At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every organization to achieve more—securely, responsibly, and in full alignment with the highest standards of compliance. Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of new AI-powered capabilities for our U.S. Government cloud customers, including Microsoft 365 Copilot for the Office 365 Department of Defense (DoD) Impact Level 5 (IL5) environment and Copilot Studio agent builder for Office 365 Government Community Cloud (GCC) environment. Government organizations can now confidently adopt transformative AI tools engineered to meet rigorous security, privacy, and compliance requirements.
Microsoft’s longstanding commitment to privacy, security, and compliance is at the core of the solutions we deliver for the public sector. Our AI features are built on a foundation of trusted cloud infrastructure, robust data governance, and transparent operational controls to empower agencies to harness the benefits of generative AI while maintaining mission-critical compliance and operational integrity.
M365 Copilot now generally available in Office 365 DoD (IL5) environment
Starting this month, with purchase of the M365 Copilot licenses, users in the Office 365 DoD (IL5) environment will now have access to integrated Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences. These capabilities are tailored to help meet the unique security and compliance requirements of DoD users supporting workloads at Impact Level 5 (IL5).
Microsoft 365 Copilot features available to users include:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot App – Unified AI workspace combining Chat, Pages, and more.
o Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – Secure AI chat with access to work data, files, and meetings.
o Copilot Pages – Turn Copilot responses into editable, shareable content.
- Copilot in Word – Create, summarize, refine, and visualize content, including transforming text into tables and generating images.
- Copilot in PowerPoint – Generate presentations with speaker notes, images, and summaries.
- Copilot in Excel – Analyze data, uncover trends, and generate visualizations.
- Copilot in Outlook – Summarize emails, draft responses, and simplify scheduling.
- Copilot in Teams – Recap meetings, summarize chats, and draft messages.
- Copilot in OneNote – Draft plans, generate ideas, and organize notes.
- Copilot in SharePoint – Generate branded sites and pages, and rewrite content with AI.
- Copilot in Microsoft Clipchamp – Summarize videos, answer questions, and identify key moments.
- SharePoint Agents – Turn SharePoint sites and documents into scoped AI agents.
- Microsoft Purview – Extend compliance and governance to Copilot data and interactions.
Note:
- Web grounding is off by default and must be explicitly enabled by administrators.
- Agent functionality is not currently available in Office 365 DoD IL5 environment.
- Some features (e.g., Copilot Notebooks, an AI-powered workspace for deep thinking and structured problem-solving) will become available later in CY25.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is not available in the Edge sidebar in Office 365 DoD IL5 environment.
- We’re working to bring GPT-5 to all government environments in the coming months— check our roadmap for the latest updates.
These experiences provide AI-powered support directly within apps used across the DoD enterprise, designed to align with the environment's stringent compliance, data protection, and operational standards.
For more information, refer to our public roadmap: Microsoft 365 Roadmap
Microsoft Copilot Studio agent builder now generally available in Office 365 Government Community Cloud (GCC)
Copilot Studio agent builder is now generally available for U.S. Government Community Cloud (GCC) customers. This release enables users to build lightweight agents by simply describing their needs in natural language, with no coding or technical expertise required.
With Copilot Studio agent builder, you can tailor Microsoft 365 Copilot by building agents that embed specific instructions, capabilities, and knowledge for your organization’s needs. For example, create an onboarding agent that guides new hires and connects to sources like SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, the web, and external systems to ensure responses are accurate, relevant, and permission-aware. Once published, agents can be used individually or across teams, accessible via dedicated chat or @mention in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
To get started, GCC admins can enable agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center . Once enabled, users can begin building and using agents directly within Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Support and Resources
We are committed to equipping government workforces with the tools and guidance needed to adopt Copilot confidently. Explore our resources below.
Documentation and Admin Controls: Detailed documentation and admin controls are available to help you manage and configure Copilot’s features effectively, helping to ensure that your deployment aligns with your security policies and operational requirements.
Service Description: Copilot Service Description
Adoption Resources:
Overview: Microsoft 365 Copilot
Short explainer videos: Microsoft’s Data and Security Commitments
Technical whitepapers:
- Microsoft 365 - How Microsoft 365 Delivers Trustworthy AI
- Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot(current Enterprise Cloud service documentation)
- Microsoft Purview data security and compliance protections for generative AI apps
- Apply principles of Zero Trust to Microsoft 365 Copilot
Join the Discussion
Are you planning for AI in a government tenant? Already configuring access or testing use cases?
Join the conversation below to ask questions, share deployment insights, and connect with other public sector professionals working with Microsoft 365 Copilot in secure environments. Your feedback and experience help strengthen the community.
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