Copilot Chat (Basic) — Student Companion Guide

• What Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is and how it protects your work data.
• How to access Copilot Chat in the browser, in Microsoft 365 apps, and on mobile.
• The art of prompting — Goal, Context, Source, Expectations.
• 19 practical demos covering writing, research, summarizing, data, images, personalization, and Outlook.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is your company’s approved AI chat tool. It uses the latest AI models and current web information to answer questions, generate content, and find information — while protecting your data.

With Copilot Chat (Basic) you can:

• Upload files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDFs, images) to get answers grounded in your documents.
• Generate one image per day from a text description.
• Visualize data with tables and charts.
• Refine and iterate on answers in the same conversation.

1. Open your browser and go to m365copilot.com.
2. Sign in with your work or school account.
3. Confirm the green shield appears next to “New chat.”

Look for the Copilot icon pinned in the left navigation of Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 app. If you don’t see it, your admin or you can pin it from the app’s settings.

Install the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app and sign in with your work or school account.

• Prompt box — the main place you type. You can paste text, drag files in, or click the paperclip to attach.
• Suggested prompts — Copilot offers starter prompts to get you going. Click See more for the full Prompt Gallery.
• Left navigation — quick access to Search, Chat, Agents, and Create (Conversations, Pages, Apps).
• Chat history — every conversation is saved. Click any past chat to pick up where you left off.
• Response toolbar — under each answer you’ll find Copy, Regenerate, Thumbs up/down, and Read aloud.
• Settings (top-right ⋯) — Personalization, Custom Instructions, and Copilot Memory live here.

Think of prompts like asking a smart assistant for help. The four ingredients that make a good prompt:

• Goal — what do you want Copilot to do?
• Context — why do you need it, and who is involved?
• Source — which information should Copilot use?
• Expectations — what should the answer look or sound like?

Want Copilot to use a Word document, slide deck, spreadsheet, PDF, or image? Click the Add content (paperclip) button in the prompt box, or drag the file in from your desktop.

• Supported types: Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx), PDF, and common image formats (PNG, JPG).
• Image files must be uploaded or dragged in. The “/” Context IQ picker doesn’t include them.
• Very large files may be summarized only partially. Trim the doc or focus your question if you hit a limit.

Copilot Chat can create images from a text description. With Copilot Chat (Basic), users without a Copilot license get one image generation per day, so use it on prompts that matter.

A good image prompt names the subject, the style, the lighting, the mood, and the purpose.

Memory lets Copilot get to know you so future answers feel more relevant. The more Copilot knows about your role, your projects, and your writing style, the better it tailors its responses.

To set it up, try the two starter prompts in Demo 17.

When to use: Anytime you need a quick explanation, definition, or summary.

Try this: Run the same question without the word limit and the analogy to see how much your wording shapes the answer.

When to use: Staying current with what’s happening in your industry.

Make it yours: Switch “retail” to your industry — manufacturing, healthcare, financial services — and run it again.

When to use: When you need to brief yourself before a meeting or pitch.

Other companies to try: Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, Boeing, Ford, Pfizer, Costco.

When to use: Starting your day or rebooting your focus mid-week.

Make it yours: Swap in your real job title for a personalized version.

When to use: Whenever you need 10 ideas in 60 seconds.

When to use: Sending the same kind of internal update you write all the time.

When to use: When you’ve drafted something fast and want it sharpened.

When to use: Customer comms, multilingual teams, traveling teammates.

When to use: Customer-facing teams, support, account managers.

When to use: Anytime you have rough notes from a meeting you want to send out.

When to use: Long memos, strategy docs, PDFs you don’t have time to read end to end. File needed: Holiday Staffing Strategy.docx.

When to use: Post-meeting recap when you have a transcript but no time to write the email. File needed: Loyalty Program Meeting Transcript.docx.

When to use: Quick exploratory look at sales, performance, or any tabular data. File needed: Quarterly Store Performance.xlsx.

When to use: You want a quick visual but you don’t have the data yet.

When to use: Store visit reports, marketing reviews, accessibility descriptions. File needed: Retail Storefront.png.

When to use: Quick training visuals, social posts, presentation cover slides.

Iterate: Got the result? Try asking Copilot to “make a second version with a different background” — but remember the daily limit.

When to use: Once. After this, every future response is more relevant.

Review or clear memories: Top-right ⋯ menu → Personalization → Copilot Memory.

When to use: Kicking off a team meeting, brainstorming an offsite, or just for fun.

When to use: Wrapping a meeting follow-up email and want a tone-check before you hit send. Where to run: Outlook (web, new Outlook on Windows / Mac, or mobile).

• Open the Prompt Gallery in Copilot Chat (under “See more” suggestions) for hundreds of ready-to-use prompts.
• Save your favorite prompts so you can re-run them with one click.
• Join the Microsoft 365 Copilot community on LinkedIn for tips, news, and conversations with other users.
• Make Copilot Chat a daily habit — most frontier users save about 30 minutes a day, which adds up to over 10 hours a month.

• m365copilot.com — Copilot Chat on the web (sign in with work account).
• Settings → Personalization — manage saved memories, custom instructions, and chat history.
• Prompt Gallery — under “See more” suggestions in Copilot Chat.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app — install on iOS or Android.