Understanding Copilot limitations and resources (2024)

Copilot can be immensely powerful yet occasionally frustrating. As an emerging technology that combines Generative AI with Microsoft 365, it offers users a potent tool to augment their work.

However, users need to comprehend certain limitations and set appropriate expectations to prevent excessive frustration, not only due to these limitations but also because of the learning curve that will naturally require time.

You will find in this article:

• The different ways to access Copilots
• Copilot limitations per product
• Scope of Copilot search
• Feature comparison between Microsoft Copilot and Copilot for M365
• Where Copilot prompts are stored and why
• Supported file formats for Copilot and Copilot for M365
• Supported languages
• FAQ links per product
• Various resources to learn how to use Copilot including my YouTube channel

Different Copilot access

Copilot limitations

Outlook

Ø In the case of a very long thread, Summarize may not use older messages in the conversation, as there are limitations of how much can be passed into the LLMs. Users may see a warning that the summary doesn’t represent the full thread.

Ø In the Draft with Copilot scenario, currently there is not a limit to how long the prompt can be. When using Draft with Copilot to reply to a message, Copilot will also use the context of the message or thread to inform the content it generates. In the case of a very long thread, not all messages may be used, as there are limitations of how much can be passed into the LLMs.

Ø In Coaching by Copilot, users will not be able to use Coaching on a draft that is less than 100 characters.

Ø Copilot scenarios in Outlook are only available on a user’s primary mailbox. They are not available on a user’s archive mailbox or group mailboxes, shared and delegate mailboxes that they have access to. Copilot scenarios are not supported on mailboxes that are not hosted on Exchange Online.

Ø Copilot scenarios in Outlook cannot access encrypted emails. Support is coming soon for Microsoft 365 Message Encryption emails for which the ExtractAllowed property is set to true. Other encryption methods like S/MIME or Double Key Encryption will not be supported by Copilot scenarios.

Word

Ø Copilot works best with Word documents that are less than 24 MB

Ø Copilot is currently limited to processing around 18,000 to 20,000 words for a single query or prompt.

Ø English, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Chinese Simplified are supported in Copilot scenarios, the quality is expected to be highest in English, while in other languages the quality is expected to be improved over time.

Ø The suggestions from Copilot in Word are from AI, and we highly recommend users to review the suggestions before accepting them.

Ø Copilot in Word includes filters to block offensive language in the prompts and to avoid synthesizing suggestions in sensitive contexts.

Ø Copilot allows only three files to be referenced in a prompt

PowerPoint

Ø By using Styles in Word to organize your document, Copilot will better understand your document structure and how to break it up into slides of a presentation. Structure your content under Titles and Headers when appropriate and Copilot will do its best to generate a presentation for you.

Excel

Ø Copilot Excel is in preview.

Ø Copilot in Excel works for Excel tables of up to two million cells. Some skills like formula column suggestions, highlight, sort, and filter do not have a limit on the amount of data you can interact with. However, it can take a long time, even 30 seconds or more, to get a response from Copilot when interacting with large tables.

Ø Make sure that you have data in your spreadsheet that is formatted as a table.

Ø Make sure your selection is in the table that you want Copilot for Microsoft 365 to use.

Ø Be specific with your questions - the more detail you provide, the better Copilot for Microsoft 365 can help. This includes clearly specifying the column headers you want to reference for formatting or analysis queries.

Ø Copilot in Excel currently only understands prompts in English.

Ø Copilot in Excel can only be used with Excel files (.xlsx or .xslm) saved to OneDrive or Microsoft 365 SharePoint locations with AutoSave turned on. The Copilot button is not active while editing files saved in locations on your computer or saved as unsupported file types.

Teams

Ø The meeting must be transcribed to enable Copilot, unless the meeting organizer enables Copilot without transcription.

Ø Copilot won't work in meetings that are hosted outside the participant's organization.

Ø Copilot is not part of Intelligent Recap. It's an independent feature, which is also available in the meeting's Recap tab for Teams Premium users.

Ø In chat scenarios, Copilot is limited on how much data it can process and how far back it will go to fetch an answer. The farthest Copilot can process is 30 days from the most recent message sent. It may also be further limited by retention policies. In meeting scenarios, long meetings (longer than 2hr) may be affected by longer latency compared to shorter ones.

Ø English, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and Chinese Simplified are supported in Copilot scenarios, the quality is expected to be better when inputs are in English, while in other languages the quality is expected to be improved over time.

Ø Limit questions to topics covered in the chat or meeting. Copilot will not answer unrelated questions.

Ø Speak or chat in supported languages. Copilot will respond in supported languages, however as noted above English inputs drive better responses. For meetings, make sure the defined language of the transcript matches the spoken language.

Ø Ensure recent and substantive volume of content is available. Copilot will provide error messages if these requirements are not met.

Ø Copilot can't reference images, loop components, or files shared in the chat thread.

Ø Messages longer than 75 words can’t be rewritten with Copilot.

Ø Only plain text is supported for compose Copilot. @Mentions and link support is coming soon.

Scope of Copilot search

Features comparison free vs licensed

Prompts are eligible for retention or eDiscovery

Prompting comes with responsibility.

While AI-powered productivity tools unlock valuable insights and boosts user productivity, they also introduce new user activities and produce a lot of data. Just like other enterprise activities and data, they require security and compliance management.

IT can be notified on non-compliant prompts that could lead to build inappropriate results.

Your organization can use a retention policy to retain data from messages in Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, and delete those messages. Behind the scenes, Exchange mailboxes are used to store data copied from these messages. Data from Copilot messages is stored in a hidden folder in the mailbox of the user who runs Copilot. This hidden folder isn't designed to be directly accessible to users or administrators, but instead, store data that compliance administrators can search with eDiscovery tools.

Supported File formats

Supported languages

Microsoft FAQ

Copilot resources

What should I do if I see inaccurate, harmful, or inappropriate content?

If you find a generated response that is incorrect or if you encounter harmful or inappropriate content, please provide that feedback by clicking thumbs down in the summary and providing additional comments in the feedback form. This feedback helps Microsoft to improve and minimize this content in the future.