How Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks works

How does Copilot Notebooks work?

Copilot Notebooks operates as an intelligent, scoped workspace. When you create a notebook, you can add references such as Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel sheets, Copilot chats, OneNote pages, and meeting notes. Copilot then uses only this curated content to generate responses, summaries, and drafts.

What can Copilot Notebooks do?

• Summarize and analyze: Ask Copilot to extract key points, identify themes, or summarize documents in your notebook. For example:

  Summarize the key takeaways from the Q2 strategy deck and meeting notes.

• Draft content: Generate emails, plans, or reports grounded in your selected materials. For example:​​​​

  Draft a go-to-market plan using the uploaded product brief and customer feedback.

• Answer questions: Get focused answers based on your notebook’s content. For example:​​​​

  What licensing options are mentioned in these documents?

• Stay in flow: Copilot Notebooks is integrated with Microsoft 365 and accessible from the Copilot app and OneNote, so you can work across tasks without switching apps.

What are the current limitations of Copilot Notebooks?

• No image generation or data visualizations: You can’t create charts, graphs, or images directly within the notebook.

• Limited file grounding: Only the first 20 references in a notebook are used for grounding.

• No full notebook sharing: You can share individual pages or files, but not the entire notebook.

• No general web grounding: Copilot won’t pull in information from the internet—only from your notebook and selected references.

• Audio overviews: Currently available in English only.

• Grounding delay: It may take up to 10 minutes for newly added or removed references to be reflected in Copilot’s responses.

What does Copilot Notebooks have access to?

Copilot Notebooks only has access to the content you explicitly add to your notebook. This includes:

• Files such as Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and Loop pages.

• Individual OneNote pages.

• Copilot chats and meeting notes.

Copilot doesn't access your entire OneDrive, email, Teams chats, or the web. It only uses the references you’ve added to the notebook to generate responses. This ensures that all outputs are grounded in the specific context you’ve defined—nothing more, nothing less. You remain in full control of what Copilot sees and uses.

For more information about data, privacy, and security, view the following resources:

• Summary of governance, lifecycle, and compliance capabilities for Copilot Pages, Copilot Notebooks, and Loop

• Overview of Copilot Pages, Copilot Notebooks, and Loop workspaces storage and permissions

• Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot

What file formats are supported?

Copilot Notebooks supports the following file formats:

• .docx

• .pptx

• .xlsx

• .pdf

• .loop

• OneNote pages

What languages are supported?

Copilot Notebooks is available in the same languages as Microsoft 365 Copilot. Learn more about supported languages for Microsoft Copilot.

Currently, audio overviews in Copilot Notebooks are only available in English.

More ways to work with ​​​​​​​Copilot Notebooks​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks

Compare Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks and Microsoft OneNote

Frequently asked questions about Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks