12 Ways to Use Microsoft Copilot at Work (Ready-to-Use Prompts You Can Copy Today)
- Mark Baglow
- 2 days ago
- 13 min read
If your organisation has rolled out Microsoft Copilot – or you’ve started using the free version – the Copilot chat is almost certainly where you’ll spend most of your time with it.
It’s the conversational interface where you type a question or instruction and Copilot responds, much like having a very fast (if occasionally overconfident) assistant sitting next to you.
The problem is, most people try it once or twice, ask it something vague, get a vague answer back, and conclude it’s not that useful.
Which is a shame, because when you know how to prompt it properly, Copilot can genuinely save you time and help you think through problems you’d otherwise spend ages on.
This post gives you twelve practical ways to use Copilot chat at work, each with a ready-to-use Microsoft Copilot prompt you can copy and try straight away.
Want to improve how your or your team use AI tools? I run public and in-house training on using AI in the workplace. I provide training on both Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. Check out the course pages for upcoming public dates, or contact me to find out how I can provide training for your team. I can also deliver talks and presentations to conferences and meetings about AI. |
I’ve also included an honest note alongside each one, because Copilot is brilliant at some things and mediocre at others – and knowing the difference is what makes it genuinely useful rather than just a novelty.
How to Access Copilot
There are two main ways to use Copilot for work.
Option 1 - Use Copilot in your Internet Browser
Simply head over to the Microsoft Copilot website.
You can then log in using either your work Microsoft account or your personal one.
Option 2 - Use the Copilot Desktop App
You will likely already have the Copilot App if you are on a Windows device.
Open up your Start menu and search for 'Copilot'
If you are on Mac, don't worry - there is a Mac app for Copilot you can download.
Copilot Mobile App for Working On-The-Go
There is also a Copilot app for IoS and Android mobile devices so you can chat with Copilot wherever you are.
All of your conversations are linked to your account, so you could start a chat on your desktop and then continue it on mobile.
1. Write an Email with Copilot and Do That Task You’ve Been Putting Off
We’ve all got that email sitting in our mental to-do list – the one we keep avoiding because we’re not sure how to word it.
Whether it’s a tricky reply, a polite decline, or something that needs just the right tone, Copilot can give you a solid first draft in seconds.
The key is giving it enough context about the situation and the tone you’re after.
Bonus tip: if you are putting off a lot of tasks, ask Copilot to help you create a to-do list.
For more help, check out this post about how to prioritise when everything feels urgent.
For more in-depth help, I offer Time Management Training for individuals and teams.
💬 Try this prompt: I need to email a client to let them know their project is going to be delivered two weeks later than originally planned. The delay is because of an internal resourcing issue on our side, not anything they’ve done. I want to be honest and apologetic without being overly dramatic. Suggest a revised timeline and reassure them the quality won’t be affected. Professional but warm tone. |
⚠️ Honest note: Copilot handles professional email tone really well. The main thing to watch for is wordiness – it tends to write emails that are longer than they need to be. Get into the habit of trimming a sentence or two from whatever it produces. To get the best out of Copilot, remember to ask it to refine and change its output to get exactly what you want. |
2. Brainstorm Ideas with Copilot When You’re Stuck
Sometimes you just need a thinking partner.
Maybe you’re planning a team event, coming up with agenda items for an away day, or trying to think of a different angle on a project.
Copilot is surprisingly good at generating ideas you wouldn’t have thought of yourself – not because it’s more creative than you, but because it can pull from a much wider range of possibilities very quickly.
