Copilot Cowork has been generally available since 16 June 2026, but most Malaysian companies we work with have not switched it on yet. That is understandable: it is off by default, it bills by usage on top of the Copilot licence, and the feature list moved fast over August and September. This guide covers the three additions that change how teams use it day to day — effort levels, the Automations tab and browser use — plus what an admin needs to decide first.
What Copilot Cowork is
Cowork is the agentic side of Microsoft 365 Copilot. Instead of answering a question, it carries out a multi-step job that can take minutes or hours: researching a topic, creating Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF files, drafting and sending email, scheduling meetings and posting in Teams. You can use it on the web at copilot.cloud.microsoft, in Outlook and Teams, in the Windows and macOS desktop app, and on mobile.
If that sounds like Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, it is a close cousin, and Claude models are among those Copilot Cowork can run on. The difference is where it lives: inside your Microsoft 365 tenant, with your existing permissions, Purview and audit logs.
Effort levels: match the effort to the job
Since late August you can tell Cowork how hard to think. There are five levels, and the one you pick stays until you change it.
| Effort level | Use it for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Light | Quick lookups, short summaries, simple reformatting | Fastest, fewest credits |
| Medium (default) | Most everyday tasks: catch-ups, meeting prep, first drafts | Balanced |
| High | Multi-file analysis, a proper report, a deck from several sources | Slower, more credits |
| Extra High / Max | Deep research and long jobs where thoroughness beats speed | Slowest, most credits |
Source: Microsoft Learn, Models and effort in Copilot Cowork, September 2026.
This matters because Cowork is billed in Copilot Credits. Leaving everything on Max is the quickest way to an unpleasant credit report. Our rule in class: stay on Medium, go up only when the output is visibly shallow, and drop to Light for anything you would have done in thirty seconds yourself.
The Automations tab: tasks that run without you asking
The Tasks view now has two tabs, Recent and Automations. Automations appears once you create your first scheduled prompt, and it is where you edit, pause, resume or delete recurring jobs. Since August there are also event-driven tasks that trigger when a matching email or Teams message arrives. By default these prepare actions for your approval rather than acting alone, which is the right default.
Three automations worth setting up first
- 1A daily 9 a.m. briefing“Every weekday at 9 AM, summarise unread email from my direct reports and clients, today’s meetings and anything I was @mentioned in yesterday.”
- 2Friday status report“Every Friday at 3 PM, draft a status update in Word from this week’s project channel and my sent mail, and leave it for me to review.”
- 3Client email triageAn event-driven task: when an email from a key client domain arrives, draft a reply and a task list for my approval.
Automated tasks run with the permissions of the person who created them, have rate limits and loop protection, and are written to the unified audit log. That last point is what makes them acceptable to most IT and compliance teams.
Browser use: Cowork can work on websites
Browser use went GA for all Copilot tenants in August. Cowork opens a hidden tab in your own Microsoft Edge and uses your existing sign-ins, so credentials and cookies stay on your device. Microsoft’s own examples are filing a Concur expense report and finding and holding a flight. Closer to home, think of portals that have no API: a supplier ordering site, a government portal you check weekly, a competitor’s price list.
- It needs a recent version of Edge signed in with your work account, and works from the web version of Cowork only, not the desktop app or mobile.
- It hands control back to you for CAPTCHAs, passwords and MFA, and account changes.
- It follows your existing web filtering, Conditional Access and Purview DLP rules.
- Admins have to turn it on, and can limit it to specific security groups.
Pick the model, too. Cowork defaults to Auto, but users can choose among OpenAI’s GPT models, including GPT-6 Astra, and Anthropic’s Claude models, including Claude Fable 5.1. Anthropic models run as a Microsoft subprocessor, and Fