Comparison
Microsoft Copilot vs Claude for teams on Microsoft 365
Where Microsoft Copilot and Claude differ for a team on Microsoft 365, and when to use both.
Last checked
These products change from week to week, so this page is a snapshot of how they stood on that date.
Built by Simon + Claude
TL;DR
- Copilot is best at finding your work context in Microsoft 365, and Claude is the more capable agent, especially with files.
- We recommend one AI tool for everyone and more tools for a selected group, because nobody can say who will lead next year.
- Pick one task your team does every week and run it in both for a week before you choose.
We already have Copilot, so do we need Claude as well?
Teams on Microsoft 365 ask us this question. The answer depends on your business, the tasks you want AI for, your existing IT setup and how big the team is.
It also depends on which Copilot you mean, because Microsoft uses the name for several products. Claude is one app, and Claude Code is its tool for software work.
We train teams on Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, so we see them all in use. We update this guide when Microsoft or Anthropic ships something new, and the date at the top shows when we last checked.
Copilot works where Microsoft 365 already keeps your files. Claude works wherever your files are. Most of the other differences follow from that.
The short answer
Copilot has the better connection to Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft tools out of the box. It wins at finding your work context, and its integrations with Outlook, Teams and SharePoint are smoother. Claude is the more capable agent for most tasks, and it pulls ahead as the work gets more advanced, especially with files.
Copilot fits when most of the work is everyday tasks in Microsoft 365, such as quickly finding what you need across mail, calendar and Teams, or you already pay for Copilot licences.
Claude fits when the work combines many files, runs code on them or draws on sources beyond Microsoft 365. It also suits teams where some people write software, because Claude Code comes with the same Claude plan.
Copilot is closing the gap, especially with Copilot Cowork. The sections below show where each one stands today.
| Everyday chat | Microsoft CopilotCopilot ChatIncluded with eligible Microsoft 365 plans and grounded in the web. Automatic use of work data needs the paid Microsoft Copilot licence | ClaudeThe Claude appOn the web, desktop and phone, with a free plan and paid plans |
|---|---|---|
| The AI agent | Microsoft CopilotOneDrive and SharePointCopilot Cowork, in the browser, Outlook, Teams and the Copilot apps. Not local folders | ClaudeYour folders and the cloudWorks on folders on your machine through the desktop app and runs in the cloud, still in beta on Team and Enterprise |
| Microsoft 365 | Microsoft CopilotBuilt inThrough Work IQ with the paid licence, limited to what each user can already see | ClaudeThrough a connectorReads mail, calendar, Teams and files. On Team and Enterprise, an owner decides whether it can also write |
| Word, Excel and PowerPoint | Microsoft CopilotInside each appIn full with the paid licence. Copilot Cowork also creates the files as part of a task | ClaudeAdd-insFor Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Outlook, from AppSource or deployed by an administrator |
| Documents, decks, dashboards and design | Microsoft CopilotOffice apps, Power BI and CreateDocuments and decks in Word and PowerPoint, Power BI reports on a paid Fabric or Premium capacity, images and posters in Create | ClaudeDocs, Slides, Dashboards and DesignDocs, Slides and Design on every plan. Dashboards in beta on paid plans, from BigQuery, Snowflake or Salesforce |
| Building agents and apps | Microsoft CopilotCopilot Studio and CodeA low-code agent builder with Claude among the models. Apps from a description, in Copilot Cowork, Copilot Studio and Code | ClaudeSkills, plugins and artifactsSkills and plugins inside Claude, apps as artifacts in the chat, and the Agent SDK and Managed Agents for developers |
| On the machine, with code | Microsoft CopilotGitHub CopilotIn the terminal, the desktop app and the IDE, on your machine or in the cloud. Sold separately | ClaudeClaude CodeIn the terminal, the IDE, the desktop app and the browser |
| Models | Microsoft CopilotGPT and ClaudeWith Auto as the default. Astra and Fable are billed by use | ClaudeClaude modelsAnthropic's own |
| Paid through | Microsoft CopilotLicence and creditsA Microsoft Copilot licence for everyday AI. Copilot Cowork, Code and Autopilot billed by use in Copilot Credits | ClaudeThe Claude plansPro, Max, Team and Enterprise |
Which Copilot is which?
On 25 September 2026 Microsoft announced one app for its Copilot products, called Microsoft Copilot. Its new parts are not available yet for most companies and will roll out gradually. Home and Code start in Microsoft's Frontier programme and Autopilot in private preview.
- Copilot Chat comes with eligible Microsoft 365 plans.
- Microsoft Copilot is the paid add-on licence, formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Work IQ is the layer that grounds Copilot and its agents in your mail, files, meetings and chats, and remembers how you work. It comes with the paid licence and reaches only what each person can already see.
For software work, the nearest Microsoft product to Claude Code is GitHub Copilot, sold separately, with a desktop app and a command-line tool that work on your own machine.
What happened to Claude Cowork?
The Claude agent used to have its own name, Claude Cowork. On 16 September 2026 Anthropic announced that Cowork and chat are merging into one Claude. It is rolling out plan by plan, starting with Pro and Max, and Enterprise administrators can switch it on as a beta. The name Cowork still shows on some plans and help pages.
We expect the same shift across the leading AI platforms. You start in one place, and the product routes each request to a model and a harness, the set of tools and files the model works with. When the task is bigger, it suggests the agent mode. Microsoft has announced this routing for Copilot, with no date yet.
Copilot Chat or Claude for everyday work?
For drafting, summarising and thinking through a problem, both do the job. The difference is what each one knows about your work, and on the Microsoft side that depends on the licence.
In our experience Claude is still better than Copilot Chat at many tasks, especially work with files. Since September 2026 Copilot Chat can call skills, and we expect that to help it with files.
How does Claude reach Microsoft 365?
Through the Microsoft 365 connector, which is on every Claude plan, Free included. A global administrator in Entra gives consent, and after that each person reaches only what they can already see. Claude has no single layer like Work IQ, but its memory and projects carry context from one chat to the next.
Which Microsoft connectors matter most?
A connector, often an MCP server, lets an AI tool read and act in another system. As of October 2026, Claude's directory lists about 960 connectors and Copilot Cowork more than 300 partner plugins. On the business plans of both, IT decides which ones people can use.
These are the ones teams on Microsoft 365 ask us about most. For Power BI, Microsoft's Fabric IQ server lets the AI find reports and query their data.
For Dynamics 365, the Dataverse server reads and updates customer records, and Microsoft's guide shows how to use it with Claude. Copilot reaches Salesforce, Jira and ServiceNow through Copilot connectors, and Claude through its own connectors.
Microsoft's own servers often need IT to set them up once before Claude can use them. Using Work IQ from outside Copilot is billed in Copilot Credits, and so is Dataverse for people without a Copilot or Dynamics 365 Premium licence.
Copilot Cowork or Claude as the AI agent?
In the Claude desktop app, you connect a folder on your machine, and it reads, writes and organises the files there.
Since July 2026 it can also run in the cloud and keep going when the laptop is closed, and from 6 October 2026 new tasks on Pro and Max always run there. It reaches folders on your machine only while the desktop app is open. We wrote more about that split in Cowork can work in the cloud.
Copilot Cowork can send email, schedule meetings, post in Teams and drive Microsoft Edge on sites you are signed in to.
Microsoft is clear that Copilot Cowork cannot access or edit files stored locally on your device, by design. Microsoft has also announced that Copilot will be able to use files on your PC, with your permission, starting on Copilot+ PCs in the coming months.
In our own work we find handling files in the cloud smoother in Copilot Cowork, especially with SharePoint. The agent experience itself is not quite at the level of Claude yet. That is the part of this page most likely to change.
Copilot or Claude in Excel, Word and PowerPoint?
Copilot works inside the apps, and Microsoft lists drafting and rewriting in Word, analysing data in Excel and creating presentations in PowerPoint. Since 9 October 2026, Frontier customers can also open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files inside the Copilot app, next to the chat.
Anthropic's Claude for Microsoft 365 is a set of add-ins for Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Outlook on the paid plans. On Team and Enterprise an administrator decides whether they share one conversation across the apps.
Outside Office, Claude Docs, Claude Slides and Claude Design come with every plan, Free included. Claude Dashboards, in beta on paid plans, turns data from BigQuery, Snowflake or Salesforce into charts.
