Microsoft has announced the general availability of Copilot Cowork, its new AI-powered tool designed to tackle complex business tasks that require time, access to multiple information sources, and the use of several applications.
The solution, integrated into Microsoft 365 Copilot, aims to go beyond traditional AI assistants. Instead of merely answering questions, generating texts, or recommending possible actions, Cowork can receive a task, break it into different phases and work autonomously until delivering a finished result.
The company presents this technology as an agentic work system capable of carrying out processes that typically require coordinated intervention by one or more employees. Among its possible uses are analyzing large volumes of documents, reviewing business opportunities, modifying spreadsheets, or producing reports from multiple sources.
From answering questions to completing tasks
The main difference between Cowork and conventional Copilot functions lies in the scope of the tasks it can take on. The user describes the work to be done and the tool handles locating the information, selecting the necessary resources, executing the various actions, and returning the corresponding deliverables.
During the testing phase, for example, an engineering team used the solution to edit automated task spreadsheets and generate dependency diagrams after each change. Another team used it to compare about 4,000 files belonging to two different versions of a product.
In the commercial area, Cowork was also used to analyze a pipeline of stalled opportunities, identify the deals that carried the greatest risk, and detect what follow-up actions had not yet been taken. According to Microsoft, this process reduced a review job that previously required about a week down to a single morning.
The solution runs in the cloud, so it can continue to execute a task even if the employee’s computer is turned off. It also connects with Work IQ, Microsoft’s business-context system, to use the information and applications the user already has access to within their organization.
Thus, Cowork can work with documents, emails, meetings, conversations, and business data, respecting the permissions and policies configured in Microsoft 365.
A platform capable of using multiple AI models
Microsoft has embraced a multi-model design that allows selecting different AI technologies depending on the characteristics of each task.
At general launch, Copilot Cowork runs with Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6 models. Frontier program users can also access GPT-5.5. Additionally, Microsoft is preparing the release of Cowork 1, a proprietary model optimized to run routine business tasks at a lower cost.
The company argues that the ability to choose models will enable using more powerful options for processes that require advanced reasoning and more cost-efficient options for everyday tasks or those particularly price-sensitive.
Microsoft notes that in internal tests conducted in June 2026, Cowork was between 30% and 40% cheaper per request than Claude Cowork connected with Microsoft 365. However, the company warns that actual costs can vary depending on the model used, configuration, runtime, and the complexity of each task.
