How to Use Microsoft Copilot: Practical Ways to Work Smarter in Everyday Apps

You’re not limited to just typing when you use Copilot. You can interact with it in a few different ways:

1. Text prompts
This is the most common way. You type a question or task like:

• “What is Microsoft Copilot?”
• “Give me 10 ideas for how to use Copilot at work.”

Copilot then responds with a text answer, often with suggestions, ideas, or instructions.

2. Voice prompts
If your device has a microphone, you can click the microphone icon and speak your question instead of typing it. Copilot converts your speech to text and responds as usual.

This is surprisingly handy if you’re multitasking or just tired of typing.

3. Image prompts
One of the more powerful but less obvious features: you can use an image as a prompt.

For example, imagine you have a picture of some chocolate chip cookies on your computer. You can:

• Drag and drop the image into Copilot
• Then ask something like, “How do I make these?”

Copilot analyzes the image, recognizes what’s in it, and then gives you a recipe with ingredients and step-by-step instructions.

In my experience, this is where Copilot stops feeling like “just another chatbot” and starts to feel like a multi-tool. Text, voice, image—it all becomes different ways to ask for help.

Copilot isn’t only about productivity; it’s also creative.

You can ask Copilot to generate images just by describing what you want. For example:

> “Make an image of a cookie store on a city street called ‘The Kevin Cookie Company.’”

Copilot can return multiple images that match your description. Sometimes you’ll see odd little imperfections—like slightly misspelled signs or quirky details—but you can always:

• Ask it to try again
• Refine your prompt to be more specific

Beyond images, Copilot can also help create music and songs when combined with plugins. With the Suno plugin (available in the web version of Copilot), Copilot can:

• Compose a short jingle
• Generate lyrics and music
• Even produce vocals—all AI-generated

A practical use case: need a quick jingle for a product, internal event, or just for fun? You can have Copilot generate a custom song about your brand in seconds.

It’s not for everyone, but it does show how broad Copilot’s capabilities are—from business tasks to creative experiments.

Here are a few practical plugin examples that were highlighted:

• Instacart – Use this if you’re asking about recipes or ingredients. Copilot can help you:
• Explore recipes
• Generate ingredient lists
• Potentially link you to shopping options (depending on region and integration)

• KAYAK – Helpful if you’re planning travel. You can prompt Copilot to:
• Look for flights to a destination
• Compare different travel options

• Suno – A favorite for creative tasks. With Suno enabled, you can say:
• “Make a short jingle about our new cookie product.”
• “Create a fun song about my company.”

Copilot then uses Suno to generate a full song, including music and vocals. It’s more than a gimmick—it can be a surprisingly useful way to prototype creative ideas quickly.

You can toggle plugins on and off depending on what you’re doing. That way, Copilot doesn’t overwhelm you with unnecessary tools when you just want a straightforward answer.

A common question is: Should I use Copilot in the browser or inside apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook?

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

• Use Copilot on the web when you’re:
• Brainstorming ideas
• Researching general topics
• Generating images or songs
• Exploring plugins

• Use Copilot inside Microsoft 365 apps when you’re:
• Working with your actual files, emails, or data
• Summarizing inboxes in Outlook
• Editing specific documents in Word
• Building or tweaking presentations in PowerPoint
• Analyzing real data tables in Excel

The in-app Copilot has context about what you’re working on in that app. That’s where the real productivity boost comes from.

Email is one of the biggest time sinks in most people’s day. Copilot in Microsoft Outlook is designed to fix exactly that.

Once you’ve opened Outlook, look for the Copilot icon in the top right. Clicking it opens a side pane with:

• Sample prompts you can use directly
• A field where you can type your own prompt

1. Find action items in your inbox
One really useful built-in prompt might be something like:

> “Do I have any action items in my unread emails today?”

Copilot then scans your unread mail and returns:

• A list of action items you need to follow up on
• Who they’re from
• What they’re asking for

Instead of manually opening every single email, you get a quick, prioritized overview. For busy days, this is huge.

2. Summarize long emails
If you open a long email thread, you don’t necessarily want to read every word.

On many messages, you can click “Summary by Copilot” to get:

• A concise summary of the key points
• What the sender is actually asking you to do

This works especially well with multi-paragraph messages where the request is buried halfway down.

3. Draft replies with Copilot
When you’re ready to respond:

1. Click Reply on an email.
2. In the message body, type / (a forward slash) to trigger Draft with Copilot.
3. Describe what you want to say in plain language. For example:

> “Respond that I’ve been heads down on another project, but I’ll send an update soon.”

Copilot then generates a polished reply along the lines of:

• Thanking the sender
• Acknowledging their request
• Explaining you’ve been busy
• Promising a follow-up soon

You can:

• Edit the draft
• Refine the tone
• Add your name
• Then click Send

Is it perfect every time? Not always. But it gets you 80–90% of the way there in seconds, instead of staring at a blank email reply window.

Creating slides from scratch can be painfully slow. Copilot in PowerPoint is built to jump-start the process.

You’ll find the Copilot icon in the top-right ribbon. Click it to open the side pane.

1. Generate a full presentation from a prompt
You can use a prompt like:

> “Create a presentation about the new Double Chocolate Chip Cookie for [Your Company Name].”

Copilot will then:

• Generate a multi-slide presentation
• Include an introduction, key points, and structure
• Add placeholder images or design elements

You’ll likely want to tweak the images, adjust some content, and align it with your brand—but instead of starting from an empty slide deck, you’re editing a fairly complete first draft.

2. Refine slide design with Designer
Once the slides are created, you can improve the look using PowerPoint Designer (which also uses AI).

For example:

• Select a slide
• Open Designer (usually on the right)
• Pick a layout that:
• Uses a full-bleed image
• Adds a more modern layout
• Improves visual hierarchy

In my experience, combining Copilot + Designer is a nice one-two punch: Copilot gives you the content and structure, Designer polishes the visuals.

You still stay in control—but with way less manual formatting.

If you do a lot of writing, Microsoft Word + Copilot is one of the most powerful combos.

You can start Copilot from the ribbon, but one especially helpful workflow is using it directly on selected text.

1. Highlight and improve existing text
Say you’ve drafted a script for a radio commercial about your product, but you feel it:

• Sounds unpolished
• Is too long
• Doesn’t feel professional enough

You can:

1. Highlight the entire text.
2. Look for the small Copilot logo that appears nearby.
3. Or press the shortcut Alt + I to open the Copilot menu.

From there, you’ll see options like:

• Rewrite the text
• Make changes (with specific instructions)
• Visualize as a table (for structured content)

Click Make Changes, then explain what you want, for example:

> “Make this sound more professional and shorten it a little. It’s for a radio commercial.”

Copilot will produce a more concise, polished version that keeps your original idea but improves the wording and length.

2. Iterate with follow-up prompts
Once Copilot gives you a new draft, you can:

• Ask it to make the tone more friendly or formal
• Ask it to shorten or expand certain parts
• Request alternative versions

When you’re happy with it, click Keep It, and the text is inserted directly into your document.

This is particularly useful if you’re not a confident writer or you’re just short on time. You still remain the editor-in-chief—but Copilot takes on the heavy lifting of rewriting.

Excel can be intimidating, especially if you’re not comfortable with formulas or complex menus. Copilot in Excel helps bridge that gap.

Imagine you have a data table with:

• A column for Year
• A column for Most popular cookie flavor
• A column for Market size

And you want to understand your data without spending an hour on tutorials.

1. Use Copilot for conditional formatting
Instead of manually configuring Conditional Formatting, you can:

1. Open the Copilot pane in Excel.
2. Type a natural language prompt like:

> “Highlight all cells where Double Chocolate Chip is the most popular cookie.”

Copilot responds with:

• A suggested formula or rule
• An option to Apply it directly

When you click Apply, Excel highlights each row where “Double Chocolate” appears as the top flavor.

You get instant visual insight without digging through confusing menus.

2. Generate charts with a simple prompt
Next, suppose you want a chart showing market size by year. Instead of:

• Selecting the data manually
• Guessing the right chart type

You can simply type:

> “Generate a chart showing me market size by year.”

Copilot will:

• Create an appropriate chart (like a column or line chart)
• Add it to a new sheet along with the table

From there, you can format or label as needed—but the hard part is done for you.

3. Why this matters
You don’t have to be an Excel power user to:

• Analyze trends
• Highlight key data points
• Build quick visualizations

You just need to know what you want to see or understand. Copilot translates that intent into formulas, rules, and charts.

To be honest, this is one of the most underrated aspects of Copilot: it lowers the barrier to serious data work for people who’ve always felt slightly intimidated by Excel.

Like any powerful tool, Copilot gets better the more you learn how to use it. If you want to go beyond dabbling, Microsoft provides:

• Copilot Lab – A hands-on learning resource with examples and guidance for using Copilot in different scenarios.
• Copilot for Microsoft 365 training – Live, one-hour sessions tailored to specific roles, such as:
• HR
• Finance
• Executives
• Operations
• Sales
• IT professionals
• Marketing

These sessions show Copilot in action for real, role-specific tasks and let you interact with a trainer.

The nice part? They’re completely free, and they run frequently, so you can usually find one that fits your role and schedule.

If you’re serious about integrating Copilot into your daily work, investing an hour in one of these sessions can easily pay for itself in time saved later.