Custom Skills in Copilot Cowork

Skills are specialized instruction sets that tell Copilot Cowork exactly how to think, act, and respond for a specific task.

There are two types:

Out-of-the-box skills – built and maintained by Microsoft and Anthropic, automatically invoked based on conversation context (~13 available currently)

Custom skills – instruction sets you write yourself, defining a specific process, format, and set of standards for Cowork to follow every time the skill is triggered

Custom skills are really where Cowork starts to feel less like a generic assistant and more like a tool built around how you actually work. Once a skill is defined, Cowork applies the same process, format, and standards every time it's triggered, so you're not re-explaining your requirements in every conversation.

For an in-depth tutorial on how to leverage skills in Copilot Cowork, check out the video below 👇

https://youtu.be/MnJmzZvqjJA