Are You Overlooking One of Copilot’s Most Powerful Features?

Copilot Notebooks are one of Copilot’s most overlooked (and often misunderstood) features. Many people see Copilot Notebooks in the Copilot application’s navigation but skip past it because its purpose is not immediately clear. Copilot Notebooks are also one of the newest and fastest-evolving applications in Microsoft 365. In this month’s newsletter, we’ll explain what a Copilot notebook is, how it works today, and why you might want to use one.

Built by Loop

Copilot notebooks are built on another Microsoft product that is not always well understood: Microsoft Loop. Loop lets users create a workspace that can include both pages and related documents. (Think of a workspace like a folder with files inside it.) For example, you could create a Loop workspace for a new project (that we’ll call “Project ABC”), then use a Loop page to capture key project details. Next, you could add supporting files such as the Excel budget spreadsheet and Word project charter. This is how project teams can see all key documents grouped in an individual location. In this example, a project structure would look like this:

Project ABC Workspace

  • Project Charter.docx
  • Project Budget.xlsx
  • Project Details Page.loop

This workspace, or the project details page (or even a component on the page) can be shared with other users within the organization, so they can collaborate on the project details.

So, what does this have to do with Copilot Notebooks?

The Power of Reduced Scope

One of Copilot’s biggest strengths is that it can access all the information a user has access to within their Microsoft 365 tenant. However, sometimes, this scope is too big. Imagine that you are trying to find information about the current state of Project ABC. If you ask Coplot to provide a status update, it’s possible that Copilot will retrieve information about the project that is outdated or irrelevant because it’s accessing years’ worth of information, depending on how long the project has been active. What if you could tell it just to reference the files that you specify when creating your Copilot prompt, to ensure only the relevant information is being referenced (such as the most recent documents and reports)? And what if you could save the Copilot-generated response as a page so others could have access to the AI-generated results?

In this scenario, you could create a new Copilot notebook and only reference the latest status update document and the current project budget worksheet. Then you could save the AI-generated results from Copilot as a Loop page. Your new structure would look like this:

Project ABC Notebook

  • Project Status.docx
  • Project Budget.xlsx
  • Project ABC Current Status.loop

Do you see the similarities? Copilot notebooks use the existing structure provided by Loop but utilizes Loop for the purpose not of providing humans with contextual information when creating Loop content; instead, documents become the contextual information that Copilot will reference when generating its results.

The Power of Collaboration

While Copilot has traditionally been viewed as a “personal” assistant, there are times when there’s value in sharing Copilot’s responses with others. This is where the Loop platform shines. It’s possible to share an entire notebook with others, so they can have access to the Copilot queries, responses, and supporting documentation that you do.

Getting Started

To create your first Copilot notebook, navigate to the Copilot app and choose Notebooks from the left navigation.

On the Notebooks homepage you can see the notebooks that you have created and any notebooks that others have shared with you. Click the “New notebook” button and give your new notebook a name. On the next screen, add supporting documents or past Copilot chats as reference material for your notebook.

Once the notebook has been created, you can continue to add more supporting documents or view any items you have created within the notebook.

When you chat with Copilot, Copilot will use the information stored in the notebook as its only reference material. You can save Copilot’s response as a Loop page, (which will show up under the “Creations” heading.) To do this, click on the ellipsis (“…”) at the bottom of the Copilot response and choose “Edit in Pages,” then either add to an existing page or create a new page.

You can also create an audio overview of the notebook. This great feature not only helps those who are seeing impaired but also creates a summary that is available when you’re on the go and can listen better than read.

Chat conversations you have with Copilot, within the notebook, will be stored in the chat history for the notebook, referenceable later (you may also delete chats you don’t want to keep).

Notebooks aren’t just for a point in time; you can continue to add to your notebook over time, making it a “living” set of files.

Once you have created your notebook, you can share your notebook with others by clicking on the people icon at the top of the chat pane, then choosing whom you would like to share the notebook with.

Copilot Notebooks and OneNote

It’s clear that Loop/Copilot Notebooks and OneNote  Notebooks have overlapping functionality. While Loop and OneNote will not merge into one product anytime soon, Microsoft has attempted to make it easier to  jump from one product to the other. When you open OneNote, you will see your Copilot notebooks listed in the same navigation as your OneNote notebooks.

Not only can you view your Copilot notebooks in OneNote, but you can edit them too (both in the web and desktop version of OneNote). Currently, this provides the ability to create additional features to your Copilot notebook such as mind maps, infographics, or study guides, which are not yet available when creating Copilot Notebooks in the Copilot app (although it will be available soon).

Use Cases for Copilot Notebooks

Below are some use cases for utilizing Copilot Notebooks:

  • Client Project Hub: Consolidate project documents, notes, and conversations so Copilot can provide project-specific insights.
  • Research Initiative: Gather articles, reports, and findings to help Copilot analyze themes and summarize conclusions.
  • Conference Session Preparation: Combine Microsoft announcements, notes, and reference materials to build presentations faster.
  • Proposal or RFP Response: Bring together requirements, templates, and supporting documents to accelerate proposal development.
  • New Employee Onboarding: Centralize training materials and process documentation so new hires can quickly get answers.
  • Team Knowledge Base: Create a shared repository of reference documents, prompts, and insights for consistent team collaboration.
  • Product Evaluation: Compare solutions by organizing vendor information, feature lists, and stakeholder feedback in one place.
  • Strategic Initiative Management: Track long-term programs such as AI adoption, governance, or organizational change efforts.
  • Content Creation and Thought Leadership: Gather source materials, research, and drafts to help Copilot generate blogs, articles, and executive summaries.

Conclusion

Copilot Notebooks give you a practical way to narrow Copilot’s focus, organize relevant source material, and turn AI-generated insights into reusable shared knowledge. By combining Copilot’s reasoning with Loop’s collaborative structure, notebooks can help teams work from the right context instead of searching across everything in Microsoft 365. As the feature continues to evolve, it is worth exploring where a focused, living workspace could make your everyday work easier.

References

To learn about how to use Copilot Notebooks, view Microsoft’s online help documentation at Get started with Microsoft Copilot Notebooks and check out two of the latest announcements from the Copilot team: