AI WORLDHow to Use Microsoft Copilot in Word, Excel and Outlook
Learn how to easily draft documents, analyse data and clean up your inbox with Microsoft's AI assistant.
Hook: Imagine having a helpful, incredibly fast assistant sitting right inside your everyday office apps, ready to write drafts, crunch numbers and clear out your inbox. This guide will show you how to start using Microsoft Copilot to save time and reduce office stress today.
- Make sure you have an active Microsoft 365 business account with a Copilot licence.
- Open the desktop or web versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook.
Draft a document in Word
When you open a blank document in Microsoft Word, you will see a small, colourful icon on the page that looks like a stylized ribbon. This is the Copilot button.
Clicking this button opens a chat box where you can type a prompt (which is simply the plain-language instruction you give to the AI assistant, just as if you were speaking to a colleague).
"Write a three-paragraph project proposal for a new staff wellness initiative, including a suggested timeline and a bulleted list of benefits."
Once Copilot writes the text, you can click "Keep it", ask it to make the tone more professional, or completely rewrite it.
Analyse a spreadsheet in Excel
Excel can sometimes feel intimidating, but Copilot acts like a friendly data coach. Before you start, make sure your data is formatted as an official Table (this is a way of organising your data in rows and columns so the computer knows exactly where the information starts and ends). You can do this by highlighting your data and clicking "Format as Table" on the Home tab.
Click the Copilot button on the right-hand side of the Home tab to open the chat panel.
"Show me the total sales for each region and highlight the top three performing products in green."
Copilot will automatically analyse the sheet, apply the colours, and even create a simple chart for you without you needing to write a single formula.
Summarise a long email thread in Outlook
If you have returned from leave to a massive chain of emails, you do not need to read every single reply to understand what is going on.
Open the email thread in Outlook. Look near the top of the reading pane for a button that says Summary by Copilot (or a similar button with the colourful Copilot icon).
The AI will read the entire conversation and show you a neat list of bullet points explaining:
- What has been decided.
- Who is responsible for what.
- Any open questions that still need answers.
Reply to emails quickly
Instead of staring at a blank reply box trying to find the right words, you can let Copilot draft your response. Click the reply button on an email, then look for the "Draft with Copilot" icon in the menu bar.
"Reply to Sarah. Agree to the meeting on Tuesday at 10:00am, but ask if we can keep it to 30 minutes because of another commitment."
Copilot will generate a polite, complete email. You can adjust the length and tone (from casual to formal) using the drop-down menu before hitting send.
- Expecting perfect accuracy: AI can make mistakes, sometimes called hallucinations (which is when the system confidently creates incorrect facts or numbers). Always double-check important dates, figures and names before sending or saving your work.
- Using loose Excel data: If your spreadsheet is just raw numbers without being formatted as a proper Table, Copilot will ask you to convert it first. Take five seconds to format your data as a table to save yourself the headache.
- Being too brief: If you type "write a report", Copilot has to guess what you want. The more details you provide (such as the target audience, length and specific points to include), the better your first draft will be.
Open a blank document in Microsoft Word. Click the Copilot icon on the page, paste the prompt below, and watch it draft your first document:
"Write a draft agenda for a 30-minute team meeting focused on improving communication in the office."
✦ Original step-by-step guide by AI World Co.'s AI editorial team. Written in plain language, reviewed for accuracy.
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