Copilot Chat Use Cases

Enhance your decision-making by using Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to gather insights, conduct analyses, and draft professional communications. In the following exercises, you’ll learn how to leverage Copilot Chat across various Microsoft 365 apps to research information, summarize content, analyze data, and generate documents.

Note: Sample prompts are provided to help you get started. Feel free to personalize them to suit your needs. If Copilot Chat doesn’t deliver the result you want, refine your prompt and try again. Enjoy the process and have fun experimenting!

Task 1: Perform Online Research & Analysis

Using Copilot Chat, gather insights on a relevant topic by analyzing internal sources (such as emails, chat history, and SharePoint documents). Then broaden your research with industry articles, external reports, or relevant websites.

If you don’t have a specific internal topic to research, try focusing on a publicly available topic of your choice – for example, technology trends, market insights, customer experience, or compliance requirements.

Steps:

  1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com.
  2. Select Copilot Chat (the AI chat agent for Microsoft 365).
  3. Use a prompt to ask Copilot to research your chosen topic. For example:

Sample Prompt (if no internal topic is available):

Provide a comprehensive regional update for [Your Region] to assist in planning our operations. 
The update should include the latest news and insights on the following aspects:

Demographic Trends:
- Population growth or decline
- Age distribution
- Income levels
- Consumer behavior patterns

Financial Events:
- Economic indicators (e.g., employment rates, inflation, GDP growth)
- Major business developments (e.g., new businesses opening, closures, expansions)
- Changes in consumer spending habits

Weather Events:
- Current weather conditions and forecasts
- Recent and upcoming severe weather events (e.g., storms, hurricanes, heatwaves)
- Impact of weather on local infrastructure and transportation

Please provide detailed information and relevant data sources for each aspect to support strategic decision-making for our operations.

Tip: If the first response is too broad or not detailed enough, refine your prompt by adding more context (for example, specify a particular region, industry, or time frame).

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll be able to use Copilot Chat to perform structured online research and gather actionable insights.

Task 2: Summarize & Structure Meeting Notes

Using Copilot Chat, transform raw meeting notes into a structured, professional summary. This will help clearly communicate key decisions, action items, and responsibilities—ensuring alignment across teams.

If you don’t have your own meeting notes available, you can practice with a sample transcript or text file that contains general meeting content.

Steps:

  1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com.
  2. Select Copilot Chat.
  3. Upload a text file containing your meeting notes (e.g. a transcript of a meeting).

Sample Prompt (after uploading your meeting notes):

Using my meeting notes, create a formal meeting notes structure and align the content with a meeting title that encapsulates the meeting goal or agenda. 

The final output should format my notes with these sections:
- Title  
- Attendees  
- Goal  
- Topics to Discuss  
- Product Details  
- Tasks to be Completed  
- Timelines and Responsibilities  
- Resources  
- Q&A and Next Steps

Note: You can ask Copilot to adjust the level of detail in the summary. For example, try adding “make the summary more concise” or “expand on the tasks to be completed” if needed.

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll know how to turn unstructured notes into a professional, shareable meeting summary.

Task 3: Refine Results with Follow-Up Questions

Using Copilot Chat, practice enhancing your results by asking follow-up questions. This task shows how you can go beyond the first answer to structure data and obtain deeper, actionable insights for decision-making.

Steps:

  1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com.
  2. Select Copilot Chat.
  3. Enter the following series of prompts one by one to progressively refine your research results:

Sample Prompt Sequence:

Please identify trends in customer preferences in our market and use these insights to develop ideas for new products for our company.
Please structure those ideas in a table format and for each idea add a column for the potential target groups and ideas for an advertising campaign.
How can I prioritize these ideas effectively?

Tip: Follow-up questions help refine and deepen your results. Try clarifying prompts like: “Expand the table with additional product ideas based on recent market trends,” “Which ideas might have the highest ROI in the next 12 months?” or “Create a prioritization matrix ranking these ideas by market demand, profitability, and alignment with our brand values.”

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll understand how to use follow-up prompts to get richer insights and more actionable recommendations from Copilot Chat.

Task 4: Summarize and Recap Emails in Outlook

Use Copilot Chat in Outlook to quickly understand the content of an email and extract key actions. This task will help you summarize a long email thread and clearly identify what is being requested — both from you and from your team.

This use case is perfect for staying on top of priorities, deadlines, and next steps without manually reading through a lengthy email chain.

Steps:

  1. Open Outlook on the web in your browser.
  2. Select an email thread that contains multiple details, requests, or deadlines.
  3. Click the Copilot icon in the upper-right corner of the Outlook window.
  4. In the Copilot Chat panel that appears, enter the following prompt:

Sample Prompt:

Recap my email, show me:
1. What is being asked
2. What is being asked of the team
3. What is being asked directly of me

If there are any dates or topics mentioned, put those in a table.

💡 Tip: If your email thread is very long, try adding something like “summarize in 3 bullet points” or “summarize in less than 100 words” to your prompt for a quicker, more focused summary.

🎯 Learning Outcome:
You will learn how to use Copilot Chat in Outlook to extract key requests, action items, and deadlines from a single email or an entire thread, helping you and your team stay organized and responsive.

Task 5: Analyze Reviews & Visualize Sentiments

Use Copilot Chat to transform raw survey or review data into actionable insights with charts and visualizations. In this task, you’ll use a .csv file (exported from Excel) and ask Copilot to identify sentiment, uncover key themes, and generate visuals like a pie chart and a word cloud.

This task is perfect for analyzing customer feedback or product reviews and creating compelling visuals for presentations or reports.

Steps:

  1. Download the sample dataset Charger Reviews.csv (right-click the link and choose “Save link as”): Charger Reviews.csv
  2. Open a new browser tab and go to M365copilot.com, then select Copilot Chat.
  3. Upload your downloaded Charger Reviews.csv file to Copilot Chat.
  4. Use the following sample prompt to analyze and visualize the data:

screenshot showing sentiment analysis pie chart and word cloud

Sample Prompt (after uploading your CSV file):

For each review, analyze the whole sentence and provide a sentiment analysis.  
List the top 10 sentiments with counts based on the reviews using the attached file. Analyze the column “Reviews” located in column C.

Then, list each sentiment with its count of reviews and identify the top 10 themes mentioned in the reviews.  
Create a pie graph with Easter-themed colors based on the sentiment counts, and then create a word cloud based on the common themes and mentions.

Tip: If you want to customize the visuals further, you can follow up with questions. For example: “Can you provide a downloadable version of the word cloud?” or “Can you generate a more vibrant color scheme for the pie chart?” You could also ask, “What software can I use to recreate these visuals manually?” for additional guidance.

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll be able to analyze qualitative data from customer reviews or survey feedback, extract key themes and sentiment, and create visual summaries using Copilot Chat.

Task 6: Visualize Financial Data with Charts & Heat Maps

Use Copilot Chat to create a variety of data visualizations from Excel data, such as monthly trends, product sales, and revenue distribution. In this task, you’ll explore the charting capabilities of Copilot Chat with a structured sales dataset to uncover key insights.

Steps:

  1. Download the sample sales data file: EV Charger Demo.csv. (If you are using an Excel workbook with multiple sheets, save the relevant worksheet as a separate CSV file — Copilot can only analyze one sheet at a time.)
  2. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com, then select Copilot Chat.
  3. Upload your EV Charger Demo.csv file to Copilot Chat.
  4. Use the sample prompts below to analyze and visualize the data:

screenshot showing product, revenue, and sales channel chart visualizations

Sample Prompts (after uploading your CSV file):

List the visual charts you can create from the sales data and then create those charts.  
Create a Monthly Revenue Trend chart.  
Create a "Units Sold Distribution by Sales Channel" pie chart.  
Create a "Total Revenue by Product" chart.  
Create a heat map of the most purchased products (by total units sold), without using purchase dates.

Tip: Once the visuals are generated, try follow-up prompts to enhance your analysis. For example: “Can you add trendlines or highlight seasonal peaks in the revenue chart?” or “What does the heat map reveal about customer preferences?” You could also ask, “Group sales by category and create a stacked bar chart,” or “Export these charts as image files I can use in PowerPoint.”

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll be able to transform numerical sales data into various visual formats using Copilot Chat—including line charts, pie charts, bar charts, and heat maps. This will empower you to extract insights from data and present them for better decision-making.

Task 7: Perform Calculations from Excel Data

Use Copilot Chat to perform calculations directly from Excel data—without needing to write formulas or create pivot tables. In this task, you’ll calculate the total revenue and the average sales revenue from a provided spreadsheet and then explore how to break down those results further.

This is a great use case for operations, finance, or business teams looking for quick insights without writing code or complex formulas.

Steps:

  1. Download the sample Excel workbook EV Charger Demo with Rev + Sales.xlsx (right-click and save): EV Charger Demo with Rev + Sales.xlsx
  2. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com, then select Copilot Chat.
  3. Upload your .xlsx file to Copilot Chat.
  4. Use the following sample prompt to analyze the data and calculate the values:

screenshot showing Excel table and Copilot calculation result

Sample Prompt (after uploading your Excel file):

Calculate the total revenue and the average sales revenue.

Tip: Once the results are shown, try these follow-up prompts to dig deeper:
Can you break down the revenue sources by sales channel or product?
What are the monthly or quarterly sales trends?
Can you calculate revenue growth over time?

