In July, the autopilot became part of our everyday work – remember Copilot Wave 6. New models featuring GPT-5.6 and Claude Opus 5, laptops as project hubs, more context in Outlook, and significantly greater governance around agents. Copilot has thus become more mature and reliable. But, two questions remain: How much effort does a task actually require? And what will it cost me at the end of the month?
Copilot Wave 7 answers precisely these questions: Copilot is predictable. You control the effort yourself, see usage in real time, and share your results with a link. On top of that, there are numerous improvements across all apps. PowerPoint, in particular, has really caught up this month. In short: Following «Copilot works independently» comes «and you know what it is doing and how much it costs at all times.» Let’s go through it step by step.
This is arguably the most important new feature. Previously, Cowork simply worked on your request, and you hoped the effort was proportionate to the task. Now, you decide. Directly in the input field, you select an effort level. This determines how Cowork balances quality, speed, and credit consumption:
Light for simpler tasks
Medium is the standard for everyday work
High, Extra High, and Max give Cowork more room for in-depth analysis, complex thinking, and more detailed answers.
The drawback of the higher levels is obvious: they take longer and deplete your credit limit more quickly. Model selection and effort level now appear together in the input field, so you no longer have to search through two menus.
Before, the model selection was the only adjustable factor. Now you can run the same task with the same model, once quickly and once thoroughly. For a short summary, Light is sufficient. For a quote or an analysis that will be presented to the client, you choose a higher level. The /cost command has also been enhanced. It no longer just estimates the credits for the current task session, but also shows what percentage of your monthly limit remains. And, of course, how many credits you have already used this month and when the monthly limit will reset. Previously, usage was a black box for users, only visible in the Admin Center. Now, everyone can see their own usage.
And another renaming that is more than just a new name: The «Scheduled» tab is now called «Automations.» There, you manage all automated tasks in one place, both time-based and event-triggered. This shows where things are headed. Cowork is no longer just the place where you submit a task, but the place where tasks start automatically.
Keep Medium as the default and use the higher tiers consciously and individually. The reflex to always want to choose Max is understandable, but it is unnecessarily costly. And make a point of entering /cost once a week. Two seconds of effort and you will know where your credits are going. For your team: Clarify now who is allowed to use which tier. Setting this guideline early allows you to make Cowork widely available without losing sight of costs.
Copilot Chat has received several updates with Wave 7. All of these chat updates were rolled out in August:
In an answer, you highlight a sentence, paragraph, or table and ask Copilot to work only with that content. The highlighted text is displayed in the prompt before you send it. This way, you see exactly what your question refers to. This is intended for more targeted explanations, summaries, translations, and next steps. Copying and pasting into a new prompt is no longer necessary.
You can now share an entire chat session or a single reply via a link. Share the entire chat using «Share Chat» in the menu under «Share» in the top right corner. Share a single reply using the menu with the additional options at the end of the reply. The recipient sees a read-only view and can then continue the conversation as their own. This allows work to be reused and shared. Personal assessment: I think this is the most underrated new feature. A good prompt history takes work, and until now, this work was hidden away in your own chat. Now you can share it instead of explaining it in the next meeting.
Copilot can now work with data from Power BI reports and semantic models. Ask your question in natural language and get an evidence-based answer based on the data you have access to.
The feature has been in Public Preview since June and rolled out worldwide in August. The part about access is key: existing permissions remain the boundary. That is essential for making something like this work in an enterprise environment.
Copilot now displays content in model-driven answer cards. These include cards for weather, sports, finance, images, videos, places, and news. Depending on the prompt, the cards appear in the supported Copilot interfaces for both Entra and Microsoft accounts.
You can generate a new response to your last prompt without starting over. Either use the same model or choose a different one and run the same prompt again. This way, you can try out different responses and improve your performance without restarting the conversation.
My suggestion: «Try again» with a different model is the fastest way to get a feel for which model is best suited to which task. Same prompt, two models, direct comparison. This is the best model training available, and it only takes a few seconds.
You describe what you want to write, and Copilot creates an embedded Outlook draft directly in the Copilot chat. Then you open it in Outlook Mobile to edit and send it.
Copilot Notebooks are getting a new structure. They now live in two connected places:
In the Copilot app as a lightweight workspace. Chat with Copilot, explore references, and create artifacts.
In OneNote as the full workspace. Work on your project, create more types of artifacts, and collaborate with your team.
Both stay in sync. You can move between the Copilot app and OneNote without losing context. From the app, simply select «Open in OneNote» to continue working there. And here is something I find particularly interesting: Notebooks proactively suggest artifacts based on Work IQ and the content of your notebook. Pick a suggestion and Copilot creates a relevant Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file based on your notebook and current project. Copilot is no longer just waiting for your next prompt. It starts to anticipate what might be useful next.
Not quite here yet, but announced for September: multimodal capture on Android. You will be able to bring conversations, meetings, brainstorms, and other moments of work into your Notebooks. Capture audio, images, and notes in one go, and Copilot automatically turns them into structured notes. The same capability is also available in the OneNote app on iOS and iPad.
Take the next project you start and deliberately create a Notebook for it instead of simply dumping the files into a folder. The difference will not show on day one. It shows three months later, when someone asks: «Wait, how did we actually make that decision back then?»
You can change the language of a meeting summary after it is been created. A translate button makes multilingual summaries possible.
