What's The Fuss about Copilot Cowork?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]What's the fuss about co-pilot co-work?

[00:00:02]Well, it's what we all expected co-pilot to be after watching the promo video a couple of years ago. Being a true digital assistant and co-pilot taking action on information, files, and items and my conversations.

[00:00:18]Now, Microsoft's partnership with Anthropic has made this a reality, bringing clawed co-work into Microsoft 365 and enhancing it. co-pilot co-work can access my work and work with it. At this time, it's a Frontier experience and that's a new name for the early access to tech that can delight but also disappoint because Microsoft's still figuring it out. And on that note, note the date in this video. It's a snapshot of what's possible at this time of the recording. It won't serve you well as a tutorial in a month's time, perhaps even in a week's time as things are always changing. It's just me sharing my observations and thoughts. Now, like with Microsoft 365 C-Pilot chat, co-work is a conversation, but it's more task oriented. Think of it like you are talking with an assistant and you are listing a series of related tasks that you want them to complete. do this, then do this, and then do this. Each task you list, you can outline steps that you want completed. And this is why chat supports formatting so that you can list steps as a bullet list or maybe a numbered list. I think the best way to learn what's possible in uh this experience is by using some of the examples that are given like the organize my inbox or organize my week.

[00:01:48]Take a look at this conversation starter. Organize my inbox.

[00:01:53]It begins by stating what you're trying to achieve overall. It specifies the volume of the email to check the last 24 hours.

[00:02:03]It asks a summary and outlines what to show in the summary. Two of the points are to help focus on email from important people. an email that looks important based on the content, the subject or high importance flag.

[00:02:19]The second task is to then triage that email. The bullets suggest grouping the messages into things to delete, archive, RSVP to invites, and messages requiring a reply and needing urgent attention.

[00:02:35]Start with the easiest changes, ones that you can make a quick decision about. Ask for a decision, then take the actions based on that decision. That's the part that will keep you in the loop to actually take action. After spending some time scanning and understanding your email from the last 24 hours, it creates a summary that you ask for. If you open up the details panel, you'll be able to see the processing of your request.

[00:03:03]Then it starts on triaging easy decisions and actions first. Here's six messages that you could delete. What do you want me to do with them? It presents the options and it offers a last option for you to write your own instructions.

[00:03:19]I've used this a couple of times when I thought I need to do a bit of both. I choose the option to delete all six messages this time. And co-work adds in a simple form where I can choose to delete each message or tell it to take the same action for all the messages in the group.

[00:03:39]Then co-work moves into the next group following the bullet points where I've asked to identify different types of messages, make suggestions.

[00:03:49]Each time it guides me through taking the action as we work through each message, I need to check one or two of them for the details before deciding what to take action. I can open up the message to check out the detail. Admittedly, once I've opened the message and read it, I might as well take the action while I'm in the message, like delete it, archive it, move it, or even respond rather than returning to co-work to take that action. There was some email for my direct report, so that falls into the require a reply or action group.

[00:04:27]Co-work offers a few options to draft and reply. One reply is to ask my teammate to suggest a time to meet, but Cowork doesn't really recognize that the email is actually a meeting invite with some conversational text in it. I expected it to offer an option to RSVP, so I just skipped this message for now.

[00:04:49]Another message is also a meeting invite, and this time it uses the form to ask and say, "Eaccept the meeting invite." Now it appears that co-work switches to a different skill and it checks my calendar for the invite. So I can accept it. A reply is drafted in the comments where I can adjust it and then accept the invite and send a reply back to the organizer.

[00:05:16]Co-work finishes that task by summarizing what it did to help me. If you recall, the conversation starter asked co-work to offer to continue triaging my inbox for longer periods of time. So, it offers this, but I choose to move on for now. So, let's move on to see what co-work can do to organize my week. Here's another good example prompt listing tasks and steps I want co-work to take. Take a look at my calendar.

[00:05:47]Like the previous tasks of the organizing my inbox, I ask co-work to review my Outlook calendar and give me a summary.

[00:05:56]Show how much time I'm spending in meetings. Do I have any focus time? What days can I free up some time and shift meetings in my meetingheavy days? The conversation starter lists some clarifying questions to consider, such as if my manager or someone higher up is on those meetings.

[00:06:18]Ask what I'm trying to accomplish this week and keep it in mind as co-work makes recommendations.

[00:06:25]Now, after understanding this and clarify my expectations, propose some changes to my week's meetings and block time. And off goes co-pilot co-work scanning my calendar for the week ahead, understanding my place in the org structure. Co-work comes back with a summary of how many hours I'm spending in meetings and a dayby-day breakdown.

[00:06:51]That's a good starting point for having a discussion with me about reorganizing my calendar for the week. It's interesting how it understands some of my meetings are in the early morning time. I'm based in New Zealand and some of these meetings are based in US time.

[00:07:08]I take a look at one of the meetings to see the detail. The items are hyperl and they open in a new tab just like with my inbox.

[00:07:18]Co-work asks what to do with the early morning calls. And I do like to attend some of them depending on what's on the agenda. So I choose the option some are important because I want to choose which ones to attend.

[00:07:34]Now co-work addresses each of the early morning meetings. The first one is a meeting where I am presenting.

[00:07:42]Co-work figured out that from the details and I confirm this. I work my way through the other meetings and then I indicate which type of meeting I want to give priority to. I choose which meeting I want to keep. Then co-work asks some things about boundaries that I'd like to consider as it puts together a new plan for the week. I choose to keep a hard stop at 5:00 p.m. The plan it puts together makes recommendations to decline some meetings respecting the choice that I've made to attend an early one or two meetings.

[00:08:18]Now it asks me confirming to decline the meetings and it opens up each one to decline. I don't choose the option to send a message to the organizer, but the RSVP is still sent through.

[00:08:33]Then co-work moves on to letting me accept each meeting interactively. Now, this does feel somewhat over complicated. We've reviewed the calendar together. I've indicated my preferences.

[00:08:46]co-workers proposed some actions to take and then I've had to confirm each action. I guess that's what the prompt outlined. Maybe I'm already wanting co-work to take more control and just action stuff without confirming with me, but I do think that the guided process is still useful.

[00:09:06]Co-work offers three 2hour blocks of time to work on project radio. I don't think I need all three. So I respond and say I only want the Wednesday block and then co-work offers a form to create the block of time.

[00:09:25]Co-work finishes with a summary of what is changed in my calendar and it offers to organize more focus time, but I stop right here.

[00:09:35]I think it was worth slowing down to understand the example prompts and what it led co-pilot co-work to do. I can see the possibilities to write a list of tasks and steps that I want it to take.

[00:09:48]I see how I can give it guidance for how I want it to prioritize and make recommendations based on conditions and my preferences.

[00:09:59]In this I see co-pilot co-work aligns well with a mind that is already organized. Perhaps a person who can think programmatically and describe what they want in natural language.

[00:10:12]Now, this is certainly going to be a different way to think and instruct co-pilot co-work to help with work. It's a step up from a chat inside an app with an agent. There's more to explore here, but I can't help thinking that regular people are going to have a hard time adopting this way of working. They have to be able to give instructions and steps while at the same time place a lot more trust and recommendations and actions that cope can take on your behalf. I could be wrong. The world will adopt this maybe at a greater pace than chat experience that we have had so far.

[00:10:55]I'll share what I learn over time in a future video when I try to write my own tasks and instructions for something useful for my work. Till then, bye for now.