function for content the user’s work identity can access.

The Copilot service effectively “sees” the document through the lens of that user’s Entra identity, with existing SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams file permissions, sensitivity labels, and access policies remaining in effect.

The personal account does also not inherit any special rights in the work environment, only providing the Copilot entitlement, while the data stays firmly under the work account’s domain.

Certain advanced Copilot features (like querying across multiple documents or organizational data) require an actual Microsoft 365 Copilot licence assigned to the user; a personal subscription alone won’t grant the ability to query other internal files or data beyond the open document.

By design, this limitation means that if an employee’s only means to Copilot access is their personal subscription, Copilot will work within the currently open document but cannot, for example, search a SharePoint or answer questions about other files in the tenant.

IT admins can block the use of personal Copilot on work content if it doesn’t meet an organisation’s compliance standards or timing.

All Copilot actions on work content are auditable and traceable by IT and any Copilot capabilities that involve broader data or internet access also remain under admin governance. 

Copilot also honours the user’s enterprise identity, which means it

All data that Copilot processes (the user’s prompt, and the content of the document) is secured within Microsoft’s cloud and data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.

Microsoft has also stated that it won't use a tenant’s content or Copilot interaction data to train foundational AI models or to improve Copilot for other customers. The personal Copilot subscription grants access to Copilot capabilities, but Microsoft 365 enterprise privacy commitments still apply to the content being processed.

In May, Microsoft launched its Copilot Wave 2 spring (northern hemisphere) release, introducing advanced artificial intelligence agents, and enhanced capabilities designed to boost human-agent collaboration at work.

Microsoft also recently introduced a specialisation for partners to demonstrate their experience and skills related to Microsoft 365 Copilot, including Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and agents.

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled Microsoft 365 Premium for individuals that bundles the company's AI assistant across apps including Outlook, Excel and Word.

Finding return on investment from Microsoft 365 Copilot to justify full-scale deployment is still “quite challenging”, however, a Gartner analyst told the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference audience in Sydney in May.