Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot, can do many things, but one of its best uses is as a researcher, for pretty much anything you want in business or personal use.
If you’re looking for in-depth information, there’s a lot more you can do than type a simple request into Copilot’s search box. Simple prompts can be fine when you’re looking for basic information, but for anything beyond that, you need help. Here are six ways to turbocharge your research with Copilot. Note that Copilot is available in several places and with varying capabilities. Everyone can use the free Copilot app for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and on the web. There’s also Copilot Chat in the M365 Copilot web app, which provides access to more powerful tools under some Microsoft 365 subscriptions. And users with certain M365 subscriptions can use Copilot from within M365 apps like Word.
Business users with an M365 Copilot subscription can use an advanced Copilot agent called Researcher, built for very deep dives into enterprise data, which is then formatted into reports. We’ll cover the Researcher agent in this story, but it’s not something most business users would typically use as part of an everyday workflow.
Most of the tips here focus on widely available Copilot features that anybody can use. We’ve demonstrated using the basic Copilot app for Windows; similar features are available in other Copilot iterations.
One last note before we begin: Like all genAI tools, Copilot sometimes makes errors and spouts hallucinations — things that may sound reasonable but are pure fabrications. As you conduct your research, be sure to follow the advice in our guide to curbing hallucinations in Copilot.
A simple way to improve your research is to choose the right Copilot mode. Depending on the mode you choose, you can do quick-and-dirty searches, in-depth research, and more.
Just to the right of the + sign in the Copilot search box, you’ll see what mode you’re currently using. The default is Smart. If you click the down arrow next to it, you’ll have four choices. Three of them are ideal for different kinds of research:
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The fourth mode, Study and learn, offers guided learning, quizzes, and more. It’s useful, just not for conducting research.
The research work Copilot does for you is only as good as the information it finds. And I’ve found that you can’t always rely on Copilot on its own to find the best information sources — that’s when it can go off the rails.
So when you craft a prompt for research, make sure to tell Copilot specifically where to look for the information. For example, if you were researching how much money the federal government has given in grants to small businesses over the last five years, you could craft a prompt like this:
Briefly summarize the total amount of money the federal government has given in grants to small businesses over the last five years. Use only official .gov sources. Provide links to all sources of information.
If you have found reliable sources of information over the years, point Copilot at those specific websites or pages when you craft a prompt. And if you have files that contain relevant information, upload them to Copilot and tell Copilot to use them for the research. To do it, click the + sign at the left side of Copilot prompt box and select Add images or files. On the popup, navigate to the files you want, select them, and click Open. When you’re back at the prompt, tell Copilot to use these files exclusively for its research.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
In the M365 Copilot app with a business or enterprise M365 subscription, you also have an Add work content option in this menu. Choosing this lets you select documents and other files stored in your M365 tenant. If you have an M365 Copilot add-on subscription, you can also reference calendar events and emails.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words — and sometimes, when it comes to research, that may be true. For example, if you’re going to launch a marketing campaign, you might want to make sure that the images you plan to use don’t infringe on copyrights.
In product design, you might want to get detailed information about a competitor’s products, such as what kind of finish they’re using on them. Copilot can even give you information about a competitor’s product such as construction methods, internal product structure, and clues about how it was manufactured if you send it an unboxing video.
Click the + sign at the left side of Copilot prompt box and select Add images or files. From the popup, navigate to the photo, video, or image and select it. When you’re back at the prompt, ask Copilot what you want to know about the image, such as whether the material is public domain or copyrighted.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
Theoretically, you can also paste in a URL of a video and ask Copilot to analyze it. In practice, though, it’s tough to do. I tried doing that with multiple YouTube videos, and each time Copilot said I needed a “a direct-access video file link” such as a Dropbox link set to public, a OneDrive public link, or a direct MP4/MOV/WebM URL. I tried a public Dropbox link and it worked. However, as a practical matter, you’ll come across very few links like that in your research.
However, there’s a workaround you can try, using a feature called Copilot Vision in the Copilot app for Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS. In your browser, go to a web page with a photograph, graphic or video, including those on YouTube. Start playing the video (or merely display an image), then head to the Copilot app and click the eyeglasses icon. Copilot will start a chat with you. Say or type what you want to find out about the video or image, and Copilot will answer your questions.
I found that it’s a little kludgy to coordinate all that. But it works.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
The internet isn’t the only place where there’s valuable data to plumb. You have plenty of vital information under your own control — for example, stored in OneDrive, Google Drive, email, calendar, and contacts, among other places.
There’s a quick-and-easy way to give Copilot access to them, by using Copilot connectors. There are lots of ways you can use this access, for example, to find files and emails about a specific project you’ve worked on, budget information, and so on. You can also use Copilot to search through your calendar for specific meetings.
Note: Some businesses may not allow you to connect to data sources via Copilot, or may have already set up connections for you. Check with your IT department for details.
To set up Copilot connectors, click the + sign just below the Copilot text prompt, then select Use connectors. A list of available connectors appears. As I write this, those connectors include OneDrive, Outlook, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Contacts, Box, and Dropbox.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
Click the Connect button next to the connector you want to set up. You’ll typically first see a general information screen about that specific connector, along with a button to click if you want to create the connector.
Click the button and follow the prompts. The prompts differ from connector to connector. You may need to log in to the service you want to connect to, and you may also get a chance to customize how the access works. For example, if you’re granting access to Gmail, you need to agree to give access email and settings. But you’re also asked if you want to allow Gmail to send email on your behalf and manage drafts. Click See access details for more information about each permission.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
A word of warning: I’ve found that the connectors can be flaky — for example, the Gmail connector at times works and at other times doesn’t. And the connector to OneDrive doesn’t search through the contents of files, just file names. Still, despite their limitations, I’ve found them to be useful.
Should you ever decide you no longer want the connection between Copilot and a data source, you can easily remove it. To do it, in Copilot click the Copilot icon — it usually appears on the upper right or lower left part of the screen, depending on the version of Copilot you’re using. Select Settings > Connectors, then select the connector you want to disconnect and follow the prompts.
When it comes to research, sometimes two or three chatbots are better than one. If you use Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude, you can take the research you’ve done with them and mine it as a data source when you use Copilot.
The overall way you’ll do this for each chatbot is the same: Export the research you’ve done in a chatbot to a file, save that file to OneDrive or Teams, and then tell Copilot to use that file as a data source. Here’s how to do it for Gemini and Claude.
Your best bet for bringing your Gemini research into Copilot isn’t to copy all the individual research chats you’ve had for a given topic. That’s time-consuming, unnecessary, and won’t give Copilot the best, most targeted data.
Instead, first ask Gemini to summarize the research on a given topic, and export that summary. The exact prompt you’ll give Gemini will vary according to the topic and research you’ve done on it. But generally, you want to be as precise as possible about what data you want included in the summary.
So, for example, if you’ve used Gemini to do research on the home office furniture market and asked it to estimate demand over the next five years, you would write a prompt like this:
I am migrating information from you into Microsoft Copilot. Summarize every conversation we’ve had about estimates of the demand for the home office furniture market and create a properly structured Project Intelligence Brief from it. Pay particular attention to any submarkets, such as for furniture used by self-employed people versus people employed by small businesses and large businesses who are working at home. Break it down by industry type as well.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
After you do that, click the three-dot icon on the upper right part of the Gemini screen and select Export to Docs from the menu that appears. In a short while, select Open Docs from the notification at the bottom of the screen. The document will open in Google Docs. In it, select File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx).
The file will be downloaded to your PC. Move the file to OneDrive or a SharePoint library or Teams channel, depending on whether it will be used solely by you or other people as well.
Once the file is there, you can use it as the basis for Copilot research. How you do that depends on the how your IT admin has set up file sharing. However, the simplest way to do it if you’re doing it by yourself in OneDrive is to click the + button to the left of the Copilot prompt box, select Add images or files, then navigate to the file. Once you’ve done that, tell Copilot to use that file for your research.
You follow the same general steps in Claude as you do in Gemini. So, use the same kind of prompt as I outlined for Gemini. In the prompt, tell Claude to create a .docx for it.
Fairly quickly, Claude will create the brief and display it in a right pane so you can scroll through it. To download it, click the Download and open button in the left pane. Follow the instructions outlined in the Gemini section above for how to point Copilot to it.
Preston Gralla / Foundry
Copilot’s most powerful research tool is Researcher, an AI agent designed for complex, multi-step research tasks. Researcher looks through your work data, including emails, Teams chats, files, meetings, and more, and also goes out on the internet to find what it can. When it’s done researching, it compiles a structured report based on what it finds.
But there’s a catch: Researcher is only available to individuals with a Microsoft 365 Premium license and business users with either an add-on M365 Copilot license or a top-end M365 E7 license, which includes M365 Copilot.
In a business environment, your administrator must enable Researcher for you to use it. If enabled, you access it in the M365 Copilot app. (You can get to the same place by selecting the Microsoft 365 Copilot app from the waffle menu in the top-left of a Microsoft 365 web app.)
In the M365 Copilot app, select Agents in the left sidebar, then select Researcher from the list of agents. The Researcher agent takes over the Copilot screen.
Microsoft
Type in the prompt box what you want done. Researcher is best for complex or multi-part tasks. So you might ask something like: Describe the competitive landscape for our new line of home office products that will be launched in the first quarter of next year.
The agent may ask you a few follow-up questions to clarify your request, then it gets to work. It may take some time to complete what you’ve asked it to do, from as little as five minutes up to 45 minutes for very complicated research.
A few things you should know before using Researcher: Unlike a standard Copilot prompt, it can’t use images and photographs as input. It also can’t take any actions for you, such as drafting and sending an email — it only creates research reports. Finally, you can only use Researcher up to 25 times in a given month.
See Microsoft’s Researcher documentation for more information about how to use the agent.