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll be able to use Copilot Chat to quickly calculate financial metrics like total and average revenue, and then follow up with deeper questions to uncover trends or performance breakdowns in your Excel data.

Task 8: Convert Files to Another Format

Use Copilot Chat to convert files between different formats quickly and easily. This task helps you explore the file conversion capabilities of Copilot Chat—perfect when you need to standardize document formats or extract data for analysis.

Steps:

  1. Upload the file you want to convert into Copilot Chat (for example, a PDF, Word document, or image file).
  2. Ask Copilot Chat to convert it into your desired format (such as converting a PDF into Word, an image into a text file, etc.).

screenshot showing a PDF converted to Word

Sample Prompt:

Convert this PDF to a Word document.

(You can similarly ask Copilot to perform other types of file conversions.)

Tip: You can also ask follow-up questions or requests, for example:
“Can you extract tables from this PDF into Excel?”
“Save this as a downloadable file.”
“Combine multiple PDFs into one document.”

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll know how to use Copilot Chat to convert files into various formats. This makes it easier to prepare data, create editable documents, and streamline your workflows.

Task 9 (FYI): Create or Replace an Excel Macro with Copilot

This advanced, FYI-only task demonstrates two ways to handle Excel macro-style calculations using Copilot Chat: either by asking Copilot to perform the calculation directly from an uploaded spreadsheet, or by having Copilot help author or adjust a VBA macro for Excel.

Heads-up: VBA macros don’t run in Excel for the web, but Copilot Chat can still perform the same calculations from your uploaded workbook.

How to use it:

  1. Open a new browser tab and go to M365copilot.com.
  2. Select Copilot Chat.
  3. Proceed with one of the two options below.

screenshot showing two macro approaches with Copilot

Option 1 – Have Copilot perform the calculation from your file

Upload your Revenue.xlsx (or a similar workbook with data) and ask Copilot to perform the calculation directly, for example:

Please create an Excel Macro script that performs the following task:  
Calculate the total and average revenue from the "Sales by Product" worksheet. 

For Excel web users, execute the equivalent calculation now on the uploaded file and report:  
- Total Revenue  
- Average Revenue

Option 2 – Ask Copilot to draft/modify the VBA macro

Alternatively, you can have Copilot assist with the VBA code itself. For example, ask Copilot:

Write a VBA macro that calculates the total and average revenue from the "Sales by Product" worksheet and displays the results in a message box.

Now modify the script so it writes:  
- Total Revenue to cell J4  
- Average Revenue to cell J5  
and formats both as currency.

Tip: Here are some follow-up requests you can try with Copilot in this scenario:

  • Explain what this macro does line by line.
  • Convert this macro to a Copilot prompt that performs the same calculation without VBA.
  • Add error handling if the specified sheet or column is missing.

Learning Outcome:
You’ll understand two practical approaches to handle macro-style tasks with Copilot: (1) letting Copilot Chat run calculations directly on your data, or (2) having Copilot author or refactor a VBA macro for desktop Excel (including writing results to specific cells).

Task 10: Create a Job Description & Evaluate a Candidate

Use Copilot Chat to create a professional job description based on web research, define key performance indicators (KPIs) for the role, and then analyze a candidate’s resume for fit against that role. This task is ideal for HR teams, hiring managers, or recruiters who want to streamline job description creation and resume evaluation.

Steps:

  1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to M365copilot.com.
  2. Select Copilot Chat.
  3. Start by asking Copilot to research and build a job profile (job description and role details) for the position you have in mind.
  4. Next, upload a candidate’s resume (in .docx format) and ask Copilot to perform a gap analysis comparing the resume to the job requirements.

screenshot showing job description creation and resume evaluation

Sample Prompt (Step 1 – Build the job description):

In a table format, perform a web analysis for a "data analyst" role in finance that includes:
- Common industry job titles for this role  
- A basic definition of the role  
- Key attributes or skills required  
- Ideal average years of education or experience  
- Typical salary range  

Also, provide a list of 10 interview questions **with answers** suitable for this role.

Then, suggest some important KPIs for a data analyst in finance.

Finally, based on all the above information, write a job description with a competitive salary range (based on years of experience). The job description should serve as a guide for our hiring team.

Tip: After getting the job description, you can ask Copilot to analyze the candidate by asking:

  • “Rank the candidate from 1–10 based on their fit for this role.”
  • “Identify any skill gaps and recommend a training plan if we were to hire this candidate.”
  • “Generate a scorecard template that the hiring panel can use to evaluate all candidates consistently.”

Learning Outcome:
After completing this task, you’ll be able to create a well-structured job description and define role KPIs using Copilot Chat, as well as perform a resume gap analysis. This streamlines the hiring process and improves consistency in candidate evaluation.