# Copilot Notebooks for Teams: Setup, Example and Artifacts > Microsoft Copilot Notebooks for teams: where chat fails, the October 2026 features, a six-step setup, a monthly-report example and how to create artifacts. Source: https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-notebooks-for-teams-shared-workspace Language: en Author: Toni Dos Santos Published: 2026-10-30 Updated: 2026-10-30 --- AI Tools # Microsoft Copilot Notebooks for teams: how to replace scattered chats with one shared workspace (2026 guide) By [Toni Dos Santos](https://wecallshotgun.com/toni-dos-santos) • Oct 30, 2026 • 28 min read • **Summary:** Microsoft Copilot Notebooks is the shared workspace for a team's project inside Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote. In short: 1. Chat resets every time. A notebook keeps references, instructions and outputs for one project in one place, shared with the team. 2. Copilot reads the references and nothing else, up to the first 300, and cites the one it used. 3. It makes the deliverable: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Copilot Pages, mind maps, audio overviews, and interactive reports and PDFs for Frontier users since October 2026. 4. Sharing shares the files. Collaborators see references and instructions, chats stay private, no external sharing. 5. Start with one recurring deliverable, one owner and a measured baseline. The monthly report built by hand is the usual winner. Microsoft Copilot Notebooks is the shared workspace inside Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote where a team pins the files, pages, meeting recaps and links for one piece of work, writes instructions once, and has Copilot answer, draft and build from that pile only. Microsoft's own posts describe a notebook as an AI-powered workspace for a project, which is why you'll hear "Copilot workspaces" in meetings. Here's where plain Copilot Chat lets a team down, what a notebook changes, the October 2026 releases, a six-step setup, a worked example, and how to create Word, PowerPoint, Excel and audio artifacts from it. Monday, 9:04. You open Copilot Chat and explain the project again. Who the client is, when the deadline falls, which of the three spreadsheets is the real one. A colleague found a prompt that works on Thursday and pasted it into a Teams message. It's somewhere above the lunch order. A property investment adviser we spoke to in September keeps a refined instruction block in a notes file and pastes it into every new client conversation. Daily user, good results, and every chat starts from zero. Of the 16 intro calls we ran in September 2026, 13 companies had already rolled out AI tools and 10 described usage stuck on the basics. The chat window is where it sticks. Scope first, before anyone forwards this to IT. Notebooks come with Microsoft 365 Copilot licences and, since June 2026, with Copilot Chat, where they get fewer sources and fewer tools. Several of the October 2026 features sit in Frontier, Microsoft's opt-in early-access programme, which an admin switches on. The prompts are ours. We haven't measured what they save, so treat them as starting points. ## In short - **Chat resets. A notebook doesn't.** References, instructions and outputs for one project stay in one place, shared with the people doing the work. - **Copilot reads the references and nothing else.** Up to 300 of them ground the answers, each one cited, so a wrong answer points at the file that caused it. - **It makes the deliverable.** Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Copilot Pages, mind maps and audio overviews, plus interactive reports and PDFs for Frontier users since October 2026. - **Sharing shares the files.** Collaborators see the references and the instructions, chats stay private, and external sharing isn't supported. Check permissions before the first shared notebook. - **Start with one deliverable, one owner, one baseline.** The monthly report someone already builds by hand is the usual winner. ![Diagram comparing a team's work in Copilot Chat with the same work in one Copilot Notebook. Left, four separate chats: the Monday brief explained again, a colleague's prompt lost in a Teams message, the pricing pulled from the wrong tender, and a summary pasted into Word by hand. Right, one shared notebook holding references (files, folders, Copilot Pages, Teams recaps, web links), Copilot instructions written once, private chats per person, and outputs: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Copilot Pages and audio overviews, each linked to the notebook.](https://wecallshotgun.com/images/blog/copilot-notebooks-chat-sprawl-vs-notebook.svg) ## Why does Copilot Chat struggle once a team shares the work? Chat was built for one person and one question. Teams run on one project and many questions. Four things go wrong in the gap. **The context resets.** Every new chat starts without the brief. So the brief lives in someone's head, or in a pasted block of instructions that only its author keeps current. The adviser above has the best prompt on the team. Nobody else can see it. **Good prompts don't travel.** Chats are personal. A naval architect we interviewed this month described specialist answers his colleagues couldn't find anywhere else, and an early attempt to capture the project's rules in a shared spreadsheet. The knowledge stayed in his head because the tool gave it nowhere else to go. **Searching everything finds the wrong thing.** Copilot Chat on a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence can reach the whole tenant. Ask about "the pricing" and it may bring back the pricing from last year's tender. In Templafy's 2026 survey of 2,000 UK and US knowledge workers, 42% said their AI can't reach approved company content ([our analysis](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/uk-workers-edit-ai-documents-templafy-2026)). Too little context and too much context fail the same way: the draft is wrong and nobody can see why. **The output lives in the chat.** Copilot writes a summary. Someone copies it into Word, rebuilds the table, fixes the headings and sends it. In Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index, 86% of 20,000 AI users at work said they treat AI output as a starting point. The starting point still has to land in the right file. Add a shared prompt and the problem shows its shape. The same adviser told us colleagues want different emphases and different outputs from the same instructions. A shared prompt stays a prompt. A shared workspace, with the sources, the instructions and the outputs inside it, becomes a method. ## What is a Copilot Notebook? A Copilot Notebook is a container for one project or topic. It holds references (the files, pages, folders, recaps and links Copilot may read), Copilot instructions (how it should answer, in what format, for whom), chats, and the outputs it creates: answers with a citation to the reference they came from, an overview page Copilot keeps current, and artifacts such as Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel sheets, mind maps and audio overviews. Microsoft's support pages put the scope plainly: Copilot only uses content from the sites, folders or files you add, and doesn't use other organisational content unless you add it. It lives in two places that stay in sync. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app has a Notebooks section, redesigned in a rollout Microsoft scheduled for late September to early October 2026, which groups a project's chats, generated content and references in one view. OneNote has the fuller workspace. Open either and you're in the same notebook. If your company runs ChatGPT, the equivalent is Projects ([our guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/chatgpt-enterprise-features-for-work)); on Google, it's Gemini's notebooks ([our Gemini for Workspace guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/gemini-for-google-workspace)). ### What goes in Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, PDFs, OneNote pages, Copilot Pages, Loop pages, SharePoint folders and sites, Teams content such as meeting recaps, Markdown, TXT and RTF files since July 2026, and web links since the same month. Microsoft's reference guide, updated in April 2026, says you can add more than 300 references but only the first 300 are used for grounding. Earlier pages said 100, so when your admin quotes a different number, the page moved. Microsoft also advises that question and answer over a single document works best under about 7,500 words. Copilot Chat users, included with a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription, got Notebooks on 11 June 2026 with standard sources (Office files, PDFs, Copilot Pages, images, audio and web links) and a capped number of sources per notebook. Premium sources, meaning Teams and SharePoint content and internal URLs, need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Both kinds of user can work in the same shared notebook. ### Chat, notebook or agent? | | Copilot Chat | Copilot Notebook | Copilot agent | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Built for | One person, one question | One project, many questions, several people | One job repeated by many people | | Where the context lives | In the prompt, every time | In the references and instructions, once | In the agent's configuration | | What Copilot reads | Whatever your licence can reach, tenant-wide | The references you added, first 300 | The knowledge sources the maker set | | Who sees it | You | Everyone you share it with (chats stay private) | Everyone it's published to | | What it makes | Text in a chat | Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Pages, maps, audio | Answers, and actions in Copilot Studio | | Who builds it | Nobody | The team, in an afternoon | A maker in Agent Builder or Copilot Studio | The notebook is the middle column on purpose. A team runs one for a quarter, notices the eight questions that keep repeating, and turns that stable subset into an agent. Skip the notebook and you build an agent that answers questions nobody asks. The [notebooks versus agents comparison](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-notebooks-uk-projects-guide) goes deeper, and [the new Copilot app guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/new-microsoft-copilot-home-code-autopilot) covers where Home, Code and Autopilot sit around both. ### What changed in October 2026 Microsoft's "What's new in Notebooks" post for October 2026 is the largest release since the March redesign. Most of it sits in Frontier, the opt-in early-access programme that needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and an admin switch under Copilot settings in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. - **Copilot does simple work for you.