April 15, 2026 - Copilot Chat in-app updates
Microsoft announced that, effective April 15, 2026, Copilot Chat users will no longer be able to access Copilot directly in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The full Copilot experience in these apps—with advanced reasoning and model choice— will be accessible only for users with a
Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Copilot Chat still offers secure, AI web chat and the Word, Excel and PowerPoint agents for chat-first content creation within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and on the web at
https://copilot.microsoft.com/. Additionally, users can still access Copilot features within the Outlook application.
Microsoft is also adding labels to help users identify their Copilot experience. Users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see the label “Copilot Chat (Basic)” whereas users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see the “M365 Copilot (Premium)” label.
Microsoft Copilot Chat for Microsoft 365 available through https://copilot.microsoft.com/., combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with Villanova University's data – all in the flow of work – to turn your words into one of the most powerful productivity tools on the planet. While Microsoft Copilot works alongside popular Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, today, Villanova University is licensed by default only for Microsoft Copilot Chat, formerly Bing Chat for Enterprise. Microsoft 365 Copilot provides real-time intelligent assistance, enabling users to enhance their creativity, productivity, and skills.
This tool is available to all active faculty, staff, and students and is presently approved for handling institutional data that is classified as Restricted, Private, or Public. This is protected via our agreement with Microsoft as well as the Enterprise Data Protection commitment from Microsoft.
Visit the AI: Getting Started with AI article to learn more about AI resources available at Villanova University.