“Bring your AI to work” is here: Microsoft edition - What Multiple Account Access to Copilot means

on
Multiple Account Access to Copilot On October 1. 2025 Microsoft released a blog post explaining how employees now can use Copilot from their personal 365 plans to work on organizational data. This is of course, an extension of the already existing "Multi account" feature that was released for corporate accounts a "couple of months" ago. In other words, “bring your own Copilot” is now a real thing in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on desktop and mobile, with enterprise protections intact. “Bring your AI to work” is an important topic, and banning AI altogether might not be the answer. Whether sanctioned or shadow, AI has already entered everyday knowledge work. Microsoft’s new multi‑account access offers a safer path where employees can use Copilot from their personal Microsoft 365 subscriptions on work files, while the file’s access, auditing, and compliance still flow through the work identity and tenant. That’s better than users copy‑pasting sensit...

Microsoft Copilot coming to Teams and Outlook for users with Entra accounts

on

Microsoft is expanding the Microsoft Copilot for users with Entra licenses, and the distinctions between the different versions are becoming increasingly blurred. Initially, when Copilot was released, there was the "Bing/Chat" version for commercial use. This version did not necessarily protect company data from being harvested or used for training purposes. Microsoft also released the enterprise-protected Copilot version for all users with an M365 E5 license about the same time. Although this version did not integrate searches or features with company data, it at least promised to keep data and queries private to the organization when used.

Subsequently, Microsoft revised the requirements for accessing the enterprise-protected version of Copilot, making it available to everyone with an Entra User License, effectively including virtually anyone within an M365 tenant.

Now, further changes are on the horizon for this group of users. Starting mid-January, Microsoft will enhance this offering even further. Soon, users will be able to access Copilot directly from Teams and Outlook, in addition to the existing web interface (BizChat). This is mentioned in Roadmap ID 420330

While I believe this is a positive development, it may cause confusion among users who might assume they now have Copilot licenses. Therefore, it is important to train and inform your users about the differences in behavior of these apps and integrations for users with and without a Copilot license. For instance, explaining why they might experience different results based on the actual license and version of Copilot they are using is essential.

If you want to help your users find the app, an admin can follow this guide to pin the app for the endusers. Or you can let them find it and pin it for themselves.