On the Microsoft side, Copilot builds Power BI reports when you have a paid Fabric or Premium capacity. Copilot Code can build dashboards too, still only in the Frontier programme.
Copilot Studio or Claude for building agents and apps?
Copilot Studio is Microsoft's low-code tool for building agents and the automated flows they use. An existing Power Automate flow can be converted to an agent flow, which an agent can use as a step, and it is then billed in Copilot Credits.
It runs on Anthropic's models as well as OpenAI's, and with Copilot Cowork it builds apps from a description, still in preview.
Claude has no low-code builder like Copilot Studio, so teams build with skills and plugins instead.
Copilot Cowork reads custom skills in the same format and converts Claude plugin packages, so a team that runs both can share its skills.
Teams on Claude also build apps and agents.
- Small apps are artifacts built in the chat, as in The magic powers of HTML.
- Dashboards connect live to your data in Claude Dashboards or with Claude Code.
- Full apps are built with Claude Code.
- For developers, the Claude Agent SDK puts the same agent inside your own software, and Claude Managed Agents, in beta, let Anthropic host and run it on a schedule, with a record of every run.
Which models does each one use?
For Copilot Cowork, Microsoft says it can use Anthropic models for most reasoning, drafting and tool use. Anthropic acts as a subprocessor to Microsoft, and an administrator can switch its models off.
So two firms can both say they use Copilot and be running quite different models underneath. Outside the EU, EFTA and the UK, the Claude models are on by default for most commercial customers. A team there that asks whether to try Claude may already be using it inside Copilot.
Microsoft also builds its own models, called MAI, and its image models run in PowerPoint, but its pages do not say whether Auto ever picks one.
The quality of the answers in Copilot and Copilot Cowork depends a lot on the model you pick. Auto is the default, and Microsoft recommends it for most work.
On demanding tasks we never use Auto. We pick the model ourselves, such as Claude Opus or GPT 6 Astra, and raise the effort level, which is slower and uses more Copilot Credits.
How is each one licensed and billed?
Microsoft bills Copilot in two parts.
- The licence covers everyday AI, with Auto picking the model and the included models in the table below.
- Copilot Credits pay for Copilot Cowork, Code, Autopilot and models such as Astra and Fable, by use, once an administrator has set up a billing policy.
Which model you pick also decides how it is paid.
| Model | How it is paid |
|---|---|
| Auto | Included in the licence |
| GPT 5.6 and Claude Sonnet | Included, under fair use |
| Claude Opus | Included, with limits |
| GPT 6 Astra and Claude Fable | Copilot Credits, by use |
In Copilot Cowork, Code and Autopilot every task uses Copilot Credits, and the model, the effort level and the size of the task decide how many.
Claude's AI agent and Claude Code are part of the paid Claude plans. Microsoft Copilot and Claude's plans have the current prices.
Why it pays to have more than one AI tool
With the current pace of AI, we recommend that companies get experience with more than one AI tool. Nobody can say who will have the best models and agent harnesses next year. In some cases the difference between the best and the second best has a big effect on the return for your company.
We recommend one tool for everyone, and access to more tools for super users or a selected group of employees, so they can explore.
This can be demanding to manage, but we believe the value of exploring the edge of what is possible with the most advanced AI tools on the market outweighs the cost of having several AI solutions.
To see where each tool is ahead, pick a weekly task, for instance a brief before Monday's meetings from the calendar and the email threads. Run it in Copilot Cowork and in Claude for a week, with the same instructions and sending switched off.
For the Claude side, Connectors and automation in Cowork shows how to build that brief as a scheduled task.
Our take
Many of the clients we work with already use Microsoft, and most of them run a mix of Copilot and Claude. Today Claude and ChatGPT do many tasks better than Copilot, because their agent harnesses, Claude Code, Cowork, Codex and ChatGPT Work, are stronger. That is one reason Microsoft worked with Anthropic to build Copilot Cowork.
That said, Copilot is much better than it was a year ago, and the share of tasks Copilot and Copilot Cowork can handle has grown a lot.
Going forward, we expect Copilot to handle more and more everyday knowledge work as the models and Microsoft's tools improve. We still believe most companies should have access to more than just Copilot, so they can learn, experiment and benchmark the cutting-edge capabilities.