December 16, 2025 | Listen Online | Read Online

7 Advanced Microsoft 365 Copilot Features Most Users Miss

The enterprise AI capabilities hiding behind your $30/month subscription—and how to actually use them

You're paying $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Copilot. You've asked it to summarize emails, draft documents, and maybe generate a few meeting recaps.

That's like buying a Tesla and only using it to listen to the radio.

Microsoft has been quietly rolling out advanced capabilities throughout 2025 that transform Copilot from a helpful assistant into something closer to an AI department. Researcher and Analyst agents that handle complex multi-step projects. An Excel function that puts AI directly into your spreadsheets. A memory system that learns your preferences and working style.

These aren't experimental features buried in preview programs. They're generally available to anyone with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license right now—and most organizations aren't using them.

AI LESSON

7 Advanced Microsoft 365 Copilot Features Most Users Miss

The enterprise AI capabilities hiding behind your $30/month subscription—and how to actually use them

The features below are part of Microsoft's Wave 2 Copilot release, which reached general availability between June and October 2025. Each one is immediately accessible with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license ($30/user/month). No additional subscriptions, no waiting lists.

If you're evaluating whether Copilot justifies its cost—or looking to get more value from an existing deployment—these capabilities set power users apart.

How to Access These Features

Subscription Required: Microsoft 365 Copilot ($30/user/month, annual billing)

Where to Find Them:

Open the Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise)
Look for "Agents" in the left sidebar—Researcher and Analyst are pre-pinned
Memory settings are in the Copilot settings panel
COPILOT function requires Excel Beta Channel

Note: Copilot Pro ($20/month for individuals) includes some features but not the enterprise-grade Researcher, Analyst, or organizational data access.

Researcher Agent: Your On-Demand Research Department

What it does: Combines OpenAI's deep research model with Microsoft 365's orchestration layer to conduct multi-step research across your emails, files, meetings, Teams chats, and the web—then delivers a structured, source-cited report. Learn more about Researcher.

Step 1: Open the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and select "Researcher" from the Agents panel

Step 2: Describe your research goal in detail—the more context, the better results

Step 3: The researcher will ask clarifying questions, then present a research plan

Step 4: Approve the plan or refine it, then let it work (complex queries take 5-15 minutes)

Step 5: Review the structured report with citations and export to Word or Copilot Pages

Example prompt:

Research our top 5 competitors' pricing changes over the past 6 months.   Include any public announcements, news coverage, and compare to our   current pricing structure from the Q3 pricing strategy document.

Time: 5-15 minutes for complex research (this is depth over speed)

Best for: Vendor negotiation prep, competitive analysis, quarterly business reviews, client research before sales calls, and synthesizing information scattered across multiple sources.

Limitations: You share 25 queries per month between Researcher and Analyst. Supports 37 languages. Results depend on what's indexed in your Microsoft 365 environment—if a document isn't in SharePoint or OneDrive, Researcher can't find it. See the complete FAQ.

Analyst Agent: A Data Scientist in Your Sidebar

What it does: Uses OpenAI's o3-mini reasoning model to perform advanced data analysis with chain-of-thought reasoning. Can write and execute Python code in real-time, which you can view for verification.

Step 1: Open "Analyst" from the Agents panel in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app—here's how to get started

Step 2: Upload your data files (Excel, CSV, PDF, XML, or PowerPoint) or reference files already in your Microsoft 365 environment

Step 3: Describe the analysis you need—The analyst will show their reasoning process

Step 4: Review the generated visualizations, insights, and underlying code

Example prompt:

Analyze customer support tickets from Q3. Identify the top 5 complaint   categories, show trend lines over the quarter, and flag any products   with increasing negative sentiment. Create visualizations I can use   in a leadership presentation.

Time: 2-10 minutes, depending on data complexity

Best for: Customer behavior analysis, demand forecasting, sentiment visualization, revenue projections, and identifying underperforming products or regions.

Limitations: Shares the 25 monthly query limit with Researcher. Currently supports eight languages (expanding). Microsoft achieved state-of-the-art performance on data analysis benchmarks, but always verify critical calculations—this is AI-assisted analysis, not a replacement for your finance team's sign-off.

The COPILOT Function: AI Inside Your Spreadsheets

What it does: Puts AI directly into Excel formulas with =COPILOT("prompt", cell_range). Results automatically update when your data changes. See Microsoft's complete function reference.

Step 1: Ensure you're on the Excel Beta Channel with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license

Step 2: In any cell, type =COPILOT("your instruction", A1:A100) referencing your data range

Step 3: Press Enter—the AI processes your request and returns results

Step 4: Copy the formula down to apply to multiple rows, or use it with LAMBDA for batch processing

Example formulas:

=COPILOT("Classify this customer feedback as positive, negative, or neutral", D4)    =COPILOT("Summarize these support tickets in one sentence", A2:A20)    =COPILOT("Suggest 5 marketing taglines for this product description", B2)

Time: 1-3 seconds per cell

Best for: Sentiment classification, text summarization, brainstorming, generating sample data, and creating categorizations that would require complex nested formulas.

Critical limitations: Microsoft explicitly warns against using this for numerical calculations, financial reporting, legal documents, or any task requiring accuracy and reproducibility. The function is non-deterministic—the same prompt can return different results. Model knowledge is limited to data before June 2024, so it can't access current information. For calculations, use native Excel formulas. For lookups, use XLOOKUP—rate limit: 100 calls per 10 minutes, 300 per hour.

