Microsoft Copilot Cowork brings Claude AI agents to handle multi-step workflows autonomously

AI Agents at Work: Microsoft Copilot Is Getting Its Own Version of Claude Cowork

Microsoft Copilot probably isn't something you think about a lot, unless your company pays for you to use it at work. Microsoft has been fighting for consumers whose hearts and minds were quickly captured by other AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. The company's latest wave of agentic updates, announced Monday, is its sharpest weapon yet. The biggest new feature is Copilot Cowork, built in collaboration with Anthropic. If you've heard of or used Anthropic's Claude Cowork, Microsoft's version will feel similar. Copilot Cowork can use information in your files, email and calendar to independently complete assignments, no human supervision needed. It can create spreadsheets, run reports and do research for you. "Cowork is the new chat. It's the new way of interacting with AI," said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft president of business apps and agents. Instead of overseeing AI and chatting with it, we can now entirely delegate tasks to it like a fellow team member. "With chat, you're babysitting every step -- this is much more like 'fire and forget' with Cowork to get the job done." For example, Lamanna said he used Cowork to analyze his meeting calendar for the next three months. The AI used his email and calendar history to understand what upcoming meetings may not be necessary for him to attend, and it pulled together its recommendations in an easy-to-view chart. After Lamanna reviewed it, Cowork declined some meetings, with AI-written meeting notes attached if needed. The AI's 40-minute "delightful and practical" process saved him and his executive assistant hours worth of time so they could focus on more important duties. Cowork is rolling out now on a limited basis as it's a research preview concept. Microsoft also announced it will be making its AI agent platform, Agent 365, generally available on May 1. Agent 365 is a way for companies to oversee and manage all of the agents, or bots, that employees are using for their work. Microsoft itself has created more than a half-million AI agents using Agent 365, the company shared in a statement. New AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI will also be made available in Copilot. Smartly, the company isn't picking a side in the growing feud between the AI startups. Read More: AI Isn't Human and We Need to Stop Treating It That Way, Says Microsoft AI CEO Agentic AI tools like the ones Microsoft is building are extremely popular for workers. Despite only being a research preview, Claude Cowork has garnered a lot of fans -- and sparked a lot of worry on Wall Street. Major tech stocks fell at the end of January as Anthropic's AI developments cast doubts on the future of work. New AI tools like Cowork, Claude Code and even OpenAI's Codex are becoming increasingly capable of replacing traditional software products, like the kind Microsoft is known for. So it makes sense that Microsoft would want to bring that agentic prowess to its own AI. Agentic AI has been a major area of focus for AI companies recently. OpenClaw, an open source agentic project that went viral this year, is one of many examples of why tech execs think 2026 will be the year of agentic AI. Lamanna said that "the shape of what we do on a day-to-day basis will change," but AI ought to give time back to people to focus on high-value tasks. We're entering a new arc, going from having a human use AI to do a task quicker to delegating it entirely to an AI agent, he said. As this tech becomes more available, there are a lot of questions about the best way to integrate AI into our work lives. Many workers are worried about having their jobs replaced by AI, fueled by AI-centric layoffs at Amazon and Block. For those who manage to keep their jobs, one study found that AI may actually make their work days longer and less enjoyable. Like any new tech, the implementation of AI will determine how effective it is -- and how much it actually helps you.

Microsoft taps Claude to make Copilot Cowork a better agent

Copilot gets tuned to handle long-running knowledge work tasks Microsoft on Monday celebrated freedom of choice by giving customers in the company's Frontier program the option to use Anthropic and OpenAI models via Copilot Chat. "Microsoft 365 Copilot is model-diverse by design," said Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, in a blog post. "Rather than betting on a single model, we built a system that makes every model useful at work." Althoff said Copilot can make use of models from OpenAI and Anthropic in a way that avoids locking customers in. The competitive love-in coincides with Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 3, which Redmond describes as a move beyond assistance toward embedded agentic capabilities. Those agentic capabilities come from Anthropic's Claude Cowork, a digital work automation service that has been integrated into Copilot Cowork, Microsoft's automation service for 365 Copilot customers. "Cowork makes it easy to delegate work," said Charles Lamanna, president of business applications and agents at Microsoft, in a blog post. "Describe the outcome you want and Cowork automatically grounds the work in your emails, meetings, messages, files, and data." In other words, armed with contextual information surfaced through Work IQ - Microsoft's package of tenant data, context (chat and files supplied to AI models), skills (text and scripts explaining stuff to AI models), and tools (applications models can interact with) - Copilot Cowork can do some of your work on your behalf. When AI models do this with code, the resulting output has gotten pretty good in recent months - the functional nature of programming means you and your AI tools can check whether generated code runs, even if it's not the sort of finely crafted, highly optimized code skilled human developers can produce. When AI models produce content for people, the results may be harder to assess - how do you write tests to verify whether a presentation is compelling? If Copilot Cowork can complete the designated task and the work is nothing you take pride in and those on the receiving end of the AI output don't mind, why not burn a bunch of resource-squandering compute cycles to generate a sales proposal or clean up your inbox? Lamanna offers various scenarios for how Copilot Cowork might be helpful, such as preparing for a customer meeting. "With Cowork, you can hand off the effort from start to finish," he said. "Cowork pulls relevant inputs from email, meetings, and files, schedules prep time on the calendar, then produces a connected set of deliverables: a briefing document, supporting analysis, and a client-ready deck." He also suggests that Cowork might be useful for delegating research projects that involve scouring the web for reports, financial filings, and news, then whipping that into a summary of some sort, a pitch deck, or a spreadsheet. This comes with the usual reassurance that Copilot Cowork is prevented from doing harm by Microsoft 365's security and governance controls. Cowork, it's claimed, runs in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment. Seeing as it was only two months ago that Prompt Armor warned attackers could exfiltrate files from Claude Cowork via indirect prompt injection, it might be wise to take Microsoft's reassurances under advisement. Online anecdotes about files lost to Claude Cowork may also provide food for thought. Microsoft is presently making Copilot Cowork available as a Research Preview to a select set of customers, and promises broader availability through the Frontier program later this month. ®

Microsoft 365 Copilot's new wave of features has been announced, with some nice productivity-boosting tools

* Wave 3 for Microsoft 365 Copilot adds Claude integration and Copilot Cowork for long, multi-step workflows. * Frontier users and select customers can use Claude in Copilot Chat; a broader research preview is planned. * Copilot Chat gets enhanced creation tools and agentic experiences across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. As Microsoft continues to adapt to an AI-first world, the company is always adding new features and tools to its Microsoft 365 Copilot service. Recently, we've seen the company find new ways to improve people's productivity using its AI assistant, but we also saw hints that Microsoft wanted to try branching out with its selection of models to include Anthropic's Claude model, which has been making headlines as of late. Now, Microsoft has pulled back the curtain on wave three of its Microsoft 365 Copilot plans, and things are looking pretty good. Claude Code isn't just for developers, and I wish I'd realized that sooner Stop ignoring it. Posts 14 By Mahnoor Faisal Microsoft 365 Copilot's third wave is on its way And it includes better access to Claude As Microsoft explains in a blog post, its productivity suite, Microsoft 365 Copilot, is getting its third wave of features. This includes a nice collection of different tools to help people get work done faster. One of my personal highlights is called 'Copilot Cowork', which mixes Claude's Cowork feature into Microsoft's ecosystem: Built in close collaboration with Anthropic, we are bringing the technology that powers Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot to enable long-running, multi-step tasks. Preparing for a customer meeting can become a single request: Cowork can orchestrate the full workflow, building the presentation, assembling financials, emailing the team, and coordinating time for prep, while keeping you informed and in control throughout the process. Right now, Copilot Cowork is only available for "select customers," but Microsoft aims to get it onto the Frontier program as a research preview. And if you can't wait, people on the Frontier program will also get the ability to use Claude as a model in mainline Copilot Chat starting today. Speaking of, Copilot Chat is getting an 'enhanced experience,' allowing people to 'create and augment artifacts' and make agents. Plus, there's a 'new generation of agentic experiences' for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, which was previously called 'Agent Mode'. So, lots of good stuff to look forward to.

Microsoft taps Anthropic for Copilot Cowork in push for AI agents

March 9 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab is adding Anthropic's AI technology to its Copilot service to tap growing demand for autonomous agents, weeks after the startup's new tools sparked a selloff in software stocks. The company on Monday unveiled Copilot Cowork, a tool based on Anthropic's viral Claude Cowork offering, which has captivated Silicon Valley with its ability to handle complex tasks such as creating apps, building spreadsheets and organizing large volumes of data with limited human oversight. Microsoft is betting that its long-standing ties with enterprise customers and its ⁠focus on security and data controls will help it win business from companies interested in AI agents but wary of deploying them without safeguards. "We work only in a cloud environment and we work only on behalf of the user. So you know exactly what information it (Copilot Cowork) has access to," Jared Spataro, who leads Microsoft's AI-at-Work efforts, told Reuters. Cloud Cowork only works locally on the device and most companies feel "very uncomfortable" with that, he said. "We're the opposite." The launch comes weeks after Anthropic ⁠introduced new tools for Claude that intensified investor concerns about the threat AI agents could pose to traditional software companies, triggering to a selloff in the sector. Microsoft's own shares fell nearly 9% in February. Copilot Cowork tool is currently in testing and will be available to early-access ⁠users later this month, Microsoft said. The company did not disclose pricing, but said some usage would be included in its $30-per-user, per-month M365 Copilot offering for enterprises, with additional usage available for ⁠purchase. Microsoft also said it is making Anthropic's latest Claude Sonnet models available to M365 Copilot users. The service had previously relied only on OpenAI's GPT ⁠models. The move deepens Microsoft's ties with Anthropic at a time when investors have questioned its dependence on OpenAI, which accounts for nearly 45% of Microsoft's cloud business contract backlog. Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Microsoft's new Copilot Cowork integrates Anthropic's Claude in rollout of new E7 licensing tier

Microsoft unveiled Copilot Cowork, a new AI assistant that can run tasks in the background, create documents, and work across Microsoft 365 apps, the company announced Monday. The product integrates technology from Anthropic's Claude family of models into Microsoft's existing Copilot assistant, the latest example of Microsoft expanding beyond its tight partnership with OpenAI. Anthropic already offers Claude Cowork through its own platform. It comes as Microsoft tries to boost adoption of Copilot, which remains a relatively small fraction of its commercial user base amid big investments in AI infrastructure. Copilot Cowork is part of what Microsoft is calling Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot. The company also announced a new $99-per-user Microsoft 365 E7 tier launching May 1 -- a new level of its technology licensing program for businesses -- which bundles Copilot, identity management tools, and a new $15 Agent 365 product for managing AI agents. The E7 tier costs 65% more than the current $60 E5 subscription. "Customers have told us E5 alone is no longer enough; they do not want multiple tools stitched together, they want one trusted solution," Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft's commercial business, wrote in a blog post. Microsoft says Copilot Cowork can handle multiple tasks simultaneously, pulling from a user's calendar, email, and files to complete work without constant supervision. "Copilot Chat already makes it easy to research topics and think through ideas, and Copilot Cowork allows you to take action and complete activities in the background so you can get more work done on a regular basis," said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft's president of Business Applications & Agents, in a demo video. In the video, Lamanna showed Copilot Cowork analyzing a month of meetings with direct reports, compiling customer notes from a business trip, and generating a competitive analysis with accompanying Word document and Excel spreadsheet. The company emphasized the role of Work IQ, its intelligence layer that connects Copilot to a user's work patterns, relationships, and content across Microsoft 365. Copilot Cowork runs within Microsoft 365's security and compliance boundaries, with actions and outputs auditable by default. Microsoft is pitching its multi-model approach as a differentiator, saying it will choose the right model for each task regardless of provider. The announcement drew mixed reactions. Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor and author of "Co-Intelligence" who studies AI adoption, raised questions on LinkedIn. "Will it continue to use lower-end models or older models without telling you the way Copilot does?" Mollick wrote. He also asked whether Microsoft would keep the product updated, noting that Anthropic's standalone Cowork product "was built in a couple of weeks using Claude Code and is being updated and evolving quickly." Microsoft, he added, "has a tendency to launch a leading product and then let it sit for awhile," noting that he was "curious about whether their pacing will change." Copilot Cowork is available in limited research preview and will roll out to Microsoft's Frontier program later this month.

'Claude' AI is coming to Microsoft 365

The features are rolling out to Microsoft 365 subscribers on Windows, Mac, and web platforms, with Word offering model choice starting in April. The agentic world that Microsoft and others have envisioned for AI is now arriving in the company's office apps, where prompts are replacing the need to build PowerPoint presentations from scratch, even with Anthropic's Claude. Microsoft is pushing several major changes for office workers. Part of those will be part of what Microsoft calls its "Frontier" program for enterprises, where the company will allow the "technology" behind Claude Cowork to power the suite: Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Agent 365. But those additional model options will also trickle down into the Microsoft 365/Office applications that ordinary consumers use, too. What Microsoft seems to want us to do is to let it perform the assimilation functions that we used to do. "Replicate last week's analysis in a new sheet using the latest numbers shared in [Sales Weekly Update.docx] and show top insights on how our business is performing. And help me turn it into something easy to share, with visualizations of customer churn trends and clearly highlight the areas of concern" is an example prompt that Microsoft shared Monday as part of its updates to Microsoft Excel. At the same time, Microsoft also keeps pushing "co-creation" as part of PowerPoint, as it did today as well. It's not using your data to do so. Instead, it's pulling what Copilot (and, eventually, Claude) knows about the subject at large, and simply using that to create a PowerPoint. The implication is that, well, no one really cares about how a PowerPoint is formatted anyway, so why not hand off the task everyone hates to an AI that can perform the task automatically? Of course, more and more of what Microsoft is doing simply boils a business down to data, and applies whatever context Copilot and Anthropic/Claude can apply to turn it into information, and from there apply even more context to transform it into an actionable analysis. Sure, it saves time, but what happens when the MBAs and AIs begin disagreeing? Here's what's rolling out. Remember, Microsoft is pushing these as "agentic" tasks, though it's not quite clear what "agents" are being deployed as part of this. Word: Major rewrites coming In Word, Microsoft is introducing AI that can perform major edits, such as restructuring sections or rewriting according to the company's guidelines. It can also keep tasks aligned with your own work context. In certain cases, however, the new agentic version of Word apparently can read your information and files in the background. A suggested prompt in this new Word world reads: "Create a project brief for [project title] using information from my meetings, files, and emails from the past [timeframe]. Include an Executive Summary at the top. Structure the document using Heading 1 and Heading 2 styles where appropriate. Include these sections: Current status, Key decisions and progress, Next steps, Unresolved issues or risks, Recommendations. Keep it factual and flag any missing inputs as questions at the end." Word is getting model choice (between OpenAI and Anthropic models) in April. The new agentic capabilities are generally available in Word for Windows and Mac for Microsoft 365 subscribers. Excel: More analysis, always Microsoft has been trying to apply insights and analysis to Excel for years, dating back to improvements like PowerBI. Now, the upgrades to Excel are all about taking the raw data that's already in the spreadsheet and applying it in new ways. Microsoft has different ways of doing that. "Create a P&L forecast using the latest data in [Operating Model.xlsx], including revenue, cost of goods sold, and operating expenses," was one prompt the company suggested. "Build out for 12 months starting January 2026 and design the model to show month-by-month growth, retention, and unit economics with adjustable assumptions." Microsoft also suggested that a private equity (?) or other firm could create its own custom valuation of a company by asking Copilot to pull in custom data from the Web. Like the new Word features, these are available for Windows, web, and Mac subscribers to Microsoft 365. PowerPoint: Who loves making these? PowerPoint's latest focus appears to be applying touches like your own company's logos and design elements, but suggested prompts say otherwise: "Create an executive presentation on the major market pressures and trends shaping [industry]," Microsoft said. "Include a high‑level competitive analysis of leading players, outlining their relative strengths, weaknesses, and strategic focus areas, and conclude with implications for industry leaders." You'll also be able to make editing changes. These will roll out to Windows and Mac subscribers to Office 365 in the coming months, but they're available to web users right now. Anthropic's Claude model will be added to PowerPoint over time, with no set date. But there's already a "Create with Copilot" option in PowerPoint right now.

'The era of Copilot execution is here': Microsoft's Copilot Cowork is here with Anthropic AI to conquer all your biggest work tasks

* Microsoft and Anthropic reveal Copilot Cowork * Anthropic AI platform gives Copilot the ability to really dig deep into work tasks * Tool will be able to cover the entire Microsoft 365 platform Microsoft has revealed a major update to Copilot which it says will allow the AI assistant to really get involved with your work tasks for the first time, thanks to its combination with Anthropic's Claude Cowork platform. The company has unveiled Copilot Cowork, an upgraded platform integrated with Anthropic's work automation service aimed at turning AI from an interested observer into a full-on helper. Or as the company puts it in a new blog post, "completing tasks, running workflows, and doing work on your behalf...Copilot Cowork is built for that: it helps Copilot take action, not just chat." Copilot Cowork "If you have used Copilot, you have seen how quickly it can help you find an answer or draft an email," the company's blog post added. "The next step is just as important: turning that intent into real actions across Microsoft 365." Microsoft says users will be able to describe the outcome they want, with Cowork searching across your Microsoft 365 office software suite, including Outlook, Teams, Excel and more to learn about the task in hand. It will then turn this learning into a plan of action, which will run in the background as you go about your working day, but offering a series of checkpoints so you can check its progress, make changes, or pause action at any point. "Copilot works independently without you giving up control," Microsoft says, giving a host of examples of where Cowork might be useful, such as tidying up a packed work calendar to reschedule meetings and create focus time, or creating a launch plan for a new project, creating a pitch deck, comparing competition in Excel, or managing workloads across a team. It could also be helpful in researching a new client or customer, looking across the web for news and reports with key information, before summarizing the results, and then preparing for your meeting with the customer by creating a slide deck with information pulled from your emails, meetings and files Microsoft says Cowork operates within Microsoft 365's security and governance boundaries, so your identity and compliance policies will apply by default. Cowork will also run in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment, meaning that tasks can keep progressing safely even if you move across devices. Copilot Cowork is currently being tested with a limited set of customers in Research Preview, with Microsoft saying it will be more broadly available in the Frontier program in late March 2026. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Microsoft announces Copilot Cowork with help from Anthropic -- a cloud-powered AI agent that works across M365 apps

If you thought Anthropic was about to run away with the enterprise AI business...you're not totally off the mark, actually. This morning, Microsoft announced "Copilot Cowork" a new cloud-based AI agentic automation tool within Microsoft's existing AI tool 365 Copilot, except now it can complete work on users' behalf across many Microsoft apps, instead of contained within each one. If it sounds suspiciously similar to Anthropic's own "Claude Cowork" applications for Mac and Windows (released in January and February of 2026, respectively) that's to be expected -- as Microsoft and Anthropic worked together on this new feature. Copilot Cowork is the centerpiece of what Microsoft is calling "Wave 3" of Microsoft 365 Copilot -- a sweeping platform update that also brings agentic capabilities directly into individual Office apps, makes Anthropic's Claude models available in mainline Copilot Chat, and introduces new enterprise pricing tiers designed to bundle AI productivity with security and governance. Anthropic's initial Claude Cowork applications released in the first two months of 2026 helped trigger a $285 billion selloff in enterprise software stocks as investors repriced companies whose core functionality -- project management, writing, data analysis, workflow automation -- overlapped with what Anthropic's AI could do. Thus, to some AI power users and observers in business and tech who have shared their views on X, the arrival of the closely named and similarly featured Copilot Cowork appears to be an instance of Microsoft playing "catch up." Like Claude Cowork, Copilot Cowork users to delegate complex, multi-step tasks to an AI agent that plans, executes, and delivers finished work -- in this case, the AI is able to move across and use all the tools and features of Microsoft's Outlook, Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, and other M365 applications. CEO Satya Nadella promoted the launch on X, writing: "Announcing Copilot Cowork, a new way to complete tasks and get work done in M365. When you hand off a task to Cowork, it turns your request into a plan and executes it across your apps and files, grounded in your work data and operating within M365's security and governance boundaries." Copilot Cowork is currently in Research Preview with a limited set of customers. Broader access will come through Microsoft's Frontier program in late March 2026. Enterprises interested in getting early access can join the Frontier program at adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/frontier-program/. Microsoft also published a companion blog post, "Powering Frontier Transformation with Copilot and agents," that outlines how organizations can prepare for the rollout. The announcement represents Microsoft's most significant step yet in transforming Copilot from a conversational assistant into what the company calls an execution layer -- an AI that doesn't just answer questions but actually completes work on a user's behalf. But with Claude Cowork offering much of the same functionality -- the question is whether Microsoft's first-party offering comes with enough unique advantages or integration with trusted systems currently used by enterprises, to catch on. Microsoft's announcement blog post explicitly states that Copilot Cowork integrates "the technology behind Claude Cowork," and both products share a core premise: AI should plan and execute multi-step work, not just respond to prompts. But the two products diverge sharply in where they operate, what they can reach, and who they're built for. Claude Cowork is a desktop agent. It lives on your machine -- first Mac, now Windows -- and operates within folders you explicitly grant it access to. It can read, edit, and create local files, automate browser tasks, and connect to external services through Anthropic's growing library of MCP connectors and plugins spanning tools like Google Drive, Slack, DocuSign, and Salesforce. Its power comes from flexibility: users can point it at essentially any local workflow, and Anthropic's open plugin architecture means its reach keeps expanding. But it is fundamentally a personal tool. The user manages what Claude can see, and the security model depends on folder-level sandboxing and individual judgment about what to share. Copilot Cowork operates in the cloud, inside Microsoft 365's infrastructure, and draws on something Claude Cowork simply cannot access: the full graph of a user's enterprise work data. That means Outlook email threads, Teams conversations, calendar history, SharePoint files, Excel workbooks, and the relationships between them. When Copilot Cowork reschedules a meeting or builds a briefing document, it is pulling from signals across all of those systems simultaneously -- a capability that requires deep integration with M365's APIs and data layer rather than just local file access. Enterprise IT administrators retain control through existing identity, permissions, and compliance policies, and all actions are auditable by default. The practical upshot is that these products are likely to appeal to different buyers solving different problems, at least in the near term. Organizations that are deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem -- which is to say, most large enterprises -- are the natural audience for Copilot Cowork. For a Fortune 500 company whose employees live in Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint all day, the value proposition is compelling: an AI agent that already understands your organizational context, operates within your existing security and compliance framework, and doesn't require employees to adopt a new application or manage local file permissions. IT departments that have spent years configuring M365 governance policies will find Copilot Cowork far easier to greenlight than a standalone desktop agent that requires individual users to make security decisions about folder access. Claude Cowork, by contrast, is likely to attract organizations and individuals who need more flexibility than M365 can provide -- teams working across heterogeneous tool stacks, power users who want granular control over what the AI can touch, and companies already building on Anthropic's API and plugin ecosystem. Startups and mid-market companies that haven't standardized on Microsoft's suite may find Claude Cowork more natural, since it doesn't assume M365 as the center of gravity. Creative agencies, research teams, legal shops using specialized software, and technical organizations that prize customization over managed simplicity are plausible early adopters. Microsoft also introduced Microsoft 365 E7, a new top-tier enterprise bundle priced at $99 per user per month and available May 1, which includes Copilot, the Agent 365 agentic AI control suite, and the Microsoft Entra Suite comprehensive security solution for identity management, and the full E5 security stack -- representing the all-in price for organizations that want AI productivity, agent governance, and advanced security in a single license For individual knowledge workers or small teams, Claude Cowork is more accessible. For organizations already paying for M365 Copilot, Copilot Cowork arrives as an incremental capability within an existing investment. The most intriguing question may be whether the two products end up competing at all or instead serve as complementary distribution channels for the same underlying intelligence. Microsoft is explicitly positioning itself as model-agnostic, choosing "the right model for the job regardless of who built it." Anthropic, for its part, benefits from having its technology embedded in the world's dominant enterprise productivity suite while maintaining a standalone product that keeps its brand and direct customer relationship intact. It is possible -- perhaps even likely -- that some enterprises will end up using both: Copilot Cowork for M365-native workflows and Claude Cowork for everything else. Charles Lamanna, Microsoft's president of business applications and agents, framed the product as the logical next step in Copilot's evolution in the announcement blog post, writing: "Copilot Cowork is built for that: it helps Copilot take action, not just chat," Lamanna wrote in a blog post accompanying the announcement. The workflow is straightforward in concept but ambitious in scope. Users describe an outcome they want -- preparing for a client meeting, researching a company, building a product launch plan -- and Cowork automatically breaks that request into a structured plan. It then grounds the work in the user's existing emails, meetings, messages, files, and data using