How to Set Up Microsoft 365 Copilot for Your Team

By the end of this guide, the people you choose will have Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses inside your existing Microsoft 365 tenant. You will have checked the data and privacy settings and sent staff three first tasks to try. Microsoft’s current documentation calls the product Microsoft Copilot, so you may see both names.

Before you start

Pick one admin to own licensing. Microsoft says you need at least the License Administrator or User Administrator role to assign licenses. Also confirm which Microsoft 365 plan you already have, because Copilot is sold as an add-on to eligible plans.

Microsoft’s license options page says Copilot Business is an add-on for organizations with up to 300 users. It requires an annual commitment and an eligible Business license. Eligible plans include Business Premium, Business Standard, Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Apps for Business and Teams Essentials.

Option	What it adds for a team	Price as listed
Copilot Business add-on	Copilot on top of your current Business plan	$18.00 per user per month paid yearly (promotional, first year only)
Business Standard with Copilot	Bundle with the Standard plan	$23.50 per user per month paid yearly
Business Premium with Copilot	Bundle with the Premium plan	$32.00 per user per month paid yearly

The pricing page says the add-on promotion runs from July 1 to December 31, 2026. It also says some advanced AI features use usage-based billing on top of the license fee. Check the page for current prices before you buy.

Create the account and workspace

Copilot lives in your Microsoft 365 tenant, so there is no separate workspace to create. Follow Microsoft’s adoption guide in this order.

1. Get your organization ready. Microsoft recommends its Copilot Optimization Assessment before you deploy.
2. Choose your Copilot license.
3. Check that your Microsoft 365 apps and network meet the requirements and that app privacy settings allow Copilot.
4. Assign licenses using the Setup guide in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
5. Send a welcome email and allow feedback.

The pricing page lists a Try for free option. It says the trial lasts one month and needs a credit card. It also says the trial converts to a paid subscription unless you cancel.

Invite your team

Microsoft calls this assigning licenses. Use the Licenses page when you want to give one product to many people.

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Billing, then Licenses.
2. Select the Copilot product.
3. Select Assign licenses.
4. Type the name of a user or group and select it. You can add up to 20 users or groups at a time.
5. Select Turn apps and services on or off if you want to limit what each person gets.
6. Select Assign and close the pane.

To license one person, go to Users, then Active users, select the row and open Licenses and Apps. Microsoft’s license steps also show how to fix errors under the Errors & Issues tab. Common causes are no free licenses, conflicting services or an invalid usage location.

Set the admin and data settings

Microsoft’s privacy page says Copilot only surfaces organizational data that each person has at least view permission to. That makes sharing hygiene the first job. Review SharePoint and OneDrive permissions before staff start asking questions.

Check these settings.

• Connected experiences. If you turn off connected experiences that analyze content, Copilot is unavailable in Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.
• Optional connected experiences. Turning these off removes optional Copilot features, such as web search.
• Third-party models. Microsoft says admins decide whether Anthropic and OpenAI models can power Copilot experiences.
• Feedback. Customers can manage feedback through admin controls. Microsoft says it does not use this feedback to train the foundation models.
• Activity history. Admins can view stored interactions with Content search or Microsoft Purview, and users can delete their own history from the My Account portal.

Microsoft states that prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph are not used to train foundation models.

Connect your other apps

Copilot already works across your Microsoft 365 apps, including Teams. For outside tools, Microsoft says Copilot can reference them through Microsoft Graph connectors or agents.

In the Integrated apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center, admins can view the permissions an agent needs, plus its terms and privacy statement. Admins choose which agents are allowed. Read each agent’s privacy statement before you approve it. For a specific CRM, follow the vendor’s linked guide for any connector.

Tasks to try first

Summarize a Teams meeting

Use this when someone missed a call and needs the outcome. Ask Copilot in the meeting recap and paste this.

Summarize this meeting. List decisions, action items with an owner for each, and anything left unresolved.

Draft a reply in Outlook

Use this when a customer email needs a careful answer. Open the message, start a Copilot reply, and use this prompt.

Draft a polite reply that answers the customer's two questions. Ask for the order number if it is missing. Keep it under 100 words and do not commit to a date.

Turn a document into a slide outline

Use this when you need a short deck from a long proposal. Open the file in PowerPoint or Word and send this.

Create a six-slide outline from this document for a customer meeting. Give each slide a title and three short bullets. Add a final slide with next steps.

For policy wording, see how to write an AI use policy. Microsoft’s adoption guide suggests linking that policy in your welcome email.