What information does Copilot use to answer my prompt?

You can ask questions, generate content, build agents, and complete tasks in Copilot. To give you responses that are useful and specific to you, Copilot doesn't rely on its general training alone; it draws on relevant information like the following sources:

Connecting a response to real information like this is called grounding. Grounding is what lets Copilot give you answers anchored in your actual work and the real world, complete with citations you can check.

Note

The separate Work and Web tabs in Copilot have been replaced by the Work IQ button. Instead of switching between work grounding and web grounding, you now use a single on/off control to decide whether Copilot can reference your work data. See Turn Work IQ on or off below.

What Copilot can access and your privacy

Copilot respects your existing Microsoft 365 permissions. When Work IQ is on, Copilot can only reference work content you're already authorized to access, and it applies your organization's security and governance controls to every request.

  • Your data stays yours. Copilot doesn't train public models on your company's data, and it doesn't retain your prompts to train models outside your organization.
  • Your permissions are always enforced. Work IQ works with your organization's data in place and honors the same access rules you already have. It doesn't create separate, over-shared copies of your content.

Limitations and tips of grounding in Copilot

  • If Copilot can't find relevant, accessible sources, it may give a more general answer. Add a file, link, or specific instructions to ground the response. For example, "Use this file only."
  • Grounding improves accuracy and relevance and gives you citations to verify, but you should still review the sources and confirm critical details before you share or act on them.
  • Copilot can give outdated answers if you point it at an old website or an earlier version of a file. Make sure you're linking the latest version, and if several similar files exist, point Copilot at the specific one. You can also ask, "Confirm the publish date and show the exact section."
  • Availability varies by license, subscription, and admin settings. Not every source is available for every account type, and some capabilities (such as web content) can be turned off by your IT administrator. If you're not sure which plan you have, check your subscriptions page.

How does grounding work for different licenses and subscription types?

Copilot can use different information for grounding depending on your license or subscription. Not all types of grounding are available for all account types. Learn more about the different Microsoft Copilot experiences.

Tip

Not sure which subscription you have? Visit your subscriptions page to view the details of your Microsoft plan.

Select your account type to learn how grounding works for you:

What is Work IQ?

Note

Work IQ is available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on license. Learn more about Copilot licensing at How Copilot Chat works with and without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Work IQ is the intelligence layer that helps Copilot and your agents understand your work. It integrates the information in your Microsoft 365 and business apps and turns it into personalized context Copilot can act on, so responses reflect what's actually going on around you.

Work IQ helps Copilot understand:

  • Who you work with
  • What you're working on
  • What matters right now
  • How work is progressing
  • What information is relevant to a given task
  • How your organization runs

In short, Work IQ reasons on the data spread across your emails, files, chats, meetings, and connected apps to create into usable intelligence, not just isolated pieces of content.

How Work IQ improves your Copilot responses

  • Work IQ connects information across your conversations, meetings, files, people, projects, accounts, and opportunities. This enables Copilot to provide rich contextual responses, instead of outputs in an information vacuum.

  • Work IQ helps Copilot understand your priorities, projects, collaborators, preferences, and work patterns. Because of this, Copilot's responses become more tailored to how you actually work and more relevant over time as it builds a fuller picture of your work context.

  • Work IQ can pull together signals from many places to surface risks, opportunities, follow-ups, missing information, and next best actions. Rather than simply summarizing what happened, it helps you answer the more useful question of "What should I do next?"

Turn Work IQ on or off

You control whether Copilot can reference your work data using the Work IQ button at the top left of the Chat screen in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

If you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on license, Work IQ is on by default.

  • Work IQ on: Copilot can reference your work data, your emails, files, chats, meetings, people, and projects across Microsoft 365, alongside the web and anything you attach. Use this when you want responses grounded in your work.
  • Work IQ off: Copilot answers without referencing your work data. It still uses publicly available web information and any content you attach to your prompt. Use this when you want a general answer or are working outside the context of your organization.

You can switch Work IQ on or off at any time, depending on what a given task needs.

More ways to work with prompts