A Tutorial Based on the Live Webinar, Transform Ideas into Action with Copilot Chat, presented by Gene McKelvey, MCT, on July 16, 2026.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is already available to most Microsoft 365 users — and most of them are barely scratching the surface of what it can do.
This tutorial walks through what Gene covered in the live session: what Copilot Chat is, how to talk to it effectively, and how to use it to produce real work outputs quickly. No prior AI experience required. This tutorial is based on our webinar and the official Microsoft course MS-4023: Transform Ideas into Action with Copilot Chat. You can also download our Practical Copilot Guide to supplement this tutorial. Browse all Copilot Training Courses when you are ready for more.
What You Will Learn
By the time you have worked through this tutorial, you will be able to:
- Describe what Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is and where it fits in everyday work
- Craft clear, effective prompts that drive better AI responses
- Use Copilot Chat to improve productivity and reduce time spent on routine tasks
- Understand how your data stays protected when you are signed in with a work account
Section 1: What Is Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat?
The name tells you a lot. It is not called Microsoft Pilot — it is called Copilot because you are still in the driver's seat. Copilot is there to support you, the same way a co-pilot assists the captain of a plane without taking over the controls. The decisions, the final output, the accountability stay with you.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat Basic is included with most Microsoft 365 subscriptions at no additional cost. It is grounded in the latest large language models and pulls real-time information from the web to help you think through ideas, draft content, do research, and get more done.
The difference between Basic and Premium: Copilot Chat Basic uses the web as its source of information. If you want Copilot to work with your internal organizational data — files in SharePoint, emails in Outlook, Teams messages — that requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium license.
For most of what is covered in this tutorial, the free version is all you need.
Watch the video clip: Stop Training AI with Your Data! This one-minute video covers one of the most important things business leaders need to understand before their teams start using AI tools at work: how signing in with a work account protects your company data through Microsoft's Enterprise Data Protection.
Enterprise Data Protection: What It Means for Your Organization
When employees use public AI tools with company data without signing into a managed account, that data can end up training public AI models. That is a significant risk most organizations have not fully addressed. Signing into Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat with a work or school account automatically activates Enterprise Data Protection. Here is what that covers:
- Encryption in transit and at rest — Your data is encrypted through HTTPS connections and Microsoft's storage service encryption.
- Private by design — Your prompts and responses are never used to train Microsoft's foundation AI models.
- Access controls respected — Copilot honors your organization's existing permissions, sensitivity labels, and retention policies.
- Regional compliance — Data stays within the applicable geographic region per Microsoft's processing commitments.
Tip: The practical implication for leadership: employees using Copilot Chat through a managed Microsoft 365 account are working within a governed, compliant environment. That is categorically different from someone pasting company data into a free consumer AI tool.
Section 2: Getting Into Copilot Chat
Copilot Chat is available in more places than most people realize:
- Web browser: Go to m365copilot.com and sign in with your work or school account.
- Microsoft Edge: Look for the Copilot icon (sometimes called the "rainbow donut") in the upper right corner of the browser.
- Microsoft Teams and Outlook: Look for the Copilot icon in the left sidebar or navigation panel.
- Windows and mobile: Copilot is available across platforms — Windows, Mac, and mobile.
Watch the video clip: Settings and Navigating the Chat Box, a 90-second walkthrough of two features most people skip: how to set custom instructions in Settings so Copilot responds to your preferences, and how to use built-in prompt categories when you are not sure where to start.
Figure 1: The Microsoft Copilot Interface
What You Will Find in the Interface
New Chat button — Use this every time you switch topics. Copilot builds context from your conversation; introducing a new subject mid-thread creates confusion. Start fresh when the topic changes.
Search bar — Find previous conversations quickly. Copilot remembers context within a conversation, but not across different chats.
AI Agents panel — Access built-in agents like Researcher and Analyst. These run longer, deeper tasks — think of them as a more autonomous mode of Copilot.
Recent chat history — Your previous conversations, searchable and accessible. Use these to pick up prior work without starting from scratch.
Add Content / Add Sources — Bring your own files into a conversation. Upload documents, pull from OneDrive or SharePoint, or add images — including photos of handwritten notes.
Prompt categories — When you are not sure how to start, Copilot offers categories such as Explain, Learn, and Brainstorm. The Prompt Gallery contains pre-built, curated prompts organized by use case that you can edit and save.
Prompt input box — This is where you type your instructions or questions. The more context you give, the better the response.
Dictation (voice input) — You can speak your prompts out loud. Most people speak at roughly 160 words per minute — significantly faster than typing. Copilot transcribes it and still generates a solid response.
EDP protection badge — The green "Protected" indicator confirms Enterprise Data Protection is active. This means your data is not being used to train AI models.
Settings and profile — Under personalization settings, you can write custom instructions telling Copilot your role, preferences, and communication style. These apply to every response.
Tip: Under Settings, you can write custom instructions that apply to every conversation — your role, your preferred response length, your communication style. Worth setting up once before you start using Copilot regularly.
Watch the clip: Dictate Prompts to Copilot. In under a minute, see what it looks like to speak a prompt to Copilot — imperfect grammar and all — and get a real, useful response back. Watch the clip: Upload Files to Copilot Demo A quick demo of the Add Content button: how to upload images and files, pull from OneDrive and SharePoint, and even give Copilot a photo of handwritten notes to organize.
Section 3: Writing Prompts That Actually Work
This is where most people hit a wall. They open Copilot, type a short question, get a mediocre response, and conclude the tool is not that useful.
The problem is almost never the tool — it is the prompt. Gene made the point clearly: "Don't use just keywords when talking to Copilot. Talk to it the way you'd talk to a human being."
The Four Ingredients of an Effective Prompt An effective prompt includes four elements. Think of it as giving a capable colleague everything they need to actually help you.
