Get started with Copilot Cowork (Frontier)

Prerequisites

• To use Cowork, you need to be part of the Frontier program.

  Notes: 

  • Cowork is currently rolling out to Frontier early access for Microsoft 365 plans with Copilot licenses in select markets and languages, starting with the United States and English (en-us). Expanded access is coming soon.

  • Frontier includes early access to experimental features, which means features may change as Microsoft improves them.

• Cowork works in your browser at m365.cloud.microsoft and in the Microsoft 365 Copilot desktop app.

• Add Cowork to your Copilot from the Agent Store. If you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, follow these steps to add Cowork:

  1. Sign in to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

  2. In the left navigation pane, select Agents.

  3. Find and add Cowork (Frontier). You should see Cowork in the left navigation pane under Agents.

Start a conversation

Describe what you want Cowork to do in natural language, or select one of the suggested prompts on the home page, such as Catch me up, Organize my inbox, or Prep for a meeting.

1. Sign in to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

2. In the left navigation pane, under Agents, select Cowork.

3. Enter your request in the text box. You can type up to 16,000 characters. For example:

Send an email to the marketing team summarizing last week's campaign results.

You can also:

• Attach files—Drag and drop files onto the chat input, select Upload images and files to browse your device, or select Attach cloud files to pick files from OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams.

• Use voice input—Select the microphone button to speak your request instead of typing.

Follow along as Cowork works

After you send your message, Cowork processes your request and shows each step in the conversation:

• Thinking indicator—Shows that Cowork is processing your request.

• Skill messages—Indicate when Cowork loads a skill it needs, such as "Preparing to compose emails" or "Preparing to create Word documents."

• Step-by-step updates—Show what Cowork is doing at each stage, such as "Composing your email" or "Creating your presentation."

• Streaming response—The response appears in real time as Cowork works.

• Interactive cards—Some responses include interactive cards with structured layouts, buttons, and data displays directly in the conversation.

Cowork may also ask you a question to clarify your request. When this happens, you see a set of choices to pick from. Select an option, type your own answer, or select Skip to let Cowork continue without additional input.

If you think of something else while Cowork is still working, you can send another message, and Cowork will adjust its approach accordingly.

Approve actions

Before Cowork takes an action on your behalf—such as sending an email, posting a Teams message, or scheduling a meeting—it asks for your permission. Approval prompts for medium and high risk actions include a risk level indicator so you can gauge the impact. You have three choices:

• Approve—Allow the action to proceed this one time.

• Approve & Remember—Allow the action and skip the prompt for similar actions in the current conversation.

• Reject—Stop the action. Cowork skips it and moves on with the rest of your request.

For certain actions, such as sending an email, posting a Teams message, or scheduling a meeting, Cowork shows a preview of the content so you can review it before approving. You can also select Show parameters to see the technical details of the action.

Review files and results

When Cowork creates or modifies files during a conversation, they appear in the side panel on the right. The side panel has four sections:

• Progress—Shows a progress bar with the percentage of tasks complete, plus a step-by-step log of what Cowork is doing.

• Input folder—Files you provided as context for the conversation.

• Output folder—Files Cowork created. Each file has Download and Preview buttons.

• Skills—Shows the skills Cowork loaded during the conversation.

• Schedule—Shows any scheduled prompts you set up during the conversation.

• Permissions—Shows the tools and actions you approved, including any "always approve" preferences.

You can also review files Cowork created directly in the app, or open them in OneDrive.

You can preview the following file types directly in the conversation without downloading them:

• Word

• PowerPoint

• CSV

• PDF

• Markdown

• Images

• HTML

Select any file to open an inline preview. You can expand the preview to full-screen or open the file in its native application.

Control the conversation

You can manage or interrupt Cowork's work at any time during a conversation:

• Pause—Cowork finishes its current step and then pauses. You can also interrupt to pause immediately, even mid-step.

• Resume—Continue from where Cowork stopped.

• Cancel—Stop the current task entirely. You can send a new message without needing to resume.

Skills

Cowork uses specialized skills as it works. When the agent uses a new skill during your conversation, a message such as "Preparing to compose emails" appears, and the skill shows up in the side panel. The following out-of-the-box skills are available:

You can also extend Cowork with custom skills stored in your OneDrive. Create a subfolder in /Documents/Cowork/Skills/ and place a SKILL.md file inside it with a name, description, and instructions. Cowork discovers your custom skills automatically at the start of each conversation.

Manage your tasks

Select the Tasks view to see all your conversations with Cowork. You can switch between three tabs:

• List—Shows all tasks in a flat list.

• Kanban—Groups tasks by status columns.

• Scheduled—Shows tasks with scheduled prompts so you can review or edit their timing.

Each task tracks its status as In progress, Needs user input, Done, or Failed. Select any task to open its conversation and continue working.

Schedule prompts

You can schedule a prompt to run automatically at a set time or on a recurring basis. Scheduled prompts are useful for tasks you want Cowork to handle regularly, such as a daily briefing or a weekly status report.

To create a scheduled prompt, describe the task and the timing in your message using natural language. For example:

• "Send me a daily briefing every morning at 9 AM"

• "Every Friday at 3 PM, summarize my unread emails from this week"

Cowork confirms the schedule and asks for your approval before activating it. You can manage scheduled prompts from the Scheduled tab in the Tasks view or from the Schedule section in the side panel. From there, you can edit, pause, or cancel a scheduled prompt at any time.

Supported file types

You can attach a wide range of file types to your conversations. Cowork supports the following categories:

Provide feedback

You can share feedback in several ways:

• Thumbs up or thumbs down—Rate any response from Cowork directly in the conversation.

• Inline comments—Leave comments directly on messages in the conversation to provide targeted feedback on specific parts of a response.

• Document feedback—When previewing a file Cowork created, use the feedback controls to rate it.

• General feedback—Open the menu and select the feedback option to share broader comments.

Limitations

• Cowork may misinterpret ambiguous or overly broad instructions. Provide clear, specific requests for better results.

• AI-generated documents, emails, and messages should be treated as drafts. Always review content before approving send or share actions.

• Search results may be incomplete if source data across your organization is outdated or not indexed.

• Complex multi-step tasks with many dependencies may not always complete as expected.

• Cowork can only access data and services that your Microsoft 365 account is authorized to use.

• Cowork cannot access files stored on your local device. It works with files in OneDrive, SharePoint, and other connected cloud services.

• Cowork cannot delete files or folders in OneDrive or SharePoint.

• Cowork works in your browser and in the Microsoft 365 Copilot desktop app.

• Voice input availability depends on your browser. Not all browsers support this feature.

• Custom skills created by users are not validated by Microsoft. Review custom skill outputs carefully, as their quality depends on how the skill was written.