Bring more context and control into everyday work with Copilot: effective March 9, 2026, Microsoft introduced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which brings a whole new way of using AI into your workflows.
Summary
- Microsoft announced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which embeds agentic capabilities.
- Claude models will become available in Copilot Chat, alongside the latest OpenAI
- Copilot Cowork brings the technology of Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- New Word and Excel experiences are generally available now, while PowerPoint and Outlook begin rolling out over the coming months.
- Copilot Chat can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from conversation, and schedule from chat plus custom instructions are available today.
Wave 3 Innovations
Microsoft has introduced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a release that embeds true agentic capabilities into the Microsoft 365 suite. This evolution moves Copilot beyond generating isolated outputs and enables it to carry out multi-step tasks inside documents, spreadsheets, presentations and emails. Instead of treating work as disconnected prompts, Copilot now understands context, maintains continuity and executes tasks in a way that aligns with real workplace processes.
This is powered by Work IQ, a new intelligence layer built on signals from Microsoft Graph, which is applied in Copilot in Microsoft 365 Apps and Copilot Chat.
Work IQ:
- Understands work patterns, roles and collaboration networks
- Keeps track of recent files, meetings, decisions and relationships
- Grounds Copilot actions in enterprise context
- Ensures permissions, labeling and identity rules are always enforced
Claude Models joining Copilot Chat
Microsoft has a multi-model strategy, meaning they want customers to be able to use LLMs from different vendors. Adhering to this approach, Microsoft will soon make the latest Claude models from Anthropic generally available in Copilot Chat. Claude brings strong reasoning capabilities, long-context understanding and robust safety features. Right now, they are only available through the Frontier program and will roll out in the next weeks.
These models operate alongside the newest OpenAI models. Copilot has the ability to automatically select the most effective model across OpenAI and Claude based on the task’s requirements. This approach ensures that organizations benefit from the strengths of different models without vendor lock-in.
This gives organizations:
- Increased flexibility
- Better performance across reasoning-intensive tasks
- Freedom from single-vendor lock-in
- Enterprise-grade data protection regardless of the model used
Claude models will roll out more broadly in the coming weeks.
Copilot Cowork: The Next Step Toward Autonomous Work Execution
Microsoft has introduced Copilot Cowork, a capability that brings the underlying technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. We think this is another major step in enhancing productivity with common workflows using AI. Copilot Cowork enables long-running, multi-step task execution that unfolds over time. It allows Copilot to break down complex objectives into clear steps and progress them autonomously. Throughout the process, users retain full visibility and control, with every action being transparent, reviewable and governed by enterprise-grade controls. It moves you from just getting an answer to actually performing tasks from start to end in the Copilot Chat.
Let’s look at two examples of how Copilot Cowork works:
1. Clean up your calendar and protect focus time
If your week begins with too many meetings and too little focus time, Cowork can help you with cleaning up your calendar. It scans your Outlook calendar, asks what you want to prioritize, highlights conflicts and low-value meetings, and suggests a better structure. After you approve, Cowork accepts, declines, or reschedules meetings and adds focus blocks. It can also send preparation notes when needed.
2. Prepare the meeting materials and align the team
Customer meetings often require hours of preparation. Cowork handles the full workflow. It gathers relevant emails, meeting notes, and files, blocks preparation time in your calendar, and produces a complete package: a briefing document, supporting analysis, and a shareable client deck. Everything is stored in Microsoft 365 so the team can refine it together.
Copilot Work: Availability
Copilot Cowork is currently in Research Preview with a limited set of customers and will expand through the Frontier program in late March 2026. After that, it will take a few more weeks before becoming generally available.
Copilot Chat: Create Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations from Conversation
Already generally available, Copilot Chat now acts as the operational command center for Microsoft 365. Users can create complete Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations directly from conversation. “Schedule from chat” lets users book meetings directly inside the Copilot Chat conversation. It lets you pull availability and context from Outlook without switching interfaces.
Also, with “Custom instructions”, users can define how they want Copilot to behave across conversations. For example, you can define the writing style, focusing on financial impacts or always structuring documents in a specific format.
New Word and Excel capabilities generally available
These multi-step actions of the new Copilot experiences are already generally available and embedded in Word and Excel. They give users immediate access to richer, more context-aware AI assistance, and allow for the more complex task solving. In Excel, it can create real formulas, analyze data and improve spreadsheets without disrupting structure or logic.
In Word, Copilot can refine drafts, update content and maintain organizational writing consistency, using data from Work IQ.
PowerPoint and Outlook advanced AI capabilities
PowerPoint and Outlook will receive the same advanced, agentic capabilities in the coming months. This includes brand-aware slide generation, layout understanding, deeper email refinement and multi-step coordination tasks that extend across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
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Sources
For the announcement of Microsoft 365 Copilot: Claude in Chat and Wave 3, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/powering-frontier-transformation-with-copilot-and-agents/.
Announcement of the Frontier Suite: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/03/09/introducing-the-first-frontier-suite-built-on-intelligence-trust/.
More on Copilot Work: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/09/copilot-cowork-a-new-way-of-getting-work-done/.
Join the Frontier program to access new Copilot capabilities before general availability: https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/frontier-program/.
For useful software licensing information on Microsoft products, please visit: https://www.schneider.im/software/microsoft/.