1. Context — Who are you, and why do you need this? Example: "I work in marketing and focus on competitor research."
2. Goal — What do you want Copilot to do? Example: "Give me a concise summary of recent news about [Company X]."
3. Source — Where should Copilot look? Example: "Focus on web articles from the last two months."
4. Expectation — How do you want the output delivered? Example: "Provide the answer in two to three paragraphs using a business tone." Tip: You do not need all four every time, but the more you include, the better the first response will be. Two is better than none; four is the gold standard.
Tip: You do not need all four every time, but the more you include, the better the first response will be. Two is better than none; four is the gold standard.
Prompt Best Practices
- Be clear and specific. Vague prompts return vague results. The more precisely you describe what you need, the less iteration required.
- Give examples. When the output format matters — especially for data or structured documents — show Copilot exactly what you want.
- Use proper grammar and a professional tone. Informal or sloppy input tends to produce informal or sloppy output.
- Check your sources. Copilot tells you where it pulled information. If a response seems off or biased, check the cited sources.
- Ground the prompt itself. Tell Copilot upfront where to look — specific sites, file types, or a time range.
- Keep the conversation going. If the output is not quite right, do not start over — continue. Copilot responds to iteration.
Watch the clip: Vet Your Copilot Sources to see why vetting Copilot's sources matters, with a real example of biased output, and how to steer Copilot toward sources you trust from the start.
Common Prompting Mistakes to Avoid
- Changing topics mid-conversation without starting a new chat. Earlier context bleeds into the new topic.
- Treating the first response as a final draft. Copilot produces a starting point. You are still the pilot.
- "Tell me about X" without any format guidance will almost always produce more output than you need.
- Not specifying your audience. A summary for your IT team looks different from one for executive leadership.
Section 4: Working Smarter — What Copilot Can Actually Do for You
These are not hypothetical use cases. These are the things Gene demonstrated live.
Summarize and Research: Upload a 100-page document and ask Copilot for the top 10 things you need to know. Ask it to compare two files for anomalies. Request a competitor research brief from the last 60 days. What used to take a half-day of reading takes minutes.
Brainstorm and Draft Content: Use Copilot to generate a first draft, then revise it. The output will not be final, but it gets you out of the blank page. Prompt starters that work well: summarize, give me a daily brief, draft a step-by-step guide, rewrite this to sound more professional.
Gather Insights from Files: Upload files and interview them. Ask Copilot to summarize key points, generate content based on a document, or find inconsistencies between two data sets. You can upload images too — including photos of handwritten notes.
Visualize Data: Ask Copilot to create charts, infographics, or word clouds from your data or ideas. If you need a graphic for a presentation and do not want to build it from scratch, describe it and see what comes back.
Generate Code and Formulas: If you work with Excel, SQL, PowerShell, or any other data tool, this is one of Copilot's most underused capabilities. Ask it to write a formula, explain what a piece of code does, or build a query. It is faster than looking it up.
Section 5: The Live Demo — From Copilot Chat to Word to PowerPoint
This is the workflow Gene demonstrated in the webinar. It shows how Copilot connects across Microsoft 365 applications — from research to a drafted document, to a presentation — without starting from scratch at any stage.
Step 1 — Research in Copilot Chat. Gene started with a product launch scenario for a wrist wearable. He submitted a detailed prompt asking Copilot to identify customer needs, pain points, and market trends. The response came back with substantial research across customer segments, positioning angles, and key takeaways.
Step 2 — Draft the document in Word. He opened Word on the web, pasted a new prompt into the Copilot side pane, then pasted the Chat output as the supporting data. Copilot built the document section by section — executive summary, target audience, positioning rationale — automatically.
Step 3 — Build the presentation in PowerPoint. With the Word document complete, Gene moved to PowerPoint. He used the Copilot icon to initiate a presentation, submitted a prompt specifying content focus, slide count, and audience, then pasted the Word content as source material. Copilot asked clarifying questions and built the deck.
Watch the clip: Copilot Builds Your PowerPoint to see the full flow: pasting research into Copilot, answering a few clarifying questions, and getting back a complete, structured deck — slides, structure, and speaker notes included.
Tip: Building presentations with Copilot via the web can time out on complex decks. If you have a Microsoft 365 license, use PowerPoint on your local computer for more reliable results. Expect the process to take 10-20 minutes.
Section 6: Copilot Pages and Agents
Copilot Pages
When Copilot generates a response you want to develop further or share with your team, you can turn it into a Copilot Page — an editable, collaborative workspace that lives in Microsoft 365. It works the way co-authoring works in Word or Excel. When you are done, you can export the page to Word, PowerPoint, or PDF.
Tip: To create a page: after Copilot generates a response, click the three dots on the response and choose "Edit in Pages."
Copilot Agents
Agents are a step beyond chat. Where Copilot Chat responds to individual prompts, agents can automate multi-step tasks and handle repetitive research workflows.
Microsoft's built-in agents — Researcher and Analyst — are available in Copilot Chat Basic without a premium license, though they can take 10 or more minutes to run.
Final Thoughts
What to Try First
Pick a real task from your work this week — something that involves researching, drafting, or summarizing. Use the four-ingredient prompt structure: context, goal, source, expectation. See what comes back. Refine it. See how far you can get before you need to take over. That is the workflow. The more you use it, the faster you will develop a sense for what Copilot does well and where your judgment is still essential. Which, to Gene's point, is always. You are the pilot.
Ready to Go Deeper? All Ascendient Learning's Copilot training courses are available as hands-on instructor-led training — publicly scheduled or delivered privately and customized for your team.
In addition, you can browse all Microsoft AI Training Courses for advanced Copilot training, Fabric, GitHub, Azure, and more.
