Forum Discussion
Removal of Copilot Chat Availability in M365 Apps?!?
Received a post in Message Center today and would like clarification as to what capabilities Copilot Chat will retain as it is unclear from the message. This is a huge impact to users who have already adopted Copilot Chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote as well as training materials (both our own and those provided here by Microsoft).
Will users be able to access Copilot Chat (basic) via pinned app in M365 apps?
Will users only be able to access via web browser?
The section below noted in red is very confusing (from the Microsoft message) -- who gets what features as both are mentioned in same paragraph?
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Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – Updates to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote
Starting April 15, 2026, Copilot will no longer be available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Copilot Chat users. To ensure a high-quality experience, we are reserving the full Copilot experience in these apps—with advanced reasoning and model choice—for users with a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
There are no other changes for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Copilot Chat still offers secure, AI web chat and the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents for chat-first content creation within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Additionally, users still get Copilot in Outlook with inbox and calendar grounding.
4 Replies
Here's a LinkedIn post that covers the two Message Center messages MC1253858 and MC1253863 (neither of which are visible in my tenant):
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomarbuthnot_microsoft365-microsoft365copilot-activity-7439702100953116672-3EDK/
The fact that there is a split now between under and over 2,000 users, with the latter not getting Copilot Chat in M365 apps is... a bold move from MS.in my message center there following message: https://admin.cloud.microsoft/?ref=MessageCenter/:/messages/MC1253863
that differs a little and would take the spice out of the aboveVery interesting. Thanks for sharing. I looked in the Message Center on my tenant but can't find that message. Is it still there for you?
Have you seen anything else on this anywhere? We got this via the message centre too, and I would have expected a lot of internet chatter, but your post is the only thing I've found.
I'm also wondering if the copilot summarization elements in words docs etc are being removed in copilot chat (basic).
