Copilot in Word: what it does, how to use it, which plans include it and what happens to your data

What Copilot in Word does

Copilot in Word does four things: it writes a draft, polishes text, explains the document and edits it on request.

• Create. It writes a first draft from a prompt, an outline, some notes or a file you point it to.
• Polish. It rewrites the text you select, changes its tone or makes it shorter. For a quick change there is the Rewrite option; for something specific, you ask in the chat.
• Understand. It summarises the document and answers questions about what it says (for example, which parts may be unclear to the reader). If you want the answer without it touching the text, choose Chat only.
• Edit with Copilot. This is the mode formerly called Agent Mode: Copilot changes the document directly, using Word's styles. In a shared document it first shows a preview in the chat and applies nothing until you approve it.

It can also draw on other files, emails or meetings in your account (type / in the chat and choose which), but it does not connect to tools outside Microsoft 365. Edit with Copilot is still rolling out: first to Microsoft 365 Premium and business licences; for Personal and Family, Microsoft announces it as coming soon.

Where Copilot is in Word and how to use it

Copilot is in a fixed button in the bottom right corner of the document, on Windows, Mac and the web. Microsoft brought all the ways of opening it together there between April and June 2026; the button opens a chat on the right, with editing mode turned on. Alt + C on Windows and Cmd + Control + I on Mac take you to the button, and F6 on any system while those shortcuts reach all languages. If you would rather have it on the ribbon, right-click the button and choose Move to ribbon.

Creating a draft, step by step

1. Open a blank document or put the cursor where you want the new text.
2. Click the Copilot button and describe what you need: subject, recipient, tone, format and length.
3. If it has to start from a specific file, type / and pick it from the list.
4. Click Generate.
5. Review it: keep it, discard it, ask for another version or give it another instruction.

To summarise, just ask in the chat. With a work licence and the file in OneDrive or SharePoint, Word can also show a summary at the top when you open the document, if it has at least 200 words.

Talking to Copilot is not dictating

The Copilot chat has a microphone for asking it questions or requesting summaries out loud (with a personal account, Spanish is among its voice languages). That microphone is for talking to the assistant. To write the document with your voice, Word has another button, Dictate, on the Home tab: we explain it in how to dictate in Word.

Which plans include Copilot in Word and how much they cost

Copilot in Word is not free: you need a Microsoft 365 plan for home or a business licence. Microsoft 365 Basic has no AI features, and Office Home 2024, the one-time purchase, does not include Copilot in the apps either. Copilot Pro, the subscription that was added on top of Personal or Family, is no longer sold: its support ended on 1 August 2026 and Microsoft points to Premium instead.

The business add-on costs €15.60 per user per month for the first year if bought with annual payment between 1 July and 31 December 2026. Personal, Family and Premium can be tried free for a month, and so can the business licences, with a card. In the personal plans, some features have a number of uses per period and others spend monthly AI credits, which you can check in your Microsoft account (Services & subscriptions). And a change of name: Microsoft 365 Copilot is now called Microsoft Copilot, and both names coexist on Microsoft's pages.

With a work account, it depends on your label

With a work account, what counts is the label that appears under your name on the Microsoft 365 home page:

• Copilot Chat (Basic): no Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote.
• M365 Copilot (Basic): without the paid add-on, but with standard access to Copilot in the apps.
• M365 Copilot (Premium): with the add-on, priority access and the full experience.

Why Copilot doesn't show up in your Word

If Copilot doesn't appear in Word, it is almost always because of the licence, the account, the version or privacy settings. These are the causes listed in Microsoft's help:

• Your plan doesn't include it. Without access to Copilot, the button is not shown: this happens with Microsoft 365 Basic, Office Home 2024 and the Copilot Chat (Basic) label.
• You are not the owner. In Family, Premium and Pro the AI belongs only to whoever pays for the subscription, and only that person can use Copilot in the desktop apps.
• Word is open with another account. Check in File, Account which one you are signed in with.
• You have turned off connected experiences. If you turn off the ones that analyse content, or all of them, Copilot stops working in Word.
• Someone unticked Enable Copilot on that computer, a box that affects anyone who uses it (we look at it below).
• Your organisation hasn't turned it on or hasn't assigned you a licence: that is the administrator's decision.

How to turn off or remove Copilot from Word

With a personal account, you turn Copilot off in Word by unticking the Enable Copilot box in the options. On Windows:

1. Go to File, Options, Copilot.
2. Untick Enable Copilot and click OK.
3. Close Word and open it again.

On a Mac, the same box is in Word's Preferences, in the Copilot section. You need Word 2412 or later on Windows and 16.93 or later on Mac. The box only applies to that app and that computer: for Excel or PowerPoint you have to repeat it.

In Word for the web, iPhone or Android the box doesn't exist. The alternative Microsoft gives is to untick Turn on experiences that analyze your content in your account privacy settings (on Windows, File, Account, Account Privacy, Manage Settings), at a cost: it also turns off other features, such as Word's text predictions.

If only the button bothers you, right-click it and choose Dock, or drag it to the side: it stays small for the session. Removing the icon from the ribbon, on the other hand, does not turn Copilot off. With a work account none of this is available: the administrator manages it.

