What are Microsoft Copilot Notebooks?
Normal Copilot chat is a corridor conversation: useful, but the context is gone once you walk away. A Notebook is a project room where everything stays on the table, so every answer comes from the same facts. It gives you persistent context: Copilot Notebook grounds every answer in the reference sources you've added, and follows any custom instructions you've set, so every answer comes from the same facts.
- Pillar
- AI
- Service
- Microsoft 365
- Topics
- AIm365-copilot
Every business has a project binder: the quote, the email chain, the meeting notes, the key spreadsheet. Copilot Notebooks lets you ask that binder questions and have it draft the next document for you. It's a shared, AI-powered workspace where teams gather project context and create outputs grounded in their own sources. It lives in Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote.
What goes in, what comes out 🛠️
📥 In: Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel sheets and Outlook emails, which you can then question all at once.
📤 Out: a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint deck, or mind map built from your notes.
Business owners use it for tenders, staff onboarding, board updates and key client accounts. A Notebook can even become the basis for an AI agent, a natural step into workflow automation.
Who can use it? 🔑
It's now rolling out to Copilot Chat users as well as Microsoft 365 Copilot users. Mixed-licence teams can share a notebook, with premium features reserved for full Copilot licences. We can help you avoid paying for licences people won't use.
Our view: a good binder needs a good filing system 🛡️
Pin in an old price list and Copilot will quote it confidently. And because Notebooks are shared, sensitive files need the same care as a shared folder. Before rolling out:
✅ Check who can create and share Notebooks in Microsoft 365.
✅ Label confidential data, in line with your compliance needs.
✅ Start with one repeatable task and prove the value first.
How Dunedin IT helps 🤝
We take businesses from "we've got Copilot licences" to "Copilot saves us time every week". We check your data is ready, pick the Notebooks that pay back fastest, train your team, then scale what works.
Find out more about AI enablement and adoption, watch our case studies, or book a Copilot readiness chat.
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