💬 Try this prompt: I’m organising a half-day team away day for 15 people. The goals are to improve collaboration across two teams that don’t work together often and to have some fun. We’ve got a budget of about £500 and access to a large meeting room. Give me 8 creative ideas for activities and discussion formats, mixing structured and informal options. |
⚠️ Honest note: The ideas you get will be a mix of genuinely useful and slightly generic. Don’t expect every suggestion to be perfection – treat it as a brainstorm list to pick from and build on, not a finished plan. The more specific you are about your constraints and goals in your prompt, the more relevant the suggestions. |
Bonus Tip: Upload Files to Microsoft Copilot to Supercharge Your Prompts
Here’s something that transforms Copilot from a clever chatbot into something genuinely powerful – and a surprising number of people don’t realise you can do it.
You can upload files directly into Copilot chat.
Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs – you can attach them to your conversation and then ask Copilot to work with them.
This means instead of copying and pasting chunks of text, you can give Copilot the full picture and ask much more useful questions.
To do it, just click the attachment icon in the lower left corner of the Copilot chat window, select your file, and then type your prompt as normal.
Copilot will read the file and use it as context for its response.
This opens up a whole range of possibilities.
💬 Try these prompts: Upload a report and ask: “Summarise the key findings and flag anything that contradicts what was in last quarter’s report.” Upload a spreadsheet and ask: “What are the top 5 trends in this data? Are there any outliers I should investigate?” Upload a proposal and ask: “Review this proposal. Is the argument clear? What objections might a sceptical reader raise?” Upload a policy document and ask: “Explain this policy in plain English. What are the three things every employee needs to know?” Upload a CV and a job description and ask: “How well does this candidate match the role? What are the strengths and gaps?” Upload a meeting transcript and ask: “Turn this into a professional summary with action items, owners, and deadlines.” Upload a competitor’s brochure and ask: “What are their key selling points? How does our offering compare?” Upload a contract and ask: “Are there any clauses in here I should be concerned about? Summarise the key obligations for both parties.” |
⚠️ Honest note: File upload is genuinely one of Copilot’s most useful features, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, be aware of what you’re uploading – if your organisation has data sensitivity policies, make sure you’re not feeding confidential information into a tool that isn’t approved for that data. Second, Copilot handles well-structured documents much better than messy ones. A cleanly formatted report will give you better results than a chaotic spreadsheet with merged cells and hidden tabs. |
3. Summarise Something Long and Complicated with Copilot
Someone’s sent you a 20-page document, a dense policy update, or a long article and you need to get up to speed quickly.
You can paste the text (or upload a file - see the tip above) into Copilot chat and ask for a summary.
This is one of the most reliably useful things Copilot does – it’s fast, usually accurate, and saves you the time of reading through pages of material to find the three things that actually matter.
💬 Try this prompt: Create an executive summary of this document. Focus on the key decisions, any changes from the previous version, and anything that requires action from our team. [Paste text below or attach a file] |
⚠️ Honest note: Factual summaries are a real strength. Where it can stumble is with nuance. If the document has a subtle argument, a political subtext, or carefully hedged language, the summary might flatten that into something more definitive than the original intended. Always read the original before making big decisions based on a summary alone. |
4. Ask Copilot to Rewrite Something in a Different Tone
You’ve written something that’s technically fine but doesn’t quite sound right. Maybe it’s too formal, too blunt, or just a bit flat.
Instead of staring at it and making tiny tweaks for twenty minutes, paste it into Copilot and ask it to adjust the tone.
This is particularly useful for leaders and managers who have limited time but want to ensure that communication with their team lands in the way they intend.
This works for emails, messages, reports, website copy – anything where the tone matters as much as the content.
💬 Try this prompt: Rewrite the following message to sound more empathetic and supportive, while still being clear about the deadline. It’s going to a team member who’s been struggling with workload: [Paste your text] |
⚠️ Honest note: Tone adjustment is one of Copilot’s better skills. The one thing to watch is that it can sometimes overdo it - ask for ‘warmer’ and you might get something that sounds like a sympathy card. If the first version swings too far, just tell it to dial it back. |
5. Prepare for a Meeting with the help of Copilot
Walking into a meeting unprepared is one of those low-level stresses that adds up over a working week.