For a country like Switzerland, this is more than just a minor detail. The meeting is in German, the summary is sent to the colleague in Lausanne in French and to the partner abroad in English. Previously, someone had to initiate this manually, or it simply did not happen.
Three improvements that together make a noticeable difference:
Hyperlinks: Simply ask Copilot to insert links, and it will set and format the linked text directly in the document. No more manual editing.
Image understanding: Copilot now understands the images in your reference documents and incorporates them into its creations. Whether you are writing a new document or building on existing material, Copilot uses both the text and images from the files.
More precise highlights: When Copilot rewrites or refines text, it now highlights only the words it has changed, instead of the entire paragraph. This makes reviewing and accepting changes significantly easier.
My suggestion: The more precise highlights are the quiet winner. Anyone who previously had to compare an entire highlighted paragraph word for word with the original to see what Copilot had changed will now save a lot of time.
Assign tasks in comments: Copilot brings the right people into the comment thread and automatically assigns follow-up tasks. This helps you move from feedback to action faster, keeps reviews organized, and means no one has to manually track the next steps.
Strict brand compliance: This setting limits Copilot to your approved template and Slide Master layouts. When enabled, Copilot will not add or remove placeholders or create new layouts. It is designed for situations where brand consistency matters more than creative freedom – official presentations, customer materials, and regulated topics.
Note Steering: Control Copilot through natural-language instructions stored directly in the slide notes. Copilot follows these instructions whenever it creates a presentation from the template, so recurring requirements do not have to be repeated in every prompt.
Custom Skills: You can upload, create, edit, and delete your own Skills in PowerPoint. Skills turn recurring instructions into reusable guidelines that Copilot applies directly while working.
Translation has moved: The translation feature has moved from the ribbon to Copilot in PowerPoint. It is now faster and dynamically adjusts text box sizes to fit the translated text.
Additionally, as part of the Frontier Program: Copilot can now edit SmartArt while staying within your brand design. You can update diagrams and shapes on a slide directly through Copilot instead of manually inserting and aligning them.
My suggestion for PowerPoint: Strict brand compliance and Note Steering belong together. If your company has a solid PowerPoint template, set up both now. For the first time, you get real governance for AI-generated slides instead of having to fix the design manually after every presentation. This is the first thing I would implement this month.
The change history skill helps you understand how a workbook has evolved over time. Copilot summarizes recent changes, shows who edited what, and explains how both humans and AI have modified the workbook. And it can do more than just explain: it helps you undo individual changes or restore formulas by reverting the workbook to a previous, working state. Anyone who has ever spent an hour searching for the cause of an incorrect number in a shared workbook knows exactly how valuable this is.
The chat history ensures you can pick up right where you left off. Previous conversations and sessions are retained. You can access them via the menu icon in the top left of the Copilot area. The conversations are sorted by recency.
You can now create personal skills in Copilot within SharePoint and use them across all SharePoint sites and in OneDrive. Each custom skill is saved as a Markdown file in OneDrive, so you do not have to create your skills for each site. This is the key difference from previous approaches: the skill is tied to you, not the site. Anyone who regularly prepares the same type of document will save time with each repetition. The feature entered public preview in August, with a global rollout in December.
Custom Engine Agents are now available directly in Outlook. You can access them right where you already organise your work.
Even more useful, in my view, is the second update: Copilot in Outlook can now handle significantly more e-mail and calendar tasks using natural language. Ask Copilot to organise messages, assign categories, create folders, manage inbox rules, or update meetings and appointments – all directly from the chat.
This is exactly the kind of work nobody enjoys doing, which is why it often gets neglected. Inbox rules are a perfect example: most people know they exist, but few maintain them because the menus are cumbersome. One sentence in the chat is a very different barrier.
Copilot in OneDrive can now do more with your data. You can go from file to finished result directly from the chat. Copilot helps you find the right content, analyse files and data, turn them into ready-to-use outputs such as summaries, dashboards, or presentations, and then save or share them directly from OneDrive.
The Planner Agent turns your plan data into a ready-to-share status report covering progress, risks, overall status, and next steps. You decide who it is for, the tone, length, and sections. The result is an update you can actually share in minutes.
Anyone who regularly writes project status reports knows how much time they consume, and how quickly they become outdated anyway. A report based on actual tasks is not just faster. It is more honest.
In September, Copilot will also be able to create Planner tasks and retrieve task information. That means you can manage tasks across Copilot and Planner without constantly switching between the two.
The Copilot Wave 7 looks quiet if you only look at the headlines. No new flagship model, no new agent, no big spectacle. Look closer, though, and it delivers exactly what users needed. Now that the autopilot has arrived in everyday work, you are getting the cockpit to go with it. Three themes run through it all:
Control: You decide how much effort Copilot puts in and can see the cost. In Word, you can see which words were changed. In PowerPoint, strict brand compliance keeps Copilot within your approved template.
Collaboration: Share chats and individual responses via link. In PowerPoint, Copilot assigns tasks through comments. Notebooks work across the Copilot app and OneNote.
Reuse: Personal Skills in SharePoint, custom Skills in PowerPoint, chat history in Excel. Good work no longer disappears the moment you close a window.
Wave 5 turned Copilot into an autopilot. Wave 6 brought it into everyday work. Wave 7 makes it transparent and collaborative. And that predictability is what makes the difference in business between «let’s test this with a few people» and «we can roll this out to everyone now.»