what Microsoft calls Work IQ, a system that draws on signals across the M365 suite so the AI operates with contextual awareness of the user's actual work environment. Critically, the plan executes in the background. Users can have a dozen tasks running simultaneously, each progressing while they focus on other work. Cowork checks in if it needs clarification and presents recommended actions for user approval before applying changes. Microsoft emphasized that users never give up control -- the AI works independently but transparently. Jared Spataro, Microsoft's chief marketing officer for AI at Work, described the shift in a companion blog post: "Tasks are no longer confined to a single turn or a single app. They can run for minutes or hours, coordinating actions and producing real outputs along the way." Microsoft showcased four scenarios that illustrate what Cowork can do in practice. In the first, Cowork reviews a user's Outlook calendar, identifies conflicts and low-value meetings, and proposes changes -- rescheduling, declining, or adding focus blocks -- that it then applies once approved. In the second, it handles end-to-end meeting preparation: pulling relevant inputs from email and files, scheduling prep time, and producing a briefing document, supporting analysis, and a client-ready deck, all saved in M365 for team collaboration. The third scenario demonstrates deep research capabilities. Cowork can gather earnings reports, SEC filings, analyst commentary, and news, then organize findings with citations into an executive summary, a structured research memo, and an Excel workbook with labeled tabs. The fourth tackles product launch planning, building a competitive comparison in Excel, distilling a value proposition document, generating a pitch deck, and outlining milestones and owners. In each case, Microsoft stressed that Cowork isn't just creating content -- it's coordinating the work around it, producing multiple connected deliverables across applications in a single workflow. This is the clearest public confirmation yet that Microsoft's deepening relationship with Anthropic -- the $30 billion Azure compute deal announced in November 2025, the integration of Claude Opus 4.6 into Microsoft Foundry in early February 2026, the ongoing internal adoption of Claude Code across Microsoft engineering teams, according to The Verge -- has now reached the company's flagship productivity suite. But it goes beyond Cowork. According to Spataro's companion blog post, Claude is now available in mainline Copilot Chat for Frontier program users, alongside the latest generation of OpenAI models. That means Anthropic's models aren't just powering Cowork's task execution behind the scenes -- they're becoming a general-purpose option that users can access directly in everyday Copilot conversations. And this is despite Anthropic's ongoing clash with the U.S. Department of War over its "red lines" prohibiting AI use in mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weaponry, which the Department of War claims are unnecessary, already guided by existing law, and should not be enforced by an outside contract vendor. Notably, Microsoft is also a major vendor of the Department of War (formerly Defense) and governments more broadly. Yet in a major difference, Microsoft users other AI models across the Copilot 365 experience. Spataro was pointed about why. "Many AI tools lock users into a single vendor's models," he wrote. "Others force people to choose between tools, experiences, or modes depending on the task. That fragmentation creates friction for individuals and complexity for organizations." Microsoft's answer is a multi-model architecture where "Copilot automatically applies the right model for the task, all grounded in your enterprise context." That multi-model positioning is a significant strategic signal. Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, which has long served as the primary provider of AI models for Microsoft's products. The decision to power a major new M365 capability with Anthropic's technology suggests Microsoft increasingly views model diversity not as a hedge but as a competitive advantage -- choosing the best available AI for each specific task rather than remaining locked to a single provider. Copilot Cowork is the headline feature of the Wave 3 update, but it's far from the only change. What Microsoft previously called "Agent Mode" in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook has been rebranded as simply how Copilot works in those apps going forward. In Excel and Word, these agentic capabilities are now generally available. In PowerPoint and Outlook, they're rolling out over the coming months. Copilot can now refine a Word document into a polished draft, improve Excel spreadsheets with real formulas, produce slides in PowerPoint that match an organization's brand kits and layout conventions, and draft and refine emails directly in Outlook -- all grounded in the user's work context through Work IQ. Copilot Chat is also becoming a more capable starting point. Users can now create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations directly from a conversation, or take workplace actions like scheduling meetings and sending emails without switching apps. Microsoft is opening the chat experience to third-party agents as well, with integrations from Adobe, Monday.com, Figma, and others surfacing directly within Copilot Chat through open standards including MCP. Microsoft emphasized that Copilot Cowork runs within M365's existing security and governance framework. Identity, permissions, and compliance policies apply by default, and all actions and outputs are auditable. Tasks run in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment so they can continue progressing safely as users switch devices. The cautious rollout plan signals that Microsoft is treating this as a deliberate enterprise deployment rather than a consumer splash. Copilot Cowork is currently being tested with a limited set of customers in what Microsoft calls a Research Preview. Broader availability will come through the company's Frontier program in late March 2026. The timing aligns with other major Microsoft announcements today, including the general availability of Agent 365 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise 7 -- products designed to bring security and governance to AI agents operating inside large organizations. Agent 365, which Microsoft calls "the control plane for agents," will be generally available on May 1 at $15 per user per month, giving IT and security teams a single place to observe, secure, and govern every AI agent operating across an organization. Microsoft cited an IDC projection that agent use will increase by an order of magnitude in the next few years, with "hundreds of millions -- and soon billions -- of agents operating across enterprises." Together, the announcements paint a picture of Microsoft building out the infrastructure to support autonomous AI agents at enterprise scale while keeping IT administrators firmly in control. Copilot Cowork arrives at an inflection point in the AI industry. Every major platform company is now racing to deliver agents that don't just converse but execute. Anthropic has its standalone Claude Cowork. OpenAI recently launched GPT-5.4 with native computer use capabilities and its own Windows apps integrations, and earlier, launched its own Codex AI coding application and hired the creator of the popular open source AI agent tool OpenClaw. Google has of course been steadily expanding Workspace integrations for AI agents. Microsoft's advantage is distribution. With hundreds of millions of M365 users across the enterprise, Copilot Cowork has a built-in audience that no standalone AI product can match. By pairing that reach with what it considers the best available AI technology -- even when that technology comes from a competitor to its $13 billion investment partner -- Microsoft is betting that the enterprise agent market will be won not by the company with the best model but by the one that integrates most deeply into the workflows people already use. Whether Copilot Cowork delivers on that promise will depend on execution quality and user trust -- the same open questions facing every AI agent product on the market. But with Anthropic's Claude technology running inside M365's security perimeter and Nadella personally promoting the launch, Microsoft -- like the rest of the tech industry -- is clearly banking on the fact that the era of AI as a passive assistant is over. The next chapter is AI that does the work for you, without you.

Microsoft launches AI tool that competes with Anthropic

Why it matters: Anthropic invented the product that threatened Microsoft's stock, and Microsoft's answer was to take the name, license the technology, and turn it into a Copilot feature, signaling that Copilot is no longer just an OpenAI product. State of play: Anthropic launched Claude Cowork in January, a business product for non-technical workers that can manipulate, read, and analyze files on a user's computer. * The launch was in part what sparked a near $1 trillion selloff in software stocks: investors felt Anthropic's products looked a lot like software and could replace much of the sector. * Microsoft, the biggest software company in the S&P 500, shed roughly $220 billion in market cap in one week. * Now, Microsoft is responding to the pressure, launching its own AI-powered coworker with the same name, which it built in part using its competitor's technology. Between the lines: This looks like Microsoft's answer to investor concerns about AI eating software. * The stock was slightly lower Monday morning, though the entire market is under pressure amid the war in Iran and a spike in oil prices. Zoom in: Copilot Cowork was built after "working closely with Anthropic," according to a Microsoft blog post, but the Copilot tools are multimodal, meaning it will use the "right model for the job." * "This is a pattern of work that will only become more powerful as new models and ways of working emerge," the company said in the post. Follow the money: Microsoft has been quietly building its use of and relationship with Anthropic, as it looks to reduce its dependence on key partner OpenAI. * Anthropic landed a $15 billion investment from Microsoft and chip-giant Nvidia last November. Zoom out: Anthropic has maintained that it isn't interested in replacing software, but rather becoming the interface by which software is accessed. * That distinction matters less if Microsoft, which says it owns the interface for 90% of Fortune 500 companies, is now the one selling Anthropic's vision of the future, under Anthropic's name, to Anthropic's target customers. The bottom line: The $380 billion startup built the thing that scared everyone.

Microsoft debuts Copilot Cowork built on Anthropic's tech and E7 product suite | Fortune

Microsoft has announced a new set of products to get enterprise customers to build AI agents on its platform, including a new Copilot Cowork product built on top of Anthropic's AI product Claude Cowork and a new business productivity software bundle that includes its own AI offerings. The new products, which Microsoft is calling "Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot" journey, come as the software giant seeks to combat increased competition in the AI agent space both from rival business productivity software companies, such as Salesforce, and frontier AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which received billions of dollars in strategic investments from Microsoft but are nonetheless increasingly pursuing the U.S. tech giant's traditional customer base. Microsoft also faces competition for AI agents from open source offerings like OpenClaw. Microsoft hopes to assuage investors concerned that AI agents will reduce companies' need to rely on traditional software-as-a-service providers. The company's shares have fallen more than 14% since Anthropic debuted its Claude Cowork product in mid-January. At the heart of Microsoft's announcement is Copilot Cowork, a new feature built in close collaboration with Anthropic. Copilot Cowork is designed to handle long-running, multi-step tasks -- such as preparing for a customer meeting by assembling a presentation, pulling together financials, emailing the team, and scheduling prep time -- all from a single request. "We really believe right now is an inflection point," Jared Spataro, Microsoft's chief marketing officer for AI at Work, told Fortune. "The inflection point for us is Copilot taking on these agentic capabilities and going from assistance to real doing." Spataro said that Copilot Cowork uses Anthropic's Claude model as the AI powering its reasoning and uses the same "agentic harness" -- the system that allows the AI model to use other software tools and the guardrails around how it functions -- as Anthropic's Claude Cowork, but that Copilot Cowork includes features that make it easier to build the kinds of agents that companies need. For instance, Microsoft's implementation runs in the cloud within a customer's Microsoft 365 tenant, meaning it is covered by the company's enterprise data protection and integrated with what Microsoft calls "Work IQ" -- a layer of intelligence drawn from a user's emails, files, documents, meetings, and chats. Anthropic's Claude Cowork, by contrast, runs locally on a user's device. "We actually don't work locally, and that's a feature, not a bug," Spataro said. He described Anthropic's offering as "a fantastic tool" but one with "limitations" in a corporate environment, noting it lacks access to cloud-based enterprise data and raises security concerns when deployed at scale. "What Anthropic has done is demonstrate the value of these agentic capabilities and show us practically what it could look like," he added. "Microsoft is all about commercialization." Copilot Cowork feature is currently being piloted with select customers and will become available as a research preview in March through Microsoft's new Frontier Worker product suite. The company also announced that Anthropic's Claude model is now available across the full Copilot Chat experience, not just in Microsoft's Researcher and Excel features where it was previously offered. While Microsoft initially built all of its Copilot offering around OpenAI's models, it has now shifted to a flexible approach that allows customers to pick any model to power their AI assistants and agents. "Every 60 days at least, there's a new king of the hill," Spataro said. "There's so much demand for a platform that doesn't feel like I have to skip over to the next vendor." The company said that its Agent 365 product -- which is a so-called control plane or "orchestration platform" for AI agents, allowing IT and security teams to monitor, govern and secure agents, including those created using other vendors' software, across an organization -- will be generally available from May 1, priced at $15 per user per month. Spataro said the key insight behind Agent 365 came from recognizing that the same management infrastructure used for human employees -- tools like Entra, Defender, Purview, and Intune -- could be extended to manage AI agents as well. "AI agents are as subject to phishing attacks as people are," he said. "As soon as an AI agent has an email address, they get spam too, and they can respond to it." Microsoft said that in just two months of preview, tens of millions of agents had appeared in the Agent 365 registry. Internally, Microsoft said it now has visibility into more than 500,000 agents across the company, with the most widely used focused on research, coding, sales intelligence, customer triage, and HR self-service. Finally, Microsoft announced the Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Worker Suite, also available from May 1, priced at $99 per user per month. The bundle combines Microsoft 365 E5 -- long the company's premium business productivity suite -- with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent 365. It also includes the Microsoft Entra Suite and advanced Defender, Intune, and Purview security capabilities. The $99 price is below what customers would pay if they purchased these capabilities separately, according to Microsoft. The component pricing of the constituent parts -- E5 at $60, Entra Suite at $12, Copilot at $30, and Agent 365 at $15 -- adds up to $117 per user. While many analysts have speculated that AI agents will eventually force software-as-a-service companies such as Microsoft to shift away from per-user pricing toward consumption-based models, Spataro said Microsoft's customers are not currently demanding this. "I think I have the most data points of anyone in the industry -- customers want per user right now," he said. "Doesn't mean they always will, but that's what they want currently." Microsoft said Copilot paid seats have grown more than 160% year over year, with daily active usage up tenfold. The number of customers deploying Copilot at significant scale -- more than 35,000 seats -- has tripled year over year, and 90% of the Fortune 500 now use Copilot, according to the company. It also said that 80% of the Fortune 500 are now using Microsoft AI agents in some capacity.

Microsoft adding Anthropic's AI technology to its Copilot service

The organisation is aiming to tap into the growing demand for autonomous agents. Tech giant Microsoft has announced plans to launch Copilot Cowork, which is a tool based on Anthropic's viral Claude Cowork. Reportedly, it is part of a larger initiative to take advantage of the growing demand for autonomous agents. The news comes two months after Anthropic launched its Cowork model, which it described as a "simpler version of Claude Code". This prompted concerns among those heavily invested in 'traditional' software companies resulting in a strong sell-off in US and European software. According to Reuters, Microsoft's own shares fell nearly 9pc in February. Currently Copilot Cowork is in the testing phase and will be available to early-access ⁠users in later March. The organisation has not disclosed the pricing structure, but has revealed that some usage would be included in its $30-per-user, per-month M365 Copilot offering for enterprises. Jared Spataro, the chief marketing officer of AI at Work at Microsoft said, "Frontier transformation starts with a simple idea: AI must do more than optimise what already exists. It must unlock new levels of creativity, innovation, and growth. And it must show up inside real work, grounded in real context and solve real problems for people and organisations. "We've found that to do this, the two most important elements are intelligence and trust. Intelligence ensures AI is contextual, relevant, and grounded. Trust ensures AI can scale safely, securely, and responsibly. Our announcements today (9 March) show how intelligence and trust together turn AI from experimentation into durable, enterprise-wide value." Following the launch of Microsoft's Copilot Cowork, Forrester vice-president and principal analyst JP Gownder said, "Microsoft's launch of Copilot Cowork signals a strategic shift in its AI approach, showing the company moving Copilot away from reliance on OpenAI alone and toward a multi-model architecture that includes partners such as Anthropic. "The move also highlights the current limitations of Microsoft's existing Copilot agents: while the company has talked extensively about autonomous 'agents', they have so far struggled to take meaningful action compared with newer agentic systems such as Anthropic's. "At the same time, Copilot Cowork clearly taps into the growing hype around Anthropic's Claude Cowork concept, but significantly extends it by embedding the capability across Microsoft 365 applications rather than keeping it as a desktop-centric tool." Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Microsoft Tapped Anthropic to Help Build Its New Cowork AI. Here's What It Actually Does

On X, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described Copilot Cowork as "a new way to complete tasks and get work done" in Microsoft 365. According to a Microsoft blog post, Copilot Cowork is capable of searching through and manipulating all of your work data included in Microsoft 365, including "emails, meetings, messages, files, and data." If the "Cowork" branding sounds familiar, that's probably because Anthropic released Claude Cowork, a feature in the Claude desktop app, in January. Microsoft says that it has worked closely with Anthropic to integrate the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft has had a difficult time popularizing Copilot, despite investing billions into OpenAI and Anthropic. The platform has become something of a meme among AI fans on social media due to its lack of advanced features and unpopularity, but according to Fortune, this new product is a key part of Microsoft's strategy to win back knowledge workers. In practice, Copilot Cowork functions nearly identically to Claude Cowork. When you give Cowork a prompt like "generate a briefing doc for a one-on-one with my CFO," Cowork will first develop a plan for how to accomplish the task. (In this case, that might involve scanning Outlook for recent finance-related emails or an agenda for your meeting, and Excel for the latest profit and loss figures.) If Cowork needs to make changes to a file, it will ask for permission.

Microsoft's Copilot Cowork Tool Can Autonomously Complete Tasks

* Microsoft's Copilot Cowork is powered by Claude AI models * Cowork can work in the background * Users can steer a task at any point by instructing the AI tool Microsoft introduced Copilot Cowork, an agentic AI tool for enterprises, on Monday. Built using Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence (AI) models and the Work IQ intelligence layer, the tool is aimed at transforming Copilot's capabilities from chats to actions. In practice, it will gain agentic capabilities by drawing context from the Microsoft 365 suite of applications and then performing these tasks without needing connectors or complex integration with enterprise systems. The Redmond-based tech giant says that users will be able to automate a range of tasks using Copilot Cowork. Microsoft Unveils Copilot Cowork In a newsroom post, the tech giant announced and detailed the agentic tool. If the name Copilot Cowork sounds familiar, it is because Microsoft's new AI experience was developed in collaboration with Anthropic, which shook the stock market after releasing Claude Cowork. The core technology behind Microsoft's offering is similar, but it benefits from an in-built support for the 365 suite of apps and the Work IQ intelligence layer. Additionally, unlike Claude Cowork, the Copilot offering is a multi-model tool, which gives users more flexibility in picking the models they are more familiar with. Notably, Copilot Cowork is currently being tested with a limited set of participants and is available as a research preview. However, the tech giant says it will be more broadly available in the Frontier programme later this month. With Copilot Cowork, users can share a prompt about the task they want it to complete. The AI tool turns the request into a plan and then executes it in a step-by-step manner in the background. There are visible checkpoints that the user can refer to at any point to know their progress. Even during the thinking phase, users can make changes or pause the task with a simple prompt. Similarly, Cowork can also check in if it needs clarification. Some of the actions the AI tool can autonomously take include reviewing and rescheduling meetings, generating documents, compiling data and turning it into reports and presentations. It can also be instructed to send an email to share the deck after it is finished creating it. Microsoft said the enterprise tool is backed by the company's security and governance measures. Compliance policies, alongside identity authentication and requesting permissions, are turned on by default, and actions and outputs are all auditable. "Cowork runs in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment, so tasks can keep progressing safely as you move across devices. This is what makes execution durable at enterprise scale," the company said.

Microsoft taps Anthropic for Copilot Cowork in push for AI agents

Microsoft is enhancing its Copilot service with Anthropic's AI technology. This move aims to meet the growing demand for autonomous agents. The new Copilot Cowork tool will handle complex tasks with minimal human intervention. Microsoft's enterprise focus and security measures are key advantages. This integration deepens ties with Anthropic, diversifying AI model reliance. Microsoft is adding Anthropic's AI technology to its Copilot service to tap growing demand for autonomous agents, weeks after the startup's new tools sparked a selloff in software stocks. The company on Monday unveiled Copilot Cowork, a tool based on Anthropic's viral Claude Cowork offering, which has captivated Silicon Valley with its ability to ⁠handle ⁠complex tasks such as creating apps, building spreadsheets and organizing large volumes of data with limited human oversight. Microsoft is betting that its long-standing ties with enterprise customers and its focus on security and data controls will help it win business from companies interested in AI agents but wary of deploying them without safeguards. "We work only in a cloud environment ⁠and we work only on behalf of the user. So you know exactly what information it (Copilot Cowork) has access to," Jared ⁠Spataro, who leads Microsoft's AI-at-Work efforts, told Reuters. Cloud Cowork only works locally on the device and most companies feel "very uncomfortable" with that, he said. "We're the opposite." The launch comes weeks after Anthropic introduced new tools for Claude that intensified investor concerns about the threat AI agents could pose to traditional software companies, triggering to a selloff in the sector. Microsoft's own shares fell nearly 9% in February. Copilot Cowork tool is currently in testing and will be available to early-access users later this month, Microsoft said. The company did not disclose pricing, but said ⁠some usage would be included in its $30-per-user, per-month M365 Copilot offering for enterprises, with additional usage available for purchase. Microsoft also said it is making Anthropic's latest Claude Sonnet models available to M365 Copilot users. The service had previously relied only on OpenAI's GPT models. The move deepens Microsoft's ties with Anthropic at a time when investors have questioned its dependence on OpenAI, which accounts for nearly 45% of Microsoft's cloud business contract backlog.

Microsoft rolls out Copilot Cowork to automate workflows in Microsoft 365

Microsoft has introduced Copilot Cowork, a tool that allows users to move beyond generating responses or drafts and enables execution of tasks directly across Microsoft 365 applications. Copilot Cowork is designed to convert user intent into actionable work while keeping full control in the user's hands. Copilot Cowork is built to perform tasks, run workflows, and manage actions on behalf of the user. Users provide a description of the desired outcome, and Cowork draws on signals from Outlook, Teams, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 apps. Powered by Work IQ, it integrates information from emails, meetings, files, and data to execute tasks with contextual understanding. Once a task is assigned, Cowork creates a plan that runs in the background, offering checkpoints for progress review. Users can approve, modify, or pause actions at any time. Cowork also requests clarification when needed, ensuring outputs remain under user supervision. Cowork's process converts simple instructions into structured results. Key use cases include: 1. Calendar management Cowork can review a user's Outlook calendar, identify conflicts, low-priority meetings, and focus gaps, and then propose changes. After approval, it reschedules, declines, or accepts meetings, adds focus blocks, and can prepare documents for upcoming meetings. This allows users to start the week with a structured calendar. For customer meetings, Cowork collects relevant inputs from emails, meetings, and files, schedules preparation time, and produces briefing documents, client-ready decks, and supporting analysis. Files are saved in Microsoft 365 for team collaboration. Users receive a complete set of deliverables including a deck, briefing memo, prep time, and draft follow-up email. 3. Company research Cowork can compile company research by gathering earnings reports, SEC filings, analyst commentary, and relevant news, organizing them with citations. Outputs include an executive summary formatted for email, a structured research memo with assumptions and analysis, and an Excel workbook with labeled tabs. This reduces the time required for manual research. Cowork assists with product launch workflows, including creating competitive comparisons in Excel, value proposition documents, and customer pitch decks. It also outlines milestones, ownership, and next steps, allowing coordinated execution across the team. Copilot Cowork operates within Microsoft 365's security, compliance, and governance framework. Identity, permissions, and policies are enforced, and all actions are auditable. Tasks run in a sandboxed cloud environment, ensuring safe execution across devices. Microsoft has incorporated technology from Anthropic's Claude Cowork, providing Copilot with a multi-model capability. This allows the system to select the most suitable AI model for a given task, regardless of the provider, supporting a wider range of workflows. Copilot Cowork is in Research Preview with a limited set of customers. Broader access will be available through the Frontier program in late March 2026.

Microsoft turns to Anthropic to accelerate its AI agent strategy

Microsoft has announced the integration of Anthropic's technology into its Copilot service to bolster its AI agent capabilities, enabling systems to carry out complex tasks autonomously. The group unveiled Copilot Cowork, a tool inspired by Claude Cowork, which can create applications, analyse data or generate spreadsheets with limited human oversight. The company is banking on its cloud expertise and data security credentials to persuade businesses to adopt these AI agents. Unlike Anthropic's tool, which runs locally on the device, Copilot Cowork operates entirely within Microsoft's cloud environment, enabling organisations to better control access to data. The service is currently in testing and will be offered soon in early access. Microsoft has also said that Anthropic's Claude Sonnet models will be available to M365 Copilot users, which until now had relied solely on OpenAI's GPT models. The move strengthens the partnership between Microsoft and Anthropic and allows the group to diversify its AI technologies, as some investors worry about its dependence on OpenAI, which represents nearly 45% of its cloud order book.

Copilot Cowork: AI-Powered Task Automation for Microsoft 365 Users

I've been using Claude for a while now, and it's been excellent at thinking through problems. So when Microsoft announced it had plugged Claude Cowork's technology directly into Copilot Cowork, I paid attention. This isn't just another chatbot feature. This is AI that executes. For the past year, Copilot has been decent at answering questions, drafting emails, and summarising meetings. Useful for sure. But there's always been a gap between "here's your answer" and "consider it handled." Copilot Cowork closes that gap and then some. Also read: India's deepfake crisis: Women are falling prey to AI menace more than men Here's how it works: instead of prompting Copilot and then doing the work yourself, you describe the outcome you want and Cowork takes it from there. It digs into emails, meetings, messages, and files across Outlook, Teams, Excel, and the rest of Microsoft 365, builds a plan, and starts executing in the background, while you get on with your actual job. And it doesn't just go rogue. Cowork checks in at key moments, flags anything that needs my sign-off, and won't apply changes until I say so. Less like handing my laptop to a stranger, more like working with a colleague who never needs a coffee break. Alsor read: Claude Code's Code Review explained: A multi-agent PR review system The use cases are where it gets genuinely exciting. Need to reclaim your calendar? Cowork reviews your week, spots conflicts and low-value meetings, and proposes a cleaner schedule, focus blocks included. Big client meeting incoming? It pulls the relevant files, builds the deck, writes the briefing document, and schedules prep time. Researching a company? It gathers earnings reports, SEC filings, and analyst commentary, then delivers a polished memo and a labelled Excel workbook. Launching a product? Competitive analysis, pitch deck, and milestone plan handled simultaneously. All of this runs within Microsoft 365's existing security and compliance framework, so nothing escapes your organisation's governance policies. Enterprise-grade execution without the enterprise-grade headache. Copilot Cowork is currently in Research Preview, with a wider rollout through Microsoft's Frontier program landing in late March 2026. If your team lives inside Microsoft 365, this one is worth getting ahead of.