Microsoft is expanding Copilot Cowork with mobile apps, reusable skills, and deep plugin integrations, turning it from a chat-style assistant into a persistent AI “coworker” that can actually execute work across Microsoft 365 and third‑party tools.
Copilot Cowork moves from chat to execution
Over the past few months, Microsoft has been positioning Copilot Cowork as the next phase of AI at work: instead of just answering questions, it can now plan multi‑step tasks, act across apps like Outlook, Teams, and Word, and carry work forward over time. Built on Microsoft’s Work IQ intelligence layer and Anthropic’s agent technology, Cowork has access to an organization’s files, calendars, and conversations so it can reason over real business context—not just public web data.
In a new blog post titled “Copilot Cowork: From conversation to action across skills, integrations, and devices,” Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna frames this update as the shift from AI that talks about work to AI that actually does the work alongside you. Cowork is currently available through the Microsoft 365 Frontier early access program for organizations that want to pilot these agent capabilities ahead of general availability.
Cowork comes to iOS and Android
One of the headline changes is that Copilot Cowork is now available on iOS and Android via the existing Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app. Workers can describe a task from their phone—like “triage my inbox and draft replies to these five customers” or “assemble a briefing doc from last week’s meetings”—and Cowork will continue executing in the cloud even after they close the app or put the device away.
Users can monitor progress, approve or reject actions, and review results directly from their mobile devices, then pick up the work later on desktop without losing context. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted this “delegate from your phone, finish on your PC” workflow as a key step in keeping work moving without breaking focus.
Turning workflows into reusable Cowork Skills
To make Cowork more consistent and “like you,” Microsoft is introducing Cowork Skills, which are reusable sets of instructions that tell the agent how to complete a task in a specific way. A skill can encode your preferred structure, tone, and steps—for example, how you write weekly status reports, respond to customer escalations, or prepare sales pipeline reviews—so Cowork can repeat that workflow on demand.
Microsoft is rolling out built‑in skills for common scenarios such as document creation, meeting coordination, and research, and organizations can also build custom skills stored in a dedicated OneDrive folder or defined through natural‑language guidance. Over time, these skills form a shared layer of intelligence for teams, allowing departments to standardize playbooks and scale best practices without everyone having to train the AI individually.
New plugins and integrations across business systems
Recognizing that enterprise work spans far beyond Office documents, Microsoft is also deepening Cowork’s ability to operate across data platforms and line‑of‑business apps via plugins. Native integrations now include Fabric IQ with Power BI, so Cowork can pull live data into workflows, generate reports, and help run data‑driven reviews directly from within Microsoft 365.
Microsoft is expanding its reach into Dynamics 365 for sales, service, and ERP scenarios, enabling Cowork to assist with tasks like pipeline inspections, case resolution, and order approvals. In the coming weeks, Cowork will also gain connectors for third‑party platforms including LSEG, Miro, monday.com, and S&P Global Energy, with more partner integrations on the roadmap.
Frontier access, controls, and what’s next
Copilot Cowork remains a Frontier‑only feature for now, aimed at customers willing to test early‑stage AI agents under enterprise controls. Eligible users need a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium license, Frontier enrollment, and specific tenant settings—such as enabling Microsoft‑built agents and allowing Anthropic as a subprocessor—with EU tenants required to explicitly turn Cowork on due to data boundary rules.
Microsoft says Cowork is evolving rapidly, with new skills, plugins, and capabilities rolling out continuously as it observes how early customers actually use the agent in production environments. The company is targeting broader availability around its July Inspire partner conference, positioning Cowork as a cornerstone of its multi‑model, multi‑agent strategy for enterprise AI.
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