Tag: Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat Changes – April 2026

On March 16, 2026, Microsoft announced changes to the use of Copilot Chat.  These changes will be implemented on April 15, 2026.

What’s changing?

From April 15, 2026, Microsoft is refining the Copilot Chat experience for users. As part of this update:

  • Copilot Chat will continue to provide secure AI chat and chat first content creation through the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. In addition, users still get Copilot in Outlook with inbox and calendar grounding.
  • 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 for users with a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
  • There are no changes for users who already have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
  • Please note that in-product labels to help end users and admins identify their user experience is being modified. Users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will be labelled as “Copilot Chat (Basic)” and users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will be labelled as “M365 Copilot (Premium)”.

 

AI Tools in Microsoft 365

Teams Premium – ICT have recently deployed Teams Premium for a number of Professional Services departments supporting the University including HR, Finance, ICT and Property Services.



Teams Premium is also available for staff to request at a cost of £20 + VAT (£24 total cost) per user per year (or part thereof). You can request a Teams Premium licence by completing this Service Desk form



Teams Premium provides AI meeting notes and tasks for any meeting that is either recorded or transcribed where the organiser has a Teams Premium licence. In addition Teams Premium provides live captions and translation into multiple languages.



You can find out more about Teams Premium by watching one of the recent Teams Premium webinar recordings available from these links …

Webinar 1 – 2025 03 27 – Teams Premium for Professional Services – Webinar 1.mp4

Webinar 2 – 2025 04 29 – Teams Premium for Professional Services – Webinar 2.mp4



Copilot Chat – This is the Copilot available to all staff and students via the web browser. This is a Generative AI tool which allows you to ask questions and which surfaces answers and creates content based on publicly available content from websites, etc.



The tool allows creation of a limited number of images (this is a recent change made by Microsoft at the end of April 2025) using the Dall-e models. ICT are aware of the limit being as low as 1 image per 24 hours and have expressed concern to Microsoft about the usability of such a low limit given that image generation almost always requires some refinement which the limits currently prevent.



Copilot for M365 – this is the full integration of Copilot into M365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Teams. Copilot for M365 also integrates with the files that you have access to, whether in your One Drive or via files stored in SharePoint sites where you have access.



Copilot for M365 apps can generate more specific content or assist you by analysing data or summarising long emails or documents.



Copilot for M365 is a high cost add-on so should be carefully considered before making any request. The current cost for Copilot (as at May 2025) is £342 + VAT (£410) per user per year. ICT are working to try and reduce this cost and we hope to have better pricing from July 2025.



If you are interested in obtaining Copilot for M365 licences then please contact the Service Desk who can log a request to the relevant team for further discussion, etc.



On Tuesday 13 May 2025 we ran an AMA session where the bulk of the time was spent demonstrating some of the Copilot for M365 features. A recording is available at 13 05 2025 – Microsoft AMA Session – Demos of Copilot for M365.mp4