Copilot can be accessed in a web interface here: https://m365.cloud.microsoft/chat

Once you've logged in with your Illinois email address, you'll be able to send messages in the "Ask me anything..." prompt at the bottom of the screen and receive replies as if you were chatting with a real person. The site's interface also provides a number of tools to help you compose and save prompts and conversations.

It is important to note that, although similar in some ways, Copilot is not the same as working with a real person, and it is not capable of verification or reasoning in the way that a person is. Like all other generative AI tools, it is important to continually check and edit any output it produces in order to be sure that it meets human standards of quality, style, and substance.

Work vs. Web

There is a white and gray switch displayed at the top of the site interface, with options for Work or Web. When Web is selected, Copilot can use Bing to search the wider internet for content to respond to your queries with. When Work is selected, Copilot can search your Illinois account for content to respond with, examining emails, Teams chats, calendar events, and more.

Enterprise Data Protection

When using Copilot with an Illinois account, a green shield icon with the tooltip "Enterprise data protection applies to this chat" appears in the upper-right corner.

While this icon is present, additional safeguards are in place to keep data in Copilot private and secure. More information about Enterprise Data Protection can be found on Microsoft's site: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/enterprise-data-protection

Copilot in Other Contexts

Microsoft Copilot can also appear in the Office 365 desktop and web applications, to provide a chat interface and content generation directly inside of document editing. This additional feature was provided to a small number of Illinois users during the Fall 2024 semester as part of an early adoption pilot program, and will be available via the WebStore to the rest of campus in 2025.

Updates and Changes

Copilot and the related features and services are still in their infancy, and are subject to ongoing development at Microsoft. What is described in this article is likely to change as the service matures; please refer to the help linked to in the Copilot site and Microsoft's own documentation for the most up-to-date information.