Work today isn’t short-lived or linear. Projects span months, inputs come from everywhere across files, meetings, and conversations, and real progress depends on how well teams understand evolving information while turning all of it into clear decisions, updates, and deliverables. That’s why we’re excited to announce the general availability of the refreshed Copilot Notebooks experience across Microsoft 365 Copilot app and OneNote. With an updated three-column layout and powerful Copilot features like Audio Overview and Study Guide, Copilot Notebooks are your workspace for gathering and thinking on a topic or project over time.
What Is a Copilot Notebook?
Introduced last year, Copilot Notebooks are AI-powered workspaces where Copilot grounds its responses on a user-curated context based on a set of reference materials, such as Word documents, PowerPoint decks, OneNote pages, PDFs, and more related to your project or topic. Unlike a one-off chat, a notebook provides persistent memory and structure, allowing Copilot to reason across diverse and evolving content over time.
Think of a notebook as a long-lived collaboration space where AI works with your information, not around it. You can ask Copilot questions, synthesize themes, generate drafts, explore insights, and create artifacts, all while staying anchored to the same shared set of references and instructions.
What’s new?
Updated Three Column Design
The updated three-column layout brings your references, content in Copilot Pages, and Copilot chats into one seamless, side-by-side view. Now you can keep a Copilot conversation going while simultaneously capturing your thoughts in a Copilot Page, without losing context or breaking your flow.
Richer Reference Sets
You can now add a wider range of reference materials to a Notebook, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, OneNote pages, PDFs, Copilot Pages, with more coming soon. Copilot reasons across everything you add, synthesizing insights that would otherwise require manual perusal and comprehension.
Note: For files already part of your work data in the cloud, there’s no need to upload or manage separate copies. Adding a reference to such files in your Notebook keeps it up to date even as changes are made to the referenced source file.
Overview Page with Notebook Level Summary and Insights
The new Overview page provides an instant summary of all the references in your Notebook and surfaces key insights, topics, and themes. The Overview page evolves with your Notebook and refreshes with the click of a button, so your understanding stays current without extra work.
Create with Copilot in your Notebook
In addition to chatting with Copilot to reason over your references, you can now transform them into quick drafts, audio overviews, flash cards, quizzes, and more using the Notebook’s ‘Quick create’ options. These tools turn raw content into structured, shareable artifacts in seconds, making it easier to synthesize information, and capture insights from your references. Additionally, Copilot chat in Notebooks provides access to agents such as Researcher and Designer, enabling you to produce visual designs, infographics, and detailed reports.
Sharing and Collaboration
Copilot Notebooks are now shareable with your teammates, enabling teams to build a common understanding over the same source material. This is particularly powerful for maintaining a shared knowledge base, organizing project information, and supporting cross‑functional collaboration.
Putting Copilot Notebooks to Work
Copilot Notebooks are powerful but intentionally flexible. You can shape them around the way you work. Explore some proven ways to integrate Copilot Notebooks and accelerate your workflows.
Create a Home for your Project
Starting or ramping up on a new project? Bring together relevant files in a Copilot Notebook and use the Overview Page to quickly get a summary of the project and its key points. Customize and generate a quick podcast-style Audio Overview and listen to it on the go! Once you understand the context, ask Copilot questions like:
“What are the key risks or challenges highlighted in these materials?”
“Which action items should the team focus on first?”
“Where do stakeholders disagree?”
Supercharge your Recurring Reporting Workflows
Some work happens on a regular cadence on a team, such as weekly updates, business reviews, reports, or newsletters. Copilot Notebooks help by acting as a steady source of truth for these updates. Teams can reuse the same Notebook structure, add new inputs as they arrive, and rely on Copilot to:
- Highlight what’s new or different
- Identify patterns across updates
- Produce consistent summaries or drafts using custom instructions
This reduces manual synthesis and helps teams focus on decisions instead of compiling updates. Trying adding your older reports and files to a Notebook, and ask Copilot to:
“Draft a brief summary of changes between January and February monthly performance reports”
“Flag key action items or decisions that need attention”
Stay Focused on a Specific Task or Deliverable
Sometimes, work is best supported by a short-lived, highly focused workspace, such as an academic paper, investigation, or case analysis. In these scenarios, a Copilot Notebook can serve as a dedicated space to:
- Collect all relevant materials
- Ask Copilot targeted questions related to the task
- Keep reasoning and outputs tied to a single goal
Curating references helps Copilot provide reliable responses grounded in Notebook context, minimizing the chance of hallucinations. When the work is done, the Notebook captures not just the result, but also the context and insights, making it easy to revisit, share, or build on in the future.
Research a Particular Topic or Skill
When you need to get up to speed on a topic, whether it’s a new technology, market trend, or internal process, a Copilot Notebook can serve as a personal research hub, bringing together articles, reports, meeting notes, and other reference materials in one place.
With everything in one Notebook, ‘Quick create’ options and Copilot chat can help you:
- Learn key topics through Topic Pages
- Recall what you studied using Quiz or Flash cards
- Summarize complex information across multiple sources
- Create a study plan or step-by-step overviews
Sample Copilot prompts to try:
“Summarize the key trends from these research papers and highlight any conflicting perspectives.”
“Create a one-page overview of this topic for someone new to it.”
“Suggest a learning roadmap for these resources”
Get Started Today
- Access Copilot Notebooks: Go to https://m365.cloud.microsoft/notebooks or open the OneNote Windows app. Find Copilot Notebooks in the left navigation pane.
- Create Your First Notebook: Click ‘New Notebook’, give it a name, and start adding references such as Word documents, PDFs, PowerPoint decks, and Excel sheets.
- Engage with Copilot: Ask Copilot questions, request summaries, or generate Audio Overviews, all grounded in your notebook content.
- Collaborate with Your Team: Share your Notebook with colleagues to build shared understanding on a topic or project.
Availability and Requirements
The updated Copilot Notebooks experience is now generally available to commercial Microsoft 365 users with work or school (Entra ID) accounts. It is accessible in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Web, Windows, Mac, and Mobile and the OneNote app on Windows, for users who meet the following requirements:
- Have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license – Learn more about Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and plans.
- Have an active SharePoint or OneDrive license.
The updated Copilot Notebooks experience is currently unavailable to Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers. However, consumer users can still access the original Copilot Notebooks experience with an eligible M365 Personal or Family account. Learn more here: Copilot Notebooks Now Available for Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium Accounts
Feedback
Tried Copilot Notebooks? We’d love to hear from you! Share your feedback and suggestions by selecting Help > Feedback in OneNote or "..." > Feedback in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Your input helps us keep improving Copilot Notebooks for everyone!
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