With chat, you ask and it answers. With Cowork, you hand over a whole job, like preparing a report, and it does the steps for you and checks with you before doing anything important.
Cowork is the part of Copilot you give a task to rather than a question. It plans the steps, uses your files and tools, and works until the result is ready. By default it asks before sending emails or changing shared things. It's paid for by use, and admins have to allow it.
Copilot Cowork is a GA agentic system: users delegate multi-step tasks that run with their permissions, tools, plugins and optionally local Edge browsing, including scheduled and event-driven tasks. Approval is required by default before sending, posting or changing shared systems. Usage-based billing (Copilot Credits) and a spending policy selecting Cowork are prerequisites.
Asking versus delegating
Microsoft's September 2026 announcement describes Home as the place where "Chat and Cowork come together". Chat is for questions. Cowork is for work you hand over: you describe the task, and Cowork plans and carries out the steps until there's a finished result.
Microsoft's admin documentation calls Cowork "an agentic system", and says it's generally available. It can use the user's files, plugins from the Microsoft 365 App Store, and, if the organisation allows it, the user's own Edge browser to complete web tasks with their existing sign-ins.
What keeps it in check
Three things from Microsoft's documentation matter most to me.
It runs as you. Microsoft says each automated task "runs as the user who created it" and sees only the data that user can see. Cowork doesn't get extra access.
It asks before acting. By default, Microsoft says, Cowork asks the user for approval before an automated task sends an email, posts a message or changes a shared system. Users can choose to pre-authorise actions when they set up a task.
It's recorded. Cowork activity, including browser tasks and automated tasks, is recorded in the unified audit log, and Purview data security and compliance policies apply.
Tasks that run on their own
Cowork can also run without the person present. Microsoft describes scheduled prompts that run at a set time, and event-driven tasks that run when a matching email or Teams message arrives. Microsoft says these have rate limits and protection against tasks that trigger themselves in a loop.
This is where decisions come in. A scheduled task that drafts a weekly summary is low risk. An event-driven task that replies to a customer whenever an email arrives is making a small decision every time. The approval setting is the control, and pre-authorising actions moves that decision from the person to the task.
A worked example
This scenario is illustrative. An operations manager writes a weekly performance note from three spreadsheets and a Teams channel. It takes about 90 minutes.
She sets up a scheduled Cowork task for Monday mornings: read the three files and last week's channel messages, draft the note in the usual format, and put the draft in her OneDrive. She leaves approvals on, so Cowork can't send the note itself.
| Step | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Gather figures and messages | Cowork |
| Draft the note | Cowork |
| Check the figures against the source | Manager |
| Decide what to highlight and send | Manager |
The judgement parts stay with her. If she later pre-authorised sending, she'd be delegating the "is this right to send?" decision too, and I'd want a reason for that.
What it costs
Cowork uses usage-based billing in Copilot Credits. Microsoft says model responses, tool and skill calls, image generation and browser tasks all count towards consumption. Users can type /cost in Cowork to see the approximate credits a task has used so far and how much of their monthly limit remains. Microsoft notes it's an approximation, and that you can't yet check the cost before running a task. Access and limits are both set through spending policies, which I cover in Spending policies for Cowork: access and budget in one setting.
What I'm still checking
I don't yet have a feel for how many credits a typical task like the weekly note uses. Microsoft links a Cowork cost estimator from its admin documentation, and I'd compare that estimate with /cost after a few weeks of real use.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Credit usage for Microsoft Copilot Cowork tasks, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Understand usage-based billing and cost management for Copilot Credits, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Official Microsoft Blog, Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot, 25 September 2026, accessed 11 October 2026.