Summary
Microsoft is expanding Copilot with a new Home workspace, a tool for building small software solutions from natural-language prompts, and a persistent agent called Autopilot. The capabilities are rolling out in stages, with Autopilot entering private preview.
Microsoft announced a redesigned Copilot on 25 September 2026, adding a Home workspace, a natural-language tool for building small software solutions called Code, and a persistent agent named Autopilot. The company is also bringing editable Word, Excel and PowerPoint files into Copilot and adding controls for managing AI use and spending. The new capabilities are being released in stages rather than arriving all at once.
A workspace for chat, documents and delegated work
Home is intended to bring Chat and Cowork together. Chat handles conversational requests such as questions, lookups and drafts; Cowork is designed for tasks users delegate for completion, such as preparing an RFP response or a customer briefing. Microsoft says Home will show recent activity and suggestions, helping people resume work across the app.
With Office in Copilot, users can ask for a document, workbook or presentation to be created or updated as an editable file. Microsoft says collaborators can work on it alongside the conversation, with changes kept in sync with Office apps. The company also describes updates to Copilot in those apps, including PowerPoint tools for refining slides and Excel features that show what changed and recommend charts.
Code adds another kind of output: a small, purpose-built app, dashboard, tracker, automation or workflow described in natural language. Microsoft says Code selects an approach and builds the solution, from desktop widgets to cloud-hosted internal apps. It is powered by the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot and runs in a sandboxed environment; Microsoft says apps can be hosted securely within an organisation’s Microsoft 365 tenant. A related service, Copilot Managed Runtime, provides hosting infrastructure for code within that environment and is now in preview.
Persistent agents and staged access
Autopilot, formerly called Scout, is designed to keep working between prompts. Users give it a name, role and goal; Microsoft says it can monitor channels, follow up on conversations and run recurring work. Its example is a supplier review process, including planning, meeting preparation and follow-ups. Autopilot is cloud-hosted and has its own identity, memory, computer and workspace within the organisation’s tenant. Microsoft says it operates with permissions, audit and governance controls, while users set its objectives and boundaries.
The release schedule varies by feature. Microsoft says Home and Code will start rolling out through its Frontier program in the coming weeks. Code is also described as rolling out to Frontier at the end of September, with broader availability in the coming weeks and a preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later in 2026. Autopilot is expanding to private preview at the end of September. These stages matter: the announcement describes a developing set of capabilities, not a single feature set available to every Copilot user immediately.
Microsoft is also distinguishing everyday AI use from longer-running agent work in its billing approach. A user subscription license covers Copilot in Chat and Microsoft 365 apps, with an automatic model-selection feature that weighs accuracy, speed and cost. Usage-based billing applies to Cowork, Code and Autopilot, among other agentic capabilities, and lets organisations choose models and match usage costs to value. New spending controls are intended to help administrators set model access and spending policies, while users can view credit balances and usage history.
Together, the changes position Copilot as a place not only to ask questions, but also to edit shared Office files, build lightweight tools and delegate ongoing work. How much of that becomes part of day-to-day use will depend in part on the staged rollout and on organisations’ choices about access, governance and usage-based spending.