How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot in Your Small Business

Zac Tassone

Published 29 February 2024 · Updated 3 November 2026

Microsoft has built AI into almost every part of Microsoft 365 under the Copilot name. For a small business, the useful question is not “is it impressive?” but “which version do we already have, what can it do with our work, and is our data ready for it?” This guide answers all three in plain English.

Which Copilot do you have?

Microsoft uses the Copilot name for several products, which causes a lot of confusion. For a business on Microsoft 365, there are two that matter.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat is included with eligible Microsoft 365 business subscriptions at no extra cost. When staff sign in with their work account, it includes enterprise data protection. It is an AI chat assistant grounded on the web: it can draft text, summarise documents you upload, answer general questions and create images. It also appears, with more limited capabilities, inside apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

What it does not do is reach into your business data on its own. It will not search your mailbox, your Teams chats or your SharePoint files unless you give it a specific file.

Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid licence)

The paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence builds on Copilot Chat and can work with your organisation’s data: emails, files, meetings, chats and calendars, always within the permissions each person already has. It works across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, and includes advanced agents such as Researcher and Analyst.

For small and medium businesses, Microsoft offers this as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, an add-on for organisations with up to 300 users on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard or Business Premium.

Microsoft changes Copilot features and names often, so check what your current plan includes before you decide.

Five practical ways to use Copilot at work

1. Get on top of email in Outlook

Copilot can summarise a long email thread into the key points and decisions, then draft a reply in the tone you choose. You still read and edit the reply before sending, but you skip the blank page.

2. Never take meeting minutes again

With a paid licence and transcription turned on, Copilot in Teams can summarise a meeting, list action items and tell you who agreed to do what. Joined late? Ask it what you missed. Let attendees know when meetings are being transcribed.

3. Draft documents from your own material

In Word, Copilot can produce a first draft of a proposal, policy or report. With a paid licence you can point it at existing files, such as last year’s proposal or a set of meeting notes, so the draft reflects your business rather than generic web content.

4. Ask questions of your spreadsheets

In Excel, you can ask questions in plain English, such as “which product had the highest margin last quarter?”, and Copilot will suggest formulas, charts and summaries. It works best on data that is formatted as a table with clear column headings.

5. Turn a document into a presentation

Copilot in PowerPoint can build a draft slide deck from a Word document or a short prompt, then help you reorganise slides and tighten wording. Expect to edit, but expect to save time too.

Get your data ready before you switch it on

This is the part most businesses skip. A paid Copilot licence respects existing permissions, which is good, but it also means Copilot will surface anything a person can technically open. If your SharePoint sites or shared folders are open to “everyone”, Copilot can help staff find salary spreadsheets or HR files they were never meant to see.

Before rolling out the paid licence:

• Review sharing and permissions on SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive, and remove “anyone with the link” sharing on sensitive files.
• Tidy up old data that no longer needs to be kept.
• Enforce multi-factor authentication on every account. Our guide to MFA for small business explains how.
• Consider sensitivity labels in Microsoft Purview for confidential documents.
• Write simple AI rules for staff, covering what can be shared with AI tools and when output must be checked. See our tips for setting up AI rules for your staff.

Is the paid licence worth it?

Start with Copilot Chat, which you may already have. Encourage staff to use it for drafting and summarising, and note where they wish it could see their emails, files or meetings. Those are the people most likely to benefit from a paid licence. Trial it with a small group, measure the time saved on real tasks, then decide whether to extend it.

Quick checklist

• Confirm which Microsoft 365 plans your staff are on.
• Make sure staff use Copilot Chat signed in with their work account, not a personal one.
• Review file sharing and permissions before a paid rollout.
• Put a short AI use policy in place.
• Pilot the paid licence with a few heavy users first.

Our Microsoft 365 services cover licensing, security settings and permission clean-ups, so Copilot helps your team without exposing data it should not.