Memory: Make Copilot Actually Yours

What it does: Remembers your preferences, communication style, recurring projects, and working patterns across sessions. No more re-explaining context in every conversation. Get started with Memory personalization.

Step 1: Open Copilot settings (gear icon in any Copilot interface)

Step 2: Enable Memory if not already active (it's on by default since July 2025)

Step 3: Start naturally mentioning preferences in conversations: "I prefer bullet points over paragraphs," or "When I ask about sales data, I usually mean the Northeast region."

Step 4: Check your saved memories anytime in Settings—edit or delete anything you don't want retained

Set up shortcut: Ask Copilot: "Ask me five questions to learn more about my working style and preferences."

What gets saved:

Communication preferences ("Keep my emails under 150 words")
Role context ("I'm a product manager focused on enterprise clients")
Recurring topics and projects
Formatting preferences
Technical preferences ("I prefer Python for data analysis")

Limitations: Memory is personal to your account—it doesn't transfer to custom agents your organization builds. Copilot only saves information when there's a clear intent to remember. You maintain complete control to view, edit, or delete memories, and can disable the feature entirely. Admins: see the personalization configuration guide.

Agent Mode in Excel: Autonomous Spreadsheet Creation

What it does: Describe the outcome you want, and Copilot autonomously builds multi-step solutions—creating formulas, charts, visualizations, and data transformations without step-by-step instructions. Learn more about Agent Mode.

Step 1: Open Excel on the web (desktop support coming soon)

Step 2: Go to the Tools menu and select "Agent Mode" in Copilot

Step 3: Describe your desired outcome in plain language

Step 4: Watch as Copilot plans, executes, evaluates, and iterates until the task is complete

Example prompt:

Create a monthly sales dashboard from this raw transaction data.   Include total revenue by region, month-over-month growth percentages,   top 10 products by volume, and a chart showing seasonal trends.   Format it for executive presentation.

Time: 2-5 minutes for complex dashboards

Best for: Building dashboards from raw data, merging and reshaping multiple worksheets, creating visualizations without knowing chart syntax, and automating repetitive formatting tasks.

Limitations: Currently available in Excel for the web with GA as of December 2025 (desktop version coming later). Microsoft warns against using Agent Mode for financial, legal, or medical conclusions. Always work on a copy of your workbook—Agent Mode makes changes directly to your file. See the Agent Mode FAQ.

Advanced Prompting: The Four-Part Framework

What it does: Structures your requests so Copilot delivers better results on the first try.

Microsoft's internal research found that prompt structure matters as much as prompt content. Their recommended framework:

Goal: What you want Copilot to do (required)

Context: Why you need it and how you'll use it

Expectations: Desired format, tone, length, style

Source: Specific files, data sources, or time frames to reference

Order matters: Copilot emphasizes later parts of your prompt more heavily. Put file references and source material at the end.

Poor prompt:

Give me a summary of the project.

Better prompt:

Summarize the key decisions and action items from the Q4 planning   meeting for my skip-level update with the VP. Keep it under 200 words,   use bullet points, and focus on timeline changes. Reference the   October 15 meeting transcript in Teams.

Pro tips:

Use quotation marks for exact text you want written or modified
Type "new topic" when switching contexts to prevent confusion
Be specific with file names: "based on the Q4_Forecast sheet" not "based on the spreadsheet"
Ask Copilot to critique and improve its own responses: "What's missing from this analysis?"

What Microsoft 365 Copilot Can't Do (Yet)

Honesty about limitations builds trust—and prevents wasted time.

Query limits are real: 25 Researcher/Analyst queries per month sounds generous until you're halfway through a major project. Plan your usage.

Platform parity remains uneven: Copilot features don't always work identically across Windows, Mac, and web. PowerPoint's Design Suggestions, for example, frequently returns "no suggestions available" on Mac, even for slides with obvious redesign potential. If a feature isn't working as expected, try the web version or Windows desktop app before assuming it's broken.

Non-deterministic outputs: The same prompt can produce different results. This is fine for brainstorming, but problematic for financial models. Use native Excel formulas for calculations that need to be reproducible.

Knowledge cutoffs apply: The COPILOT function's training data stops at June 2024. It can't tell you about recent events, current pricing, or anything that's changed since then.

Data access requires indexing: Researchers can only find documents that are properly indexed in SharePoint, OneDrive, or connected systems. If your organization's files are scattered across local drives, Copilot can't see them.

Always verify: These are AI-generated outputs. Microsoft's documentation emphasizes that responses may contain incorrect information. Cross-reference anything consequential with trusted sources.

Getting Started Today

Right now: Open the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and find Researcher in the Agents panel. Run a simple research query about a competitor or industry trend.
This week: Enable Memory in settings and have a brief conversation teaching Copilot your preferences: communication style, role context, common projects.
Next week: Try the COPILOT function in Excel for a text classification task—sentiment analysis on customer feedback is a safe first use case.
This month: Use Analyst for a data analysis project you've been putting off. Upload the files and describe the insights you need.

The features are live. More than 90% of Fortune 500 companies already use Microsoft 365 Copilot—the question is whether your team is getting $30/month of value or $300/month of value from the same subscription.

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