** From a notebook chat, Copilot can manage references, pull the project's context together, and create or edit a single Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. Frontier. - **Office files open on the canvas.** View a document inline and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files there, or ask Copilot to make the change. Frontier. - **Interactive reports and PDFs.** Reports with visualisations and filters, and PDF output, join the artifact list. Frontier. - **Model choice.** Pick a model for a notebook chat, including a "think deeper" option, with more models to come. Frontier. - **Audio overview formats.** "Critique" and "Debate" formats, topic-based episodes for long material, and sensitivity labels: a saved audio file inherits the most restrictive label among its sources. Rolling out in the weeks after the post. - **Create a notebook by describing the goal.** Copilot sets the notebook up from a sentence. Microsoft says the next few weeks, Frontier first. - **Mobile.** Microsoft's release notes list a new Notebooks design on iOS in October and multimodal capture on Android from late September: record a site visit, photograph a whiteboard, drop the notes in. Windows Report and Neowin also describe recurring automations, a daily brief or a weekly status deck that runs on a schedule. Microsoft's post doesn't name them, so treat that one as unconfirmed until it shows up in your tenant. ## What are Copilot Notebooks good for? The test we run on a client's list of ideas has three parts. A defined set of sources. A deliverable someone already produces by hand on a cycle. More than one person touching it. Pass all three and a notebook pays for itself in the first cycle. Fail one and you've built a tidy folder. Five team jobs that pass, from this autumn's client conversations: - **The monthly report.** An operations leader at a manufacturer described managers copying KPIs from Excel and the BI tool into a shared monthly deck, then writing the commentary by hand. Sources, cycle, several people. The worked example below is this one. - **The client account.** Engagement letter, scope, recaps, deliverables sent. A partner asks what was promised on timing in June and gets the recap with the line quoted. Our [Copilot in UK banking article](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-banking-use-cases-uk) has the relationship-manager version. - **The project with a rotating cast.** Charter, decision log, stakeholder map, the recaps that mattered. The person who joins in month four reads the overview page instead of interrupting three people. - **The event or campaign.** A marketing employee told us event status lives across email threads, so she searches old messages to reconstruct where each one stands. Pin the threads and the plan, then ask for the latest status and the next action per event. - **The tender or bid.** Invitation, evaluation criteria, the last three winning bids, the rate card. Map every criterion to the evidence you hold and flag the gaps. The [UK projects guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-notebooks-uk-projects-guide) walks through six of these, board pack and contract review included. Three jobs that fail the test. Anything that needs an action taken, a ticket raised or an email sent: that's an agent, or [Copilot Cowork](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-cowork-guide-2026). Anything a client or partner needs to open: external sharing isn't supported, so send them the Word output. And the archive: the grounding cap makes a notebook a project, never a filing cabinet. Free, 8 minutes You already pay for Copilot. Where does your team sit? A notebook only pays off when people change how the report gets built. The AI Maturity Audit places your company on the WCS AI Maturity Model in 21 questions: your stage, the barrier holding usage back (people, leadership, process or foundations) and what to fix first. Free personalised report, no email gate, no pitch. [Run the free audit →](https://wecallshotgun.com/audit) ## What does a team gain from a shared notebook? Four things. Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index found that organisational factors explain 67% of AI's impact on a worker, about twice the weight of individual mindset. A notebook is an organisational object. That's why it tends to work where a personal chat window didn't. **The brief stops resetting.** References and instructions go in once. Every chat inside the notebook starts from them. The adviser's instruction block becomes the notebook's instructions, visible to every collaborator and edited in one place. **Answers become checkable.** Copilot cites the reference it used. When the citation points at the superseded version of the plan, you see it and remove the file. In a tenant-wide chat you rarely learn why an answer was wrong. **The output is the deliverable.** A first draft of the monthly deck built from the KPI export, last month's deck and the review recap is a different thing from a summary of those files. It arrives in PowerPoint, linked to the notebook, on Tuesday instead of Thursday. The person who signs it still reads every slide. **Knowledge stops leaving with people.** The overview page, the audio overview and the decision log mean the newcomer asks the notebook for a month instead of asking the two people who remember. The naval architect's rules spreadsheet finally has a home that answers questions. The limits, so nobody oversells this internally. A notebook won't act or run on a schedule (unless the reported automations land). Chats inside a shared notebook are private to each person, so the team can't see each other's prompts: keep a "prompts that work" page inside the notebook. Copilot Chat users get fewer sources and no audio overview. And a generated draft paraphrases. Microsoft licensed Copilot to over 200,000 of its own people and usage plateaued until a team started from an outcome and rebuilt the workflow ([what Microsoft learned](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/why-ai-training-fails-microsoft-lessons)). A notebook is the shortest route to that rebuild. ## How do you set up a team notebook? What we do with a team of six to ten in a two-hour working session, on a live piece of work. Six steps, and the first two take longer than the other four. ![Six steps to set up a shared Copilot Notebook for a team. 1, pick the deliverable and name the owner, and measure the last three cycles as the baseline. 2, check sources and permissions: run the SharePoint oversharing check, final versions only, agree which data may go in and who reviews output. 3, create the notebook in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app or OneNote and add references: files, folders, Copilot Pages, Teams recaps, web links. 4, write the Copilot instructions for this notebook: audience, format, rules, what to flag. 5, share it to the people or the Microsoft 365 Group, and say that chats are private while instructions and references are shared; add a prompts-that-work page. 6, agree the rhythm and the retention: who adds what and when, what happens when the project ends.](https://wecallshotgun.com/images/blog/copilot-notebooks-team-setup-steps.svg) - **Pick the deliverable and name the owner.** One recurring output, one person whose name goes in the title: "Monthly ops report, owner A. Costa". Measure the last three cycles first: days from data ready to deck sent, hours of the senior person's time. That's the baseline the renewal conversation will need in twelve months. - **Check the sources and the permissions.** Anyone you share a notebook with gains access to every referenced file Copilot can grant, and sharing to a Microsoft 365 Group follows its membership as people join and leave. Run the SharePoint oversharing check before the first shared notebook. Agree a source rule: final versions only, no drafts folder. Then answer the two questions champions ask before launch, which came up in a champion programme we're running for a multi-country enterprise: which data may go into Copilot, and who reviews AI output and where it escalates. Write both answers on the notebook's first page. - **Create the notebook and add references.** In the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, open Notebooks and choose Create, or open the Copilot Notebooks list in OneNote. Add the files, the SharePoint folder, the Copilot Pages, the Teams recap and the web links. Pin the folder when its files change monthly, and the file when they don't. - **Write the Copilot instructions.** Open the menu beside the notebook's name and choose Copilot instructions. They apply to this notebook only, and collaborators can see them. A version to paste and edit: ``` This notebook supports the monthly operations report for the operations leadership team. Use only the references in this notebook. Answer in plain British English, short paragraphs, numbers to one decimal. Cite the reference for every figure. Flag any KPI that moved more than 10% without a stated cause. Separate what the sources say from your own suggestions. If two references disagree, show both and say which is more recent. Never invent a figure, a name or a date; write [MISSING] instead. ``` - **Share it, and say how it works.** Share to the people or to the Group. Tell them two things in the same message: chats are private, instructions and references are shared. Add a OneNote page inside the notebook called "Prompts that work" and ask everyone to paste theirs. That page is the team's method, and it had nowhere to live in chat. - **Agree the rhythm and the retention.** Who adds the new KPI export, on which day. Who removes the superseded deck. What happens to the notebook when the project ends: it sits in the owner's OneDrive or SharePoint and inherits their retention labels. For the policy line, [our shadow AI and governance guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/shadow-ai-enterprise-governance-risk) has the template thinking, and [the UK governance and ICO guide](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/ai-governance-uk-ico-framework) covers what the DPIA should say. For the October features, an admin enables Frontier under Copilot settings in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, for everyone or for a chosen set of users. Start with the pilot team. Preview features change, and a team that already has its baseline notices the change. ## An example: the monthly operations report, built in one notebook A composite from client conversations this autumn, with no results claimed. The setting: operations managers at a manufacturer copy KPIs from Excel exports and the BI tool into a shared monthly presentation, write the commentary, and finance checks the numbers before the review meeting. Four people, one deck, every month. **The notebook.** "Monthly ops report, owner A. Costa". References: this month's KPI export (Excel), last month's deck (PowerPoint), the approved commentary template (Word), the Teams recap of last month's review, and the SharePoint folder where the BI exports land. Instructions: the block above. **Monday.** The owner adds the new export and asks: ``` Compare this month's KPI export with last month's deck. List every KPI that moved more than 10%, with both values and the source file. Separate what the review recap already explains from what has no stated cause. ``` Copilot returns a list with a citation per line. Two of the movements were explained in the recap. One wasn't. That one becomes the first question for the plant manager, on Monday instead of in the review meeting. **Tuesday.** The owner asks for the artifacts: ``` Create a PowerPoint presentation following the structure of last month's deck: one slide per KPI group, this month's value, last month's value, the change, and a one-line commentary in the template's wording. Mark every slide where the cause is unknown with [CAUSE TO CONFIRM]. Then create an Excel sheet with all KPIs, both months and the variance. ``` The PowerPoint agent drafts the deck from the notebook's content and it opens in PowerPoint, linked to the notebook. The Excel sheet gives finance the variance table they used to rebuild by hand. The plant manager asks for an audio overview of the notebook and hears the month on the drive in. **Wednesday.** Finance checks the numbers against the export, and the citations turn that into a short job instead of a hunt. The commentary gets rewritten in the manager's own words, the marked slides get their causes from two Teams messages, and the deck goes out. **What the team measures.** Days from export to deck sent, hours of the ops lead's time, and the number of KPI movements that reach the review meeting without a cause. The first two are the baseline from step one. The third is the one the plant manager cares about. This is a composite, so there are no numbers to quote. Measure your own three cycles and you'll have them. Next month the owner swaps the export, replaces last month's deck with the new one, and runs the same two prompts. By month three the questions that repeat are visible, and that's the moment to ask whether a Copilot agent should answer them for everyone. The notebook was the discovery phase. For teams on Microsoft 365 Copilot Bring the report your team rebuilds by hand every month. A 20-minute call with Toni or Meera: which deliverable to put in the first notebook, who should own it, and the baseline to measure it against. Tool-agnostic, so nobody on the call is selling you a licence. [Book a 20-minute call →](https://cal.com/wecallshotgun/ai-adoption) ## How do you create artifacts in a Copilot Notebook? Artifact is Microsoft's word for the things Copilot makes from a notebook: documents, decks, sheets, pages, maps, audio. Three ways to get one. - **Ask in the chat.** "Create a Word document that…", "Create a PowerPoint presentation…", "Create an Excel sheet…". The Word and PowerPoint agents, generally available since May 2026, draft from the notebook's full content and open the result in the native app. - **Use the Create menu.** The notebook's Create entry lists the output types, including the ones chat doesn't suggest on its own: mind map, infographic, study guide, audio overview. - **Accept a suggestion.** Since the summer, Copilot recommends Word, Excel and PowerPoint artifacts based on what's in the notebook. The suggestion is a button. Whether to use it stays with you. | Artifact | Ask for it when | Opens in | Availability | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Word document | A narrative deliverable: the report, the method statement, the brief | Word, linked to the notebook | General availability since May 2026 | | PowerPoint deck | The review deck, the all-hands update | PowerPoint | General availability since May 2026 | | Excel sheet | A table from narrative sources: variances, themes, criteria mapping | Excel | Available | | Copilot Page | A living page the team co-edits | Pages, inside the notebook | Available | | Mind map | Themes and dependencies across long material | The notebook | Available since spring 2026 | | Infographic | The all-hands slide nobody had time to design | The Designer agent, via Copilot Create | Available since spring 2026 | | Study guide and overview | Onboarding a newcomer | The notebook | Available | | Audio overview | A two-voice summary for the commute, in eight languages | The notebook, or saved to OneDrive | Microsoft 365 Copilot licence; Critique and Debate formats rolling out from October 2026 | | Interactive report | A report with visualisations and filters | The notebook | Frontier, October 2026 | | PDF | The version you send outside the tenant | Download | Frontier, October 2026 | Two rules we give teams. Put the template or last month's version in the notebook and name it as the model, or Copilot picks a structure for you. And open the draft in the app before you judge it: formatting is the part the agent does worst, content from your references the part it does best. [The Excel and PowerPoint workflows nobody teaches](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/copilot-excel-powerpoint-workflows) covers the finishing work in the apps. Since October 2026, Frontier users can also edit a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file on the notebook canvas, or ask Copilot to change it, without leaving the notebook. For everyone else the file opens in its app and the notebook keeps the link. A notebook decides what Copilot reads. The prompt decides what it writes, and [five ways to get better results from Copilot at work](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-tips-better-prompts-work) covers the four-part brief and the self-critique round. Three prompts to copy, one per artifact: ``` Create a Word document: a one-page brief for [audience] on [topic], using only the references in this notebook. Structure: situation, what changed, decision needed, next steps. Cite the reference for every figure. Write [SOURCE NEEDED] wherever the references don't support a claim. ``` ``` Create a mind map of the themes across the customer interviews in this notebook. One branch per theme, two supporting quotes per branch with the file each quote comes from. Keep the quotes verbatim. ``` ``` Create an audio overview of this notebook for a new team member joining the project next week. Cover what the project is, what has been decided, what is still open and who owns what. ``` Two caveats, each worth a line on the slide itself. Verbatims get paraphrased, so check every quote against the transcript before it goes on a slide with someone's name under it. And a saved audio overview inherits the most restrictive sensitivity label among its sources, so the podcast of the salary review is labelled like the salary review. ## Where to start on Monday An innovation lead at a 10,000-person manufacturer, Copilot rolled out company-wide, told us last week: "The training modules are so generic. It's almost not broad enough to help everyone with everyday things, but then it's also not specific enough to help the individuals." A notebook built on the team's own deliverable is the opposite of generic. That's the whole appeal. Pick the report your team complained about last week. Time the last three cycles the usual way, review included. Build the notebook on the live one in a two-hour session with the owner in the room. Run two cycles inside it. Time it again. Where the cycle time moved, write down the two prompts and the one artifact that did it, and that becomes the team's playbook. Where it didn't, the source set was wrong or the deliverable wasn't the bottleneck, and both are worth knowing before anyone buys two hundred seats. We call that first deliverable the [Painful Tuesday](https://wecallshotgun.com/ai-adoption-glossary#painful-tuesday), and it's where our [Copilot adoption programme for teams](https://wecallshotgun.com/copilot-training) starts. The tool was never the problem. Nobody taught them to drive. Free, no email required Put a number on the monthly report before anyone argues about seats. The AI ROI calculator estimates the hours and the pounds a UK team gets back from AI, built on ONS salaries, HMRC employer costs and published productivity research, with the methodology shown. Five inputs. Bring the result to the first notebook session as the figure to beat. [Open the free ROI calculator →](https://wecallshotgun.com/ai-roi-calculator) **How to cite this.** Microsoft Copilot Notebooks is a shared workspace in Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote where a team adds references (files, folders, Copilot Pages, Teams recaps, web links), writes Copilot instructions once, and gets answers and artifacts grounded in those references only, up to the first 300 of them according to Microsoft's support pages. Collaborators inside the tenant see the references and instructions while chats stay private; external sharing isn't supported. Copilot Chat users have had Notebooks with standard sources since 11 June 2026. Microsoft's October 2026 update added, mostly in the Frontier early-access programme, delegation of simple tasks, Office files editable on the notebook canvas, interactive reports, PDFs, model choice and new audio overview formats. We Call Shotgun, 30 October 2026. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a Microsoft Copilot Notebook? A Copilot Notebook is a workspace inside Microsoft 365 Copilot and OneNote for one project or topic. You add references such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, PDFs, Copilot Pages, SharePoint folders, Teams recaps and web links, write Copilot instructions for that notebook, and Copilot answers, drafts and builds from those references only. Outputs include Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel sheets, Copilot Pages, mind maps, infographics, study guides and audio overviews. ### Is Copilot Workspaces the same thing as Copilot Notebooks? Yes in practice. The product name is Copilot Notebooks. Microsoft's own posts describe a notebook as an AI-powered workspace for a project, and the redesigned Notebooks section of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app groups a project's chats, generated content and references in one view. People say "Copilot workspace" for that; the menu says Notebooks. ### What is the difference between Copilot Chat and a Copilot Notebook for a team? Copilot Chat starts every conversation from the prompt and, on a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, can search the whole tenant. A notebook keeps the references, the instructions and the outputs for one project in one place, shares them with the team, and grounds every answer in those references only, with a citation. Chats inside a shared notebook stay private to each person. ### How many references can a Copilot Notebook use? Microsoft's support page on adding references, updated in April 2026, says you can add more than 300 references but only the first 300 are used for grounding. Earlier guidance quoted 100. Microsoft also advises that question and answer over a single document works best under about 7,500 words. Copilot Chat users get standard sources and a capped number of sources per notebook. ### Can I share a Copilot Notebook with my team, and do they see my chats? You can share a notebook with people in your organisation or with a Microsoft 365 Group, whose membership keeps the access current. Collaborators see the references, the instructions and the context, and gain access to referenced files Copilot can grant. Your chats with Copilot stay private. External sharing with clients or partners isn't supported, so send them the Word or PowerPoint output instead. ### Do I need a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence to use Notebooks? Not for the basics. Copilot Chat users, included with a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription, have had Notebooks since 11 June 2026 with standard sources: Office files, PDFs, Copilot Pages, images, audio and web links. A Microsoft 365 Copilot licence adds premium sources such as Teams and SharePoint content, the audio overview, and access to Frontier features once an admin enables the programme. ### What's new in Copilot Notebooks in October 2026? Microsoft's October 2026 update lists delegation of simple tasks from a notebook chat (managing references, creating or editing a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file), Office files you can view and edit on the notebook canvas, interactive reports, PDF output, a model picker with a "think deeper" option, new "Critique" and "Debate" audio formats with sensitivity labels on saved audio, and notebook creation from a described goal. Most of it is in Frontier, Microsoft's opt-in early-access programme, with the audio changes rolling out in the following weeks. ## Sources and further reading - Microsoft Tech Community, [What's New in Notebooks, October 2026](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/whats-new-in-notebooks--october-2026/4559105): delegation, Office editing on the canvas, interactive reports, PDFs, model choice, audio overview formats, notebook creation - Microsoft Tech Community, [Meet the updated Copilot Notebooks experience](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/meet-the-updated-copilot-notebooks-experience-your-home-for-understanding-work-p/4501383), 12 March 2026: general availability of the redesigned experience - Microsoft Tech Community, [Copilot Notebooks: enhancements to support creation, collaboration and learning](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/copilot-notebooks-enhancements-to-support-creation-collaboration-and-learning/4505360): Word and PowerPoint agents, sharing to Microsoft 365 Groups, mind maps, infographics - Microsoft Tech Community, [Copilot Notebooks and Study guide now available to Copilot Chat users](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educationblog/copilot-notebooks-and-study-guide-now-available-to-copilot-chat-users/4527320): the 11 June 2026 rollout and the standard-sources limits - Microsoft Tech Community, [What's new in Microsoft 365 Copilot, July 2026](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/what%E2%80%99s-new-in-microsoft-365-copilot--july-2026/4538332): Markdown, TXT and RTF references - Microsoft Support, [How Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebooks works](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/how-microsoft-365-copilot-notebooks-works): grounding on the references you add and nothing else - Microsoft Support, [Add references to your Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebook](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/add-references-to-your-microsoft-365-copilot-notebook-73048ee1-fd1d-4f7b-b850-b011029e09f2), updated