Microsoft Copilot's October 2026 update: what should your Copilot training cover?

Short answer: Microsoft's October 2026 Copilot update changes where work starts in the Copilot app and adds features that let Copilot carry more of a task, including Projects, skills in Copilot Chat and an always-on agent called Autopilot. Your Copilot training should now cover when to chat and when to delegate, how to keep context in one place, and how to check work that Copilot does on its own.

What Microsoft announced

On 30 October 2026, Microsoft published What's New in Microsoft Copilot | October 2026, its monthly roundup of Copilot changes for Microsoft 365 customers. It is a long list, but a handful of changes matter most for how people work day to day.

A new Home for Chat and Cowork. Home in the Copilot app now brings Chat and Cowork together, with a shared navigation pane for plugins, automations, workspaces, projects and a combined conversation history. Microsoft says Chat can answer questions, explore ideas, take actions and create first drafts, while Cowork is used to delegate complex, multi-step tasks. This is rolling out to Frontier in October and worldwide in November.

Projects. Projects keep related chats, tasks, instructions and context together, so users can pick up work without rebuilding context each time. Users can set instructions that apply across a project and add files, meetings, chats and tasks as shared context. Projects rolled out in Cowork in October and are rolling out in Copilot Chat in November.

Skills in Copilot Chat. Skills are expanding from Cowork to Copilot Chat. Microsoft says users will be able to create their own skills in natural language and find skills shared by colleagues or their organisation. This rolls out in November. We covered what skills are in our guide to Copilot Chat skills.

Autopilot. Microsoft describes Autopilot as an always-on, cloud-based personal agent that users direct by giving it goals. It has its own account, mailbox and files, and Microsoft says access controls and approval guardrails keep consequential actions under human control. It is rolling out to Frontier in November.

Help getting started. Cowork now has a task catalogue of suggested tasks for sales, marketing, customer service and finance, and role-based plugins with pre-built skills. OneDrive has a new Prompt Gallery with ready-to-use prompts for common file tasks.

App updates. Excel gets a clean data skill that finds issues such as duplicates and inconsistent formatting, and recommends fixes for users to approve. Interactive canvas in Excel turns workbook data into a report that updates as the data changes, rolling out worldwide in November. PowerPoint can now create interactive slides and record repeated tasks as skills, and Word applies formatting based on the type of document.

Microsoft notes that the dates in the roundup are tentative and subject to change.

Why this matters for Copilot training

Most Copilot training so far has focused on prompting in chat: asking a good question, giving context and refining the answer. That still matters. But this update moves Copilot further towards doing work on someone's behalf, through Cowork tasks, automations, skills and Autopilot.

That shifts what people need to know. Delegating a multi-step task is a different skill from drafting an email with Copilot. People need to know how to brief a task clearly, set boundaries, and review the result before anything goes out. The government's own AI adoption research 2026 found that limited AI skills are the biggest barrier for UK businesses, and new features tend to widen that gap if nobody explains them.

There is also a practical point. The interface is changing. If your training materials show the old layout, staff may struggle to follow them once the new Home reaches them.

Practical takeaways by role

L&D leaders: Update your Copilot materials for the new Home, and add a short module on when to use Chat and when to delegate to Cowork. Build exercises around Projects, so people learn to keep instructions and files together for ongoing work rather than starting from a blank chat each time. Our Microsoft Copilot training covers this kind of hands-on practice.

HR leaders: Autopilot and automations raise questions about accountability. Make sure your employee AI policy is clear that people remain responsible for work Copilot does for them, and that managers know how to talk about this with their teams.

IT leaders: Use the roundup's rollout notes to plan which features reach which users and when, since several are Frontier-only for now. Brief your trainers before features appear, so the first time staff see something new is not on their own. Our post on Copilot Code explains what the Frontier programme means for early features.

Transformation leaders: Skills and the task catalogue are a chance to turn good practice into something repeatable. Pick a few high-value, repeated tasks per team, build or adopt a skill for each, and measure time and quality before and after. Our guide to measuring AI training ROI explains how.

A simple plan for the next month

1. Check what is arriving. Compare the roundup with the Microsoft 365 Copilot release notes and see which features your users will actually get.
2. Refresh your materials. Update screenshots and walkthroughs for the new Home and conversation history.
3. Teach delegation. Run a short session on briefing a Cowork task, reviewing its output and knowing when not to delegate.
4. Start with a few skills. Choose two or three repeated tasks per team and build shared skills, with a named owner for each.
5. Follow up. Book a short refresher a few weeks after each wave of features lands.

What this means for your team

Copilot is changing every month, and October's update is one of the bigger ones for how people work. The core habits stay the same, but your teams now need to learn how to hand work to Copilot and check what comes back. Short, practical refreshers tied to real tasks will help them keep up, rather than another one-off course.

Not sure where your team stands? Try our free AI readiness scorecard, read our AI upskilling page, or browse our AI training for business, including our AI training in Leeds.

Talk to us

If you would like help getting your teams ready for the latest Copilot changes, book a free 60-minute discovery call with Qasim.