Microsoft Copilot Cowork

Incomplete and not restorable: activity history exports as CSV and outputs download as a zip, but no export covers the Cowork agent's instructions, configuration or memory, and neither has an import.

• Manage your Copilot activity history in the privacy dashboard
• Copilot Cowork common questions

No documented export contains Cowork's instructions, configuration, memory, logic or identity; created files stay in OneDrive and prompts and responses are the only exported history, so the agent cannot be taken out whole.

• Manage your Copilot activity history in the privacy dashboard
• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)

Cowork runs in Microsoft's cloud, processing files in a temporary isolated environment inside the Microsoft 365 service boundary that users cannot view or access; there is no open-source runtime.

• Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization
• Microsoft Copilot Cowork network endpoints (Preview)

Every action is authorized through the owner's Microsoft account, and nothing lets others verify the agent's continuity outside Microsoft.

• Copilot Cowork common questions

Cowork exists only as a Microsoft-hosted service gated by subscription tier; Microsoft states Personal and Family subscribers lose access and must upgrade to Premium or Pro to run tasks.

• Copilot App Updates for Personal, Work, and School Accounts

Scheduling, event triggers, browser use, approvals and connectors are delivered by Microsoft's Cowork service and work only with the models it offers. Custom skills use the portable Agent Skills format, but no local model can drive them.

• Build plugins for Copilot Cowork
• Copilot Cowork common questions

Custom skills are Markdown SKILL.md files and outputs are Office files in the owner's OneDrive, but task state and history are stored in an undocumented Microsoft service format.

• Customize Copilot Cowork
• Copilot Cowork common questions

The owner can see custom instructions and skill files, but Microsoft does not publish Cowork's system instructions or the built-in skill prompts it places in model context.

• Customize Copilot Cowork

Microsoft retains task logs, screenshots and outputs for unspecified periods for functionality, safety and troubleshooting, and some interactions undergo automated and human review for product improvement, outside the owner's inspectable state.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)

Prompts and responses are saved to review past tasks, progress updates are shown, and approval prompts can display action parameters, but no complete record of tool calls is available to the owner or exportable.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)
• Copilot Cowork common questions

Custom and plugin skills are human-readable SKILL.md files, but the built-in skills and the orchestration code are proprietary and not exposed.

• Build plugins for Copilot Cowork
• Customize Copilot Cowork

Cowork documentation does not mention advertising, and Microsoft does not state whether the sponsored content served in consumer Copilot can appear in Cowork for personal accounts.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)
• About ads in Copilot (Microsoft Advertising)

For personal accounts, Microsoft does not document whether every consequential Cowork action is durably recorded or blocked when it cannot be; the unified audit log it describes is a tenant admin feature for work accounts.

• Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization

No tamper-evident record of Cowork actions is available to personal-account owners, and the history they can see offers no way to detect edits or deletions.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)

Microsoft does not document whether Cowork can alter or delete records of its own actions.

• Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization

Copilot activity history exports as a CSV readable with ordinary tools, but it records prompts and responses rather than an action audit trail, and Cowork's inclusion is not stated.

• Manage your Copilot activity history in the privacy dashboard

No record is documented that lets Cowork and the agents or services it messages match their logs of an exchange.

• Copilot Cowork common questions

The Cowork runtime is proprietary, closed-source Microsoft service code.

• Microsoft Services Agreement

The owner can inspect custom instructions, installed plugins, skills and the chosen model, but not the full server-side configuration, system prompt or built-in policies Cowork runs with.

• Customize Copilot Cowork

Emails and messages Cowork sends are authorized through the owner's Microsoft account, and recipients cannot verify that they came from this agent.

• Copilot Cowork common questions

No action record is available to owners whose integrity can be checked with open tools that do not depend on Microsoft.

• Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization

The owner cannot obtain Cowork's full state, so cannot verify whether it changed between two points in time.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)

The owner can write up to 20 KB of custom instructions that Cowork applies to every task, but cannot read or rewrite its underlying system instructions.

• Customize Copilot Cowork

Cowork documentation does not describe a memory store or item-level memory controls, and Microsoft says memories saved by Copilot Tasks do not migrate to Cowork.

• Copilot App Updates for Personal, Work, and School Accounts
• Personalize what Microsoft Copilot remembers

Owners can create, edit, upload and delete SKILL.md skills and manage scheduled prompts, but Microsoft's support page documents custom skills only for work or school accounts, and built-in skills cannot be changed.

• Manage tasks and schedule prompts in Microsoft Copilot Cowork (Preview)
• Customize Copilot Cowork

Owners can add, toggle and remove plugins and connectors, and plugins can wrap remote MCP servers, but connectors must be HTTPS remote servers packaged as Microsoft 365 app packages, and personal-account support for uploaded plugins is not documented.

• Build plugins for Copilot Cowork
• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)

The owner can pick among Microsoft-offered GPT and Claude models or Auto, but cannot use arbitrary or local open-weight models.

• Copilot Cowork common questions

Cowork for personal accounts requires a Microsoft 365 Premium or Pro subscription, and changes beyond exposed settings require Microsoft's action.

• Copilot App Updates for Personal, Work, and School Accounts

Approval prompts before emails and Teams posts can be scoped by recipient or domain, but owners cannot set allowed recipients or channels in advance, and enforcement below the model is not documented.

• Copilot Cowork common questions

Cowork requires approval before sensitive actions such as sending email, posting or scheduling, and automated tasks prepare actions for approval by default. The gated actions are chosen by Microsoft, and annotation-based gating for third-party MCP tools is still rolling out.

• Copilot Cowork common questions
• Build plugins for Copilot Cowork

Microsoft documents a hard pause that stops Cowork immediately, plus cancel for the current task, and scheduled prompts can be paused or cancelled.

• Copilot Cowork common questions
• Manage tasks and schedule prompts in Microsoft Copilot Cowork (Preview)

All task content is processed on Microsoft servers and by Anthropic as a subprocessor, and some interactions undergo automated and human review for product improvement without an opt-in. Microsoft says Copilot content in Microsoft 365 apps isn't used to train foundation models.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)
• Copilot Cowork common questions
• Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps for home: your data and privacy

Owners can disconnect connectors, and local-browser credentials and cookies stay on the device, but plugin OAuth credentials are held in Microsoft's token store, cannot be inspected, and cannot move with the agent.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)
• Use the local browser with Copilot Cowork
• Build plugins for Copilot Cowork

Owners can delete Copilot activity history, skills and scheduled prompts, but Microsoft keeps Cowork task logs, screenshots and outputs for unspecified 'limited periods' rather than disclosed legal minimums.

• What Microsoft Copilot Cowork uses and stores (Preview)
• Manage your Copilot activity history in the privacy dashboard