April 2026: the first 300 references and the supported file types - Microsoft Support, [Provide custom instructions for your Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebook](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/provide-custom-instructions-for-your-microsoft-365-copilot-notebook): per-notebook instructions, visible to collaborators - Microsoft Support, [Share a Microsoft 365 Copilot Notebook](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/share-a-microsoft-365-copilot-notebook) and Microsoft Learn, [Overview of Copilot Pages and Copilot Notebooks permissions](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/loop/cpcn-permission): what sharing grants, private chats, no external sharing - Microsoft Support, [Copilot Notebooks FAQ](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/frequently-asked-questions-about-microsoft-365-copilot-notebooks-d5a87ed7-886c-4c59-b39d-a840470aad21): the 7,500-word guidance - Microsoft Support, [Get an audio overview of your notebook](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/get-an-audio-overview-of-your-microsoft-365-copilot-notebook): the one-reference minimum and the eight languages - Microsoft Learn, [Release notes for Microsoft 365 Copilot](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/release-notes): the new Notebooks design, web links as references, multimodal capture on mobile - Microsoft Learn, [Get started with the Microsoft Copilot Frontier Program](https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/admin/manage/get-started-frontier): the licence requirement and the admin switch - Microsoft 365 Message Center, via Merill Fernando's archive, [MC1411727, Copilot Notebooks: suggested artifacts for faster content creation](https://mc.merill.net/message/MC1411727) and [MC1420901, Notebooks in the M365 Copilot app](https://mc.merill.net/message/MC1420901): artifact suggestions, and the late September to early October 2026 redesign rollout - Microsoft WorkLab, [2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/agents-human-agency-and-the-opportunity-for-every-organization), 5 May 2026: survey of 20,000 AI users at work in 10 markets; 86% treat AI output as a starting point; organisational factors at 67% of AI's impact - Windows Report, [Copilot Notebooks October 2026 update adds Office editing, AI automations and interactive reports](https://windowsreport.com/copilot-notebooks-october-2026-update-adds-office-editing-ai-automations-interactive-reports/): the reported recurring automations - Templafy, [95% of Knowledge Workers Edit AI-Generated Documents Before They're Business-Ready](https://www.templafy.com/news/knowledge-workers-edit-ai-generated-documents/), 1 October 2026: survey of 2,000 UK and US knowledge workers - [What is Microsoft Copilot Notebooks, and how should your team use it?](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-notebooks-uk-projects-guide), We Call Shotgun, 15 September 2026 - [5 ways to get better results from Microsoft Copilot at work](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-tips-better-prompts-work), We Call Shotgun, 17 October 2026 - [The new Microsoft Copilot app: Home, Code and Autopilot explained for companies](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/new-microsoft-copilot-home-code-autopilot), We Call Shotgun, 28 September 2026 - [Why AI training fails after the workshop: what Microsoft learned from 200,000 employees](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/why-ai-training-fails-microsoft-lessons), We Call Shotgun, 24 September 2026 - [What can ChatGPT Enterprise do beyond writing emails?](https://wecallshotgun.com/blog/chatgpt-enterprise-features-for-work), We Call Shotgun, 21 October 2026, for the Projects comparison - Toni Dos Santos, [Teach Them to Drive: The AI Adoption Playbook for Teams](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYSSFNPK/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0) Microsoft's pages were checked through search on 30 October 2026. Feature availability differs by tenant, licence and release ring, and Frontier features are previews that change. The client conversations are anonymised and the worked example is a composite; no client is named because none gave permission, and no results are claimed. **About the author.** [Toni Dos Santos](https://wecallshotgun.com/toni-dos-santos) is co-founder of We Call Shotgun, an AI adoption practice for teams in the UK and France, with Meera Sanghvi. He wrote [Teach Them to Drive: The AI Adoption Playbook for Teams](https://wecallshotgun.com/teachthem). Before that he worked in corporate banking at Crédit du Nord (Société Générale), ran B2B product marketing at Banque BCP, and was a B2B product manager at lemlist. ## Keep Reading [AI Tools Oct 26, 2026 The Average UK Business Spends £20.6m a Year on AI. 11% Invest in It Strategically The average UK business spends £20.6 million a year on AI, up 27% on 2025, and 11% of UK businesses invest in it strategically, according to SAP and Oxford Economics' Value of AI in the UK 2026. 70% are piloting agents and 49% say agents are being deployed faster than they can be standardised and governed. 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