Copilot Notebooks are persistent, AI‑grounded project workspaces that gather files, chats, Copilot pages and notes so Copilot can reason across them. They are made up of one or more Copilot Pages (and other content) which are best described as a shareable or private canvas export of a Copilot Chat discussion and associated output which you can return too and collaborate with and share.

What is a Copilot Page?

Think of a Copilot Page as a collaborative report or document workspace. They are built on Microsoft Loop, so if you’re already familiar with using Loop components and workspaces, then Copilot pages will feel very familiar.

When you are working with Copilot and you have finished with the chat and responses, you’ll see that at the bottom of that response, there is a button that says “Edit in Pages.

Once in a page, you can carry on having conversations with Copilot on the left hand pane, and then just click a little plus button to add those responses to your Copilot Page. Let’s say you now want to create an exec summary – you can simply ask Copilot to create one for you and then add it to the page. Same if you need a table, graphic or anything else.. it’s a completely iterative process.

The great thing about Copilot Pages is that it’s a living, shareable canvas where you can take AI outputs from your Copilot chats and research reports etc and move them into a collaborative space with the click of a button.

NOTE: Copilot Pages are available for anyone with access to Copilot Chat, meaning you don’t need a full M365 Copilot license to create and collaborate on Pages, but you will only get web mode meaning you can’t tap into organisational context like your files, emails, and team interactions.

Copilot Notebooks Explained

Notebooks give you the ability to work with and contextualise all your Copilot interactions around specific projects or topics.

I use Copilot Notebooks as an iterative collaboration, planning and thinking space where I can work through complex projects over time, much like a canvas, whiteboard or lab journal. With Notebooks you can pull together references from across the web and work stuff without ever moving, copying or duplicating the underlying files and data.

Rather than storing content, the Notebook simply points to other Copilot Pages, SharePoint or OneDrive documents, emails, meeting transcripts, Loop components, and other data including PDFs or mark down content, allowing Copilot to leverage all those referenced materials as context when you chat inside that Notebook.

Copilot uses this content to generate grounded summaries, briefs and drafts and more that remain tied to the source material.

This means every interaction becomes more informed, more relevant, and more cumulative, letting you build long‑running workstreams where Copilot understands the full project rather than starting from scratch each time.

The image above shows an example of a Copilot Notebooks. They are split into 3 columns.

1. Left – the notebook content (and suggested content). From here you can also create new content such as new pages, audio overviews and mindmaps
2. Middle – The key insights and actual content which appears when you select a resource type.
3. Right – the familiar Copilot Chat interface.

Copilot Notebooks are built for ongoing work research, onboarding, recurring reports and any task that benefits from a living, auditable context.

Copilot Instructions

One feature that is really powerful Notebooks is the ability to add Copilot instructions.

When I’m working on a customer presentation or tender response, I make full use of Copilot instructions inside the Notebook to steer how the AI thinks and communicates.

It means I can tell Copilot exactly what matters for that specific opportunity – for example, that the audience is a time‑poor executive team who want clear, outcome‑focused messaging, or a procurement panel comparing multiple vendors and looking for evidence, structure, and clarity.

I can also guide the style, asking Copilot to favour bullet points, keep the language concise, or emphasise commercial value. It’s also useful to make sure the response aligns to word limits for the response.

The result is that when I ask it to refine a proposal section, summarise customer priorities, or tighten up a value proposition, it responds in a way that fits the tone, expectations, and decision‑making style of the people I’m presenting to.

Audio overviews (aka Podcasts)

I really like these (particularly when viewing a Notebook someone has shared with me). The best way to think of these audio overviews is like a “podcast” of your (or one shared with you) Project or Research.

These podcast‑style audio overviews provide an interview, discussion style, narrated summary you can listen to on the go or at your desk. What I like is you can choose format, voice, tone and length; the feature supports multiple languages too. You can also provide guidance as to how and what you want the podcast to focus on, style and approach. I tend to leave the defaults as I find this delivers a great rounded approach.

Think about the use case here…you could be driving, training or walking to work, listening to podcasts like normal. Instead of waiting until you get to the office to catch up on a project, you could just listen to this AI-generated overview of all your project materials.

How Copilot Notebooks work

One example I use Copilot Notebooks for is when preparing for something high‑stakes, such as a customer presentation, tender response or strategy paper.

Using a a dedicated Copilot Notebook I am able to pull in everything that I need as a source or reference for my project/task. This could be links to the RFP documents, my draft slides, my notes in OneNote, customer background notes (or research from Researcher), previous proposals, and any internal guidance or pricing models we have.

Instead of hunting through folders and emails, I work directly inside the Copilot Notebook, where every conversation with Copilot stays tied to that specific opportunity.

If I ask something like “how can I strengthen my answer or intro to align to the customers technical and ESG strategy? “or “Draft a value proposition for this scenario,” Copilot isn’t giving me generic response – it is responding based on the materials I’ve added, grounding its answers in the customer’s actual requirements, my draft content, and the supporting documents I have explicitly referenced.

It becomes a focused workspace where the thinking, the assets, and the AI all stay aligned to the deal I’m working on.

When to Use Pages vs. Notebooks

So we have Copilot Pages and Copilot Notebooks – so when should we use each one and how do they differ? Let me break it down with some scenarios.

Copilot Pages

Use Copilot Pages when you:

• Are creating a document or report that you need to share and collaborate on with colleagues
• need to build out content with AI and then refine it with your team
• need something that’s going to become a more finalized document, like a brief, operating procedure, business plan, report etc.
• want real-time collaboration where multiple people can edit simultaneously
• Are working on something simple that doesn’t need loads of contextual files.

Copilot Notebooks

Use Copilot Notebooks when:

• You’re working on a complex, long-term project with lots of moving parts
• You need to consolidate files, meetings, emails, and other content all in one place
• You want an ongoing, contextual conversations with Copilot about a specific topic
• You’re doing iterative work you’ll be coming back to over and over
• You want to keep all your AI conversations about a project organized in one place

A Copilot Page is like a report. A Copilot Notebook is like a whiteboard, canvas or set of curated notes.

Copilot Notebooks vs Agents

You might be thinking, “Isn’t working with a Notebook like working with a Copilot Agent.? Well, yes kind-of and it is a question I do get asked a fair bit.

An agent is something you create, point to specific content, give steps, tasks, knowledge and data or app connectors, and that people just interact with it by asking questions. Agents are more static – you create it, test it and people use it.

A Copilot Notebook is more like a living, breathing collaboration space that can be updated by you others that you choose. With a Notebook, you are constantly adding files, having conversations, refining ideas and tuning. They are typically something that you’re are actively working in as a project or team work piece evolves. The Notebook grows and changes with your project.

New Copilot Notebook features

Copilot Notebooks continue to evolve. From an experimental canvas into a practical, multimodal workspace you can use to move from research to publishable output. Here’s some of the latest updates in preview today.

In the last few weeks Microsoft has pushed a set of updates that tighten the loop between sources, synthesis and deliverables: a refreshed UI, deeper reference support, easier group sharing, native Word and PowerPoint exports, audio overviews and a new mind map view.

Native Word and PowerPoint exports

You can now ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to create a structured Word document or PowerPoint deck directly from a notebook leveraging it’s entire  content and references.

The Word and PowerPoint agents (which are called) use the notebook’s files and notes to assemble a first draft version that you can open and edit in the native app  or online versions. This is in Preview for Frontier enrolled organisations (Preview) and wider rollout timing is scheduled across April–May 2026.

Wider Reference Support

Copilot Notebooks can now accept entire OneNote notebooks and entire SharePoint sites or folders as references (not just single files) as reference content. That means your notebook can stay in sync with team content without manual uploads; Copilot reasons over the latest documents while respecting existing permissions.  OneNote can even now open your Copilot Notebooks too which is interesting….and confusing at the same time!

Easier sharing with Microsoft 365 Groups

Sharing a notebook with a Microsoft 365 Group is now a one‑step action. Add the Group and access updates as people join or leave – useful for cross‑functional projects where membership changes.

UI and workflow polish

If you have used Copilot Notebooks for a while, you will also have noticed that there is a refreshed layout that keeps references, pages and chat side‑by‑side in three-column layout, along with a new Quick Create options (for things like briefs, flashcards, quizzes and mindmaps) so you can turn raw content into consumable artifacts fast.

The redesign is intended to make Notebooks feel like a single workspace rather than a collection of tabs. I personally preferred the previous layout but hey!

Mindmaps

This is a new (preview) feature I like almost as much as audio overviews

Mind Map can create a interactive view of your Copilot Notebook which is useful for visual representation of the notebook content and themes. The nodes and relationships between the topics can be expanded as needed. From here you can expand the details and ask Copilot for context as needed.

The mind maps help change and update as the content changes. I find these really helpful as they help teams scan hierarchies, spot gaps and convert visual structure into deliverables.

The can be expanded, collapses (entirely or by section) and also have AI powered summary explainers as you can see in the example above.

How to check out the new the updates

The new updates are rolling our (end of March) to users that are in organisations enrolled in the Frontier Programme (early adopter). If you are on of these (you’ll see “preview” next to the Copilot icon in Copilot Chat, then you can try these updates out. Here’s a quick way to check them out…

• If you don’t already have a Copilot Notebook, create your first one for a project or initiative you are working on. Add a SharePoint folder and a couple of OneNote pages as references to get your started.
• Use Quick Create first. Generate an audio overview to set tone and scope before asking for a Word draft – it helps Copilot pick the right voice and length.  
• Create a mind map. Run the Mind Map to expose assumptions and gaps, then ask Copilot to create a short brief or slide deck from the map.   This works best i find for larger notebooks.
• Share to a Group. When the audience is a team, share the notebook to a Microsoft 365 Group so access follows membership changes.

Final Thoughts

I love where Copilot Notebooks are going.

Microsoft is turning Notebooks into the connective tissue between research, synthesis and publishable work. The recent additions of native exports, audio overviews and mind maps – move Notebooks from “AI scratchpad” to a practical production pipeline.

If you want to see the difference, build a tiny notebook for one real deliverable this week: add canonical files, generate an audio overview, run a mind map, then ask for a Word draft. You’ll quickly see how much of the busywork Copilot can remove when it’s working from a single, curated context.