Microsoft Copilot Cowork launches worldwide

Microsoft has made Copilot Cowork generally available worldwide to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers.

Microsoft has made Copilot Cowork generally available worldwide to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers, following a three-month preview through its Frontier program.

More than half of the Fortune 500 used Copilot Cowork during the preview, according to Microsoft. Other named users included Accenture, Avanade, Advance Local, Capital Group, Koch, Ooredoo Qatar, and Zurich Insurance.

Copilot Cowork handles long-running tasks that require multiple tools, files, and sources of business context, according to Microsoft. The system returns completed work rather than drafts or recommendations.

During the preview, customers used Cowork for tasks including spreadsheet editing, dependency flow chart generation, product version comparisons, and sales pipeline reviews. Microsoft cited one example in which a team compared nearly 4,000 files across two product versions, a process the company said would otherwise have taken weeks.

Another preview use case involved a sales lead using Cowork to review a stalled pipeline. The system returned a ranked list of at-risk opportunities and identified follow-ups that had gone inactive.

Feedback from the Frontier program led to several changes before general availability, including model selection, plugin support, and tools for managing usage-based costs.

Cowork runs tasks in the cloud

Copilot Cowork runs in the cloud, allowing tasks to continue when a user's local device is off. Microsoft said files are not stored locally, and the service operates within the Microsoft 365 trust boundary.

The system uses Microsoft's Work IQ context engine to ground tasks in business data. Cowork also follows an organization's existing security, compliance, identity, and governance controls, according to Microsoft.

Copilot Cowork supports multiple models, allowing users to choose a model based on the task. At general availability, the service runs on Anthropic models, including Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6.

Customers in Frontier can also use GPT-5.5. Microsoft said its Cowork 1 model will be released in the coming weeks and is being developed for lower-cost enterprise use.

Microsoft's testing showed Copilot Cowork was, on average, 30% to 40% cheaper per prompt than Claude Cowork using the Microsoft 365 connector.

Usage-based pricing tied to Copilot Credits

Copilot Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot user subscription license. Cowork usage is then billed separately based on the tasks users run.

Cowork tasks are priced using Copilot Credits, with each task calculated from model use, context retrieval, tool calls, and runtime.

The Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription includes Copilot Chat, Copilot features in Microsoft 365 apps, Work IQ, pre-built agents, and custom agents built with Agent Builder. Cowork is billed separately for tasks involving multiple steps, tools, and sources.

Microsoft grouped Frontier usage into three task categories: light, medium, and heavy. Light tasks use fewer knowledge sources and limited reasoning, while heavy tasks draw on broader sources, involve more reasoning, and produce more outputs.

Customers can estimate usage by grouping users by expected task volume across the three categories. Microsoft's spreadsheet model uses Anthropic Opus 4.8 as the basis for its estimates.

Admins get new cost controls

The general availability release includes admin controls for access, budgets, spending limits, and usage reporting.

Cowork is off by default. Admins can enable it at the tenant level and set access policies for users and groups.

The service also supports spending limits at the tenant, group, and user levels. Admins can create billing policies, define budgets, and set user-level caps inside group policies.

Microsoft has added usage alerts that can be configured by threshold and recipient. Users can also request additional credits from within Cowork when they need more credits to complete a task.

Reporting tools show usage at the tenant, group, and user levels. User-level pricing for each task, displayed in credits, is expected soon after general availability.

Customers can choose between pay-as-you-go billing and P3, a prepaid option based on committed usage volume. Pay-as-you-go pricing is set at $0.01 per Copilot Credit.

Billing for Copilot Cowork begins with general availability. Tenants that had at least one user in the Frontier program between March 30 and June 16, and used Cowork during that period, will receive a grace period and will not be billed for Cowork usage until July 1, 2026.

Microsoft adds plugins and Edge browser use

Microsoft has also added a Cowork toggle inside the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. The toggle lets users move from Copilot Chat into Cowork.

Nine partner plugins are available now: Enosix, Harvey, LSEG, Miro, Monday.com, Moody's, Morningstar, S&P Global Energy, and TeamsMaestro.

Eight additional plugins are planned from Adobe, Atlassian, Box, Canva, CB Insights, Databricks, MoneyForward, and Templafy. Fabric and Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, and ERP apps are also generally available with Cowork.

Cowork also supports browser use through Edge in Frontier. The feature runs on the same governance plane as Enterprise Browser Use in Edge, including allowlists, Purview audit, and Entra identity, according to Microsoft.