Find answers to common questions about Study and Learn, Microsoft's learning agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Learn how it supports student learning, protects data, and fits into your institution's approach to AI, with guidance on access, setup, and support.
1. What kind of agent is Study and Learn?
Study and Learn is Microsoft's learning agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Students use it to work through concepts, ask questions, and practice with flashcards, quizzes, and other activities. It coaches with questions, hints, and feedback so students do the thinking.
Study and Learn is not an autonomous agent. It works only when a student starts a conversation, and it responds only inside that conversation. It doesn't take actions on its own, run in the background, or reach into your school's systems.
- It doesn't access or use your tenant data on its own. It works with the materials a student chooses to share in the conversation.
- Your tenant data belongs to you, exactly as it does in Word, Outlook, Teams, and every other Microsoft 365 app.
- Students can't use Study and Learn to reach files, sites, or resources they don't already have permission to use.
- Study and Learn is protected by the same security, privacy, and compliance stack as Microsoft 365 Copilot, and it was built and reviewed under Microsoft's Responsible AI Standard.
Study and Learn is a conversational learning agent. Microsoft built it on the declarative-agent model in Microsoft 365 Copilot: a set of instructions that shapes how Copilot teaches. Those instructions make it lead with questions, break topics into steps, offer hints before answers, and create practice activities.
It's a tutor that responds when a student asks for help. It's not a task-running agent that sets its own goals, works unattended, or carries out multistep jobs across systems. When a student closes the conversation, Study and Learn stops.
2. Can Study and Learn take actions on its own?
No. Study and Learn can't send email or Teams messages, create, edit, or delete files, submit assignments, change grades, change settings, or schedule tasks. It doesn't run in the background or on a timer, and it doesn't act on a student's behalf outside the conversation.
Everything Study and Learn produces appears in the chat for the student: explanations, questions, citations, images, and learning activities such as flashcards, quizzes, matching, and fill-in-the-blank exercises.
3. Can Study and Learn access our tenant data?
Study and Learn doesn't browse, scan, or collect your tenant's data. It works with what a student brings into the conversation, such as class notes, slides, or a PDF the student uploads or references, and uses that material to explain concepts and build practice activities.
Enabling Study and Learn doesn't give it standing access to your SharePoint sites, mailboxes, class teams, or student records.
4. Can a student use Study and Learn to reach resources they're not allowed to use?
No. Study and Learn runs with the signed-in student's identity and permissions. Microsoft 365 Copilot enforces your existing access controls and sensitivity labels, so a student can't use the agent to open a file, site, or record they can't open themselves.
Clever prompts and instructions hidden in a document can't change this. They can't give Study and Learn new permissions or new capabilities.
5. Who owns the data, and what does Microsoft do with it?
Your data belongs to your institution. Study and Learn conversations and the materials students share are handled under the same Microsoft 365 commitments that cover the rest of your tenant:
Prompts, responses, and shared materials aren't used to train the foundation models.
Microsoft processes the data only to provide the service, under your Microsoft 365 data protection terms.
Data is encrypted at rest and in transit and stays subject to your existing data residency commitments.
Your retention, audit, and eDiscovery policies apply, and your organization controls them.
When Copilot web search is turned on, Copilot can send a short search query to Bing to find images or current information. It doesn't send the student's files. Administrators can turn web search off.
6. How is Study and Learn kept safe and responsible for students?
Study and Learn inherits the Microsoft 365 Copilot security, privacy, and compliance stack and adds safeguards for students:
It's available only to students 13 and older. Accounts marked as under 13 are blocked.
Content safety filters screen for sexual, violent, hateful, and self-harm content, substance-related content, and attempts to bypass safeguards.
It stays focused on learning and declines requests outside that purpose.
Microsoft's privacy, security, and Responsible AI teams reviewed it before release.
Study and Learn was designed and evaluated under Microsoft's Responsible AI Standard, which covers fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. Students always know they are working with AI, and citations show where information came from.
Like any AI, Study and Learn can make mistakes. Citations let students check its explanations against their course materials, and students should ask their teacher when something looks wrong.
7. Will students use it to get answers or have their work written for them?
Study and Learn is built to make students think. It asks what they already know, guides them through problems step by step, and gives hints before answers. For writing, it coaches students through brainstorming, organizing, and revising instead of writing the essay for them.
Teachers stay in charge of how AI is used for each assignment. Clear class expectations and assignments that ask students to explain their reasoning work hand in hand with the agent's design.
8. Can teachers see student chats, and do quiz scores count toward grades?
Study and Learn is a private study space. Teachers don't see a student's conversations or practice results unless the student shares them. Quizzes and flashcards are for practice; their results aren't sent to a gradebook.
Your institution's existing compliance controls still apply. Authorized administrators can use retention and eDiscovery under your policies, just as with other Microsoft 365 content.
9. Who can use Study and Learn, and how do we turn it on?
Study and Learn is included at no extra cost with Microsoft 365 Education A1, A3, and A5 licenses for users 13 and older.
Higher education students can use Copilot Chat and Study and Learn by default.
For K-12 students ages 13-17, IT administrators set the Education tenant identifier to K-12, set each student's age group and consent, and enable Copilot Chat. Students marked as under 13 can't access it.
Administrators can make Study and Learn the pre-selected agent so it opens first in every new conversation, and they can block other agents for students.
Microsoft's setup guides for the Education tenant identifier and student age groups walk through each step.
10. What training and support are available?
Introduce Study and Learn alongside educator training. Microsoft offers free professional development on using Study and Learn in the classroom, including how to introduce it to students and the teaching considerations behind it. Separate courses cover Teach and learning activities. AI literacy resources help educators, students, and families use AI responsibly.
For deployment questions, IT teams can use the Study and Learn documentation and Microsoft Education support. Students and educators can send product feedback directly from the agent.