If you’ve got ten minutes before a meeting and you need to get your head straight, Copilot can help you think through what’s likely to come up, what questions you should be ready for, and what your key talking points should be.
💬 Try this prompt: I’ve got a meeting in 30 minutes with our finance director to discuss increasing the L&D budget for next year. They’re likely to push back on cost. Help me prepare: what are the three strongest arguments for increasing the budget, what objections should I expect, and how should I respond to each one? |
⚠️ Honest note: This is really useful for structuring your thinking, but the arguments it generates will be fairly standard. You’ll get the most value by using Copilot’s output as a framework and then adding your own specific data, context, and examples. It can’t know the internal politics or the finance director’s particular priorities – that’s where your knowledge comes in. |
6. Use Copilot to Create a Plan or Checklist
Need to plan a project, organise a process, or make sure you haven’t missed anything? Copilot is excellent at generating structured plans and checklists.
It’s especially handy for things you don’t do very often – like onboarding a new team member, planning an event, or setting up a new process – where you might not have a template to hand.
💬 Try this prompt: Create a detailed onboarding checklist for a new team member starting in our marketing department. Cover everything from before their first day through to the end of their first month. Include IT setup, introductions, training, and key milestones. Organise it by timeframe: before day one, first day, first week, first month. |
⚠️ Honest note: The checklists Copilot produces are thorough and well-structured, but they’re necessarily generic. You’ll need to add your organisation-specific items (systems, contacts, internal processes). Think of it as a solid 80% that you then customise for the last 20%. |
Related Training I Offer: Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Office Training Leadership and Management Training Check out the course pages for upcoming public dates, or contact me to find out how I can provide training for your team. |
7. Ask Copilot to Explain Something You Don’t Fully Understand
There’s no shame in not knowing something – but there is a limit to how many times you want to ask your colleagues to explain the same concept.
Copilot is a brilliant tool for quickly getting up to speed on things you’re not familiar with, whether that’s a business concept, a technical term, or an industry trend.
💬 Try this prompt: Explain what a balanced scorecard is in simple terms. I’m a team manager, not a finance person. Give me a practical example of how it might apply to a department like mine, and explain why organisations use them. |
⚠️ Honest note: Copilot is genuinely good at explaining things clearly and tailoring the explanation to your level. The risk is with highly specialist or niche topics, where it might give you a confident-sounding answer that’s slightly off. For anything important, verify with a reliable source before repeating it in a meeting. |
8. Get Copilot to Analyse or Compare Options
Got a decision to make and want to think through the options properly?
Copilot can help you weigh up pros and cons, compare alternatives, or structure a decision framework – which is far more useful than just staring at the ceiling hoping clarity arrives.
💬 Try this prompt: We’re deciding between running our annual conference in-person, fully virtual, or as a hybrid event. We’ve got about 200 attendees, a moderate budget, and the goal is maximum engagement and networking. Compare all three options with pros, cons, estimated cost implications, and a recommendation based on the priorities I’ve described. |
⚠️ Honest note: The comparisons are logically structured and cover the obvious points well. What Copilot can’t do is weigh up factors that are specific to your situation – organisational politics, team preferences, prior experience. Use it to organise your thinking, then apply your own judgement on top. |
9. Draft a Difficult Message with Copilot
Some messages are just hard to write.
Turning someone down for an internal role.
Telling a supplier you’re moving on. Giving feedback that might not land well.
These are the messages where every word feels loaded, and Copilot can take the pressure off by giving you something to start from rather than agonising over a blank screen.
💬 Try this prompt: I need to tell a colleague that they weren’t selected for an internal promotion. They were a strong candidate and I want them to feel valued and motivated to keep developing, not deflated. Give me a draft message that’s honest, kind, and includes an offer to discuss their development and what they can work on for next time. |
⚠️ Honest note: Copilot handles sensitive messages better than you might expect – the tone is usually thoughtful and appropriate. However, these are messages where your personal voice really matters. Use the draft as a foundation, then rewrite the bits that need to sound like you, not like a bot. |
10. Copilot Can Create Content You’d Normally Outsource or Avoid
Need a job advert?
A set of interview questions?
A social media post for your team’s LinkedIn page?
A brief for an external designer?
These are the tasks that often get pushed to the bottom of the pile because they feel like they should be someone else’s job.
Copilot can draft them quickly enough that you can just get them done.
💬 Try this prompt: Write a job advert for a Customer Service Team Leader role. The person will manage a team of 8, handle escalations, and report to the Head of Customer Experience. We’re looking for someone with at least 2 years of team management experience, strong communication skills, and a calm head under pressure. Tone should be professional but approachable – we want it to feel like a good place to work. |
⚠️ Honest note: The output will be well-structured and professional, but it’ll read like every other job advert on the internet unless you inject some personality. Add something specific about your organisation – what makes it different, what the team is actually like, what the role genuinely involves day to day. If you have a specific structure you want for the content, just add it into your initial Copilot prompt. You could also upload an example of a previous job advert so Copilot knows what 'good' looks like. |
11. Get a Second Opinion on Your Writing from Copilot
Before you send that important email, publish that report, or submit that proposal, you can ask Copilot to review it.
Not just for grammar and spelling – but for clarity, tone, structure, and whether it actually achieves what you want it to.
It’s like having a proofreader and a critical friend in one.
💬 Try this prompt: Review the following proposal. Tell me: is the argument clear and logical? Is anything missing that would make it more persuasive? Is the tone appropriate for a senior leadership audience? Are there any sections that are too long or could be tightened up? Be specific in your feedback. [Paste your text] |
⚠️ Honest note: This is an underrated use case. Copilot is genuinely good at spotting structural issues, unclear phrasing, and gaps in logic. Where it’s less reliable is judging whether the content will land well with your specific audience – that still requires your own judgement about the people and politics involved. |
12. Ask Copilot to Turn Rough Notes into Something Polished
You’ve just come out of a meeting, a training session, or a brainstorm and you’ve got a page of scribbled notes that only make sense to you right now.
Give them another 48 hours and you’ll have no idea what half of them mean.
Copilot can take rough, messy notes and turn them into something structured and usable while the context is still fresh.
💬 Try this prompt: Here are my rough notes from a project kick-off meeting. Turn them into a structured meeting summary with the following sections: key decisions made, action items (with owners if mentioned), open questions, and next steps. Keep it concise and professional. [Paste your notes] |
⚠️ Honest note: This works remarkably well, even with quite messy input. The main risk is that Copilot may fill in gaps with assumptions rather than flagging them as unclear. Always check that the ‘decisions’ it lists were actually decisions and not just things that were discussed. |
The Golden Rule: Be Specific with your Microsoft Copilot Prompts
If there’s one thing that runs through all twelve of these tips, it’s this: the quality of what Copilot gives you is directly linked to the quality of what you ask it.
Vague prompt = vague answer. Specific prompt = useful answer.
Every time you use Copilot, think about what context it needs.
Who’s the audience?
What’s the purpose?
What tone do you want?
What constraints are there?
The more of that you include in your prompt, the less editing you’ll need to do on the other side.
And remember – Microsoft Copilot is a starting point, not a finishing line.
The people who get the most value from it aren’t the ones who accept the first output and hit send.
They’re the ones who use it to get 80% of the way there quickly, then add their own expertise, context, and judgement for the final 20%.
Next Steps
If you’d like to learn how to get the most from Microsoft Copilot – with hands-on practice and real workplace examples – take a look at my Microsoft Copilot training course.
I run sessions for individuals and teams, covering everything from getting started to building Copilot into your daily workflow.
To find out more information, contact me and send me a quick message to learn more about how I can help you or your team use Copilot and AI tool effectively and safely.
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