Copilot Autopilot: what it is, what it does and how to get ready for it

Does your team lose hours every week chasing updates? Recurring reviews, reports and supplier check-ins have a habit of eating time nobody budgeted for. For businesses already paying for Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new feature is designed to take that work off your plate. Anyone responsible for who and what can access company data will want to understand it before it arrives.

On 25 September 2026, Microsoft rebuilt Copilot around three areas: Home, Code and Autopilot. Autopilot changes how work gets done by continuing to work after you close your laptop. This guide explains what Copilot Autopilot is, what it can do, what it costs and how to get your business ready to set it up safely.

What is Copilot Autopilot?

Copilot Autopilot is an always-on AI agent inside the Microsoft Copilot app. You give it a name, a role, and a goal, and it keeps working in the background without waiting for a new prompt. Microsoft describes it as a digital teammate.

Each agent runs in the cloud, inside your organisation’s own Microsoft 365 tenant. It has its own identity in Microsoft Entra ID (the service that manages user accounts and sign-ins), along with its own memory and workspace. That identity lets your IT team see, govern and audit what the agent does, in the same way they manage a member of staff’s account.

You may have heard of it under its earlier name, Scout, the personal agent Microsoft first introduced on 2 June 2026. The September 2026 version moves it into Copilot and Microsoft 365 for businesses.

It is easy to confuse with Windows Autopilot, the long-standing tool IT teams use to automatically set up new Windows laptops. The two share a name and nothing else.

What does Copilot Autopilot do?

Autopilot takes on ongoing, recurring work and sees it through over days or weeks. According to Microsoft, it can:

• watch Teams channels and conversations for things that need action
• follow up on threads that have gone quiet
• run recurring work on a schedule, such as weekly reports or check-ins
• pick a project back up days later, using its memory of where it left off
• contact colleagues for updates on your behalf

You work with it by mentioning it in Teams and Outlook, the same way you would tag a colleague.

Microsoft’s own example is a supplier review. You give Autopilot the goal of running the review, and it builds the schedule and workback plan, prepares for the meetings, handles follow-ups, and chases stakeholders for updates.

How could that work in your business? Think about the tasks that rely on someone remembering to chase: client onboarding steps, contract renewal reminders, monthly reporting, internal approvals. That’s the kind of work Autopilot is designed for.

How is Autopilot different from Copilot Chat and Cowork?

The main difference is who starts the work. Chat and Cowork wait for you to ask. Once you have given Autopilot a goal, it keeps going.

Chat is not going anywhere. Most people will use both: Chat for quick help, Autopilot for the work that needs following through.

Can you use Copilot Autopilot yet, and what does it cost?

Most businesses cannot use Autopilot yet. Microsoft began expanding it to a private preview at the end of September 2026, which means a limited trial for organisations Microsoft selects. Microsoft has not set a general availability date yet, and more detail is expected at its Ignite event in November 2026.

The rest of the new Copilot is rolling out in stages. Home and Code are reaching organisations in Microsoft’s Frontier early-access programme first, with wider availability to follow.

Your flat monthly Copilot licence does not cover Copilot for Microsoft 365. Microsoft has split Copilot costs in two:

• The per-user Copilot licence covers Chat and Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams at a fixed monthly cost
• Cowork, Code, Autopilot and long-running agents are billed by usage, through Copilot Credits

Copilot Credits are a shared currency that Microsoft uses across its usage-based AI services. How many credits Autopilot uses depends on what the agent does, so costs vary month to month. In business tenants, no credits are spent until an administrator sets up a spending policy.

Did you know? Reported figures put paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats at 30 million in July 2026, roughly 7% of Microsoft 365’s 450 million-plus commercial seats. Many organisations are still early in their Copilot journey, so now is the right time to prepare rather than rush.

How to set up Copilot Autopilot

Setting up Autopilot happens in two stages: your IT administrator prepares the tenant, then each user creates their own Autopilot. Microsoft has not yet published admin guidance written specifically for Autopilot, so the steps below cover the settings it is known to depend on. Menu names may change as the preview develops.

Stage 1: Prepare your Microsoft 365 tenant (IT administrator)

1. Check licensing. Users need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and the admin account making the changes does too, or some settings may not appear.
2. Use the right admin role. Configuring early-access features needs the AI Administrator, Security Administrator or Office Apps Administrator role.
3. Turn on Frontier. In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, go to Copilot, then Settings, then View all, then Copilot Frontier. Choose which users get access to preview features. Enrol your own admin account too.
4. Allow Microsoft-built agents. Under Allowed agent types in the admin centre agent settings, make sure Allow apps and agents built by Microsoft is ticked.
5. Set a Copilot Credits spending policy. Agent 365, Microsoft’s agent management layer, lets you set spending limits for the whole organisation, specific groups or individual users. Choose which AI models the policy allows, because only the models you select will consume credits.
6. Add budgets and alerts. Put them in place before anyone hands Autopilot a standing task, so a busy agent cannot run up an unexpected bill.
7. Request the preview. If your organisation wants early access, register interest with Microsoft or through your Microsoft partner.

Stage 2: Create an Autopilot (user)

Once Autopilot is available in your tenant, it appears as its own area in the Copilot app, alongside Home and Code. Based on how Microsoft describes it, setting one up looks like this:

1. Open the Copilot app and go to Autopilot.
2. Give the agent a name, so colleagues know who is contacting them.
3. Describe its role in a sentence, for example, ‘Supplier review coordinator’.
4. Set a clear goal with an end point, for example ‘Run the quarterly review for our five key suppliers and have every meeting booked and minuted by the end of the month’.
5. Agree its boundaries: which channels, people and files it should work with, and what it must check with you before doing.
6. Mention it in Teams or Outlook to hand it work, and review what it reports back.

The quality of the goal decides the quality of the result. A vague goal such as ‘keep on top of suppliers’ gives the agent nothing to measure itself against.

Before you switch it on: five checks for your data

An always-on agent can only be as safe as the permissions behind it. Autopilot works with the files, chats and mailboxes it can reach, and it keeps that access after the user logs off. AI will not fix a messy tenant. Get your blocks in place first.

1. Fix oversharing. If a SharePoint site is open to everyone, an agent can find what is in it. Review sharing on sites that hold HR, finance and client data.
2. Apply sensitivity labels. Labels tell Microsoft 365 which documents are confidential, so Copilot treats them accordingly.
3. Treat each agent like a new starter. Autopilot has its own Entra identity, so give it the least access it needs, review that access regularly and remove agents that are no longer used.
4. Keep a human in the loop. Decide which actions the agent can take alone and which need sign-off, such as contacting clients or suppliers.
5. Check the audit trail. Make sure someone in your business reviews what agents have done, not only what they cost.

How ready is your tenant today? If you are not sure who can see your most sensitive files, answer that question before you give an agent the same access.