What Microsoft does with the text of your documents

Microsoft says it does not use your prompts, its responses or the file content to train its foundation models. The rest depends on the account you use to sign in to Word.

With a personal account (Personal, Family, Premium or Pro)

• Copilot works with the open file or with the one you ask it to consult.
• Its use is covered by the Microsoft Services Agreement and the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
• Word keeps a history of what you ask and what it answers, and you can export it from your account's privacy dashboard.
• The ratings you send with the thumbs up or down are used to improve Copilot, not to train those models.

With a work account

• Microsoft handles the data as a processor under its Data Protection Addendum: it calls this enterprise data protection.
• It stores each prompt and its response, encrypted, like the rest of the organisation's content; the administrator can search them, audit them and set how long they are kept, and each user can delete their history.
• Copilot only shows information that the person already has permission to see.
• According to Microsoft, Copilot services do not take part in human review of content to detect abuse.
• For EU users, Microsoft says the traffic stays within its EU Data Boundary, with two exceptions it publishes: the web searches Copilot runs in Bing (a few words, without identifying the user and under other terms) and Anthropic's models, which are chosen in the model selector if the administrator enables them.

What this means for a specific case file is not something the tool settles. We go through the questions worth asking any provider before giving it client information in client confidentiality and the GDPR when using AI in a law firm.

The limits Microsoft acknowledges

Microsoft acknowledges that Copilot in Word can make mistakes and asks you to review everything it generates before accepting it. Its help spells this out:

• Facts. It asks you to check above all facts, figures, quotations and names. In a legal brief it is worth checking the style too: we summarise what the Libro de estilo de la Justicia (the style guide of the Spanish justice system) asks you to change in common legal writing mistakes.
• Language. Spanish is on the list of supported languages, but Microsoft expects quality to be higher in English.
• Long documents. There is a word limit per message that the help does not quantify. A summary needs the whole document, and models give more weight to the beginning and the end than to the middle; Microsoft suggests summarising it in parts.
• Where the summary comes from. The summary does not always say which part of the document each point comes from.
• Originality. For identical prompts, it can return almost identical texts to different people.
• Comments and Track Changes. Edit with Copilot does not add or modify comments, and it can delete one if it rewrites the paragraph the comment is anchored to. It does not accept or reject changes either, but with Track Changes on, its edits are marked (how to turn it on, in Track Changes in Word).
• One document only. Edit with Copilot works on the open file and does not create new files.

When it doesn't pay off: if what you need is to put into writing what you have already thought through, Copilot solves a different problem. It generates text from a prompt, and that text has to be read in full; to write your own sentences faster, the direct tool is dictation.

In short

Copilot in Word is Microsoft's AI assistant that drafts, rewrites, summarises and answers questions about the open document. It opens with the button in the corner of the document. At 22 October 2026 it is included in Microsoft 365 Personal (€99 a year), Family, Premium and Pro, or in a business licence from €18.20 per user per month excluding VAT; inside Word there is no free version. Microsoft says it does not train its models on your documents, and with a work account it acts as a processor. What it writes has to be reviewed in full.

Sources: Microsoft, Word help: Welcome to Copilot in Word, drafting, Edit with Copilot, document summary, frequently asked questions, dynamic action button (June 2026) and document length; licences and plans: which Copilot licence do I have (April 2026), AI credits and limits (October 2026), about Copilot Pro, supported languages (September 2026) and turn off Copilot; privacy: Copilot in the apps for home, data, privacy and security for Microsoft Copilot and enterprise data protection; prices (Microsoft's Spanish store, in Spanish): compare Microsoft 365 plans, Microsoft 365 Pro and Microsoft Copilot for business. Checked on 22 October 2026; prices and terms may change.

Frequently asked questions

Is Copilot in Word free?

No. You need Microsoft 365 Personal (€99 a year or €10 a month, at 22 October 2026), Family, Premium or Pro, or a business Copilot licence. Microsoft 365 Basic and Office Home 2024 don't include it; what there is, is a one-month free trial of Personal, Family and Premium.

Where is Copilot in Word?

In a fixed button in the bottom right corner of the document, which opens the Copilot chat on the right. With the keyboard you reach that button with Alt + C on Windows, Cmd + Control + I on Mac or F6 on any system.

Why doesn't Copilot show up in my Word?

The usual causes are a plan that doesn't include it, not being the subscription owner, having Word open with another account, having turned off connected experiences in the privacy settings or having the Enable Copilot box unticked. With a work account, the administrator also has to have assigned you a licence that includes it.

How do I remove Copilot from Word on a Mac?

With a personal account, untick Enable Copilot in Word's Preferences, in the Copilot section, and restart Word; you need version 16.93 or later. If only the button bothers you, right-click it and choose Dock.

Does Copilot use my Word documents to train its AI?

Microsoft says it does not use prompts, responses or file content to train its foundation models, with either a personal or a work account. The questions worth asking any tool before giving it client information are in client confidentiality and the GDPR when using AI.

Does Copilot in Word work in Spanish?

Yes: Spanish is among the supported languages with both a personal and a work account, also for speaking to it with a personal account. Microsoft warns that it expects higher quality in English.