- Microsoft and Anthropic unveil Copilot Cowork
- Anthropic AI platform allows Copilot to really dig deep into work tasks
- The tool will be able to cover the entire Microsoft 365 platform
Microsoft has unveiled a major update to Copilot, which it says will allow the AI assistant to truly get involved in 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 that aims to turn AI from an interested observer to a full-fledged helper.
Or as the company puts it in a new blog post, “to complete tasks, run workflows and do work on your behalf… Copilot Cowork is built for that: it helps Copilot take action, not just chat.”
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Copilot Cowork
“If you’ve used Copilot, you’ve 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: translating that intent into real actions across Microsoft 365.”
Microsoft says users will be able to describe the outcome they want with Cowork search across your Microsoft 365 office software suite, including Outlook, Teams, Excel and more to learn about the task.
It will then turn this learning into an action plan, which runs in the background as you go about your work day, but offers a series of checkpoints so you can check its progress, make changes or pause the action at any point.
“Copilot works independently without you relinquishing control,” says Microsoft, giving a host of examples of where Cowork can be useful, such as clearing a packed work calendar to reschedule meetings and create focus time, or create a launch plan for a new project, create a pitch deck, compare competition in Excel or manage workloads across a team.
It can also be helpful to research a new client or customer, look online for news and reports with key information before summarizing the findings, and then prepare your meeting with the customer by creating a slide deck of information gleaned from your emails, meetings and files
Microsoft says Cowork operates within the security and governance boundaries of Microsoft 365, so your identity and compliance policies will apply by default. Cowork will also run in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment, meaning tasks can continue securely even as you move across devices.
Copilot Cowork is currently being tested with a limited number of customers in Research Preview, with Microsoft saying it will be more widely available in the Frontier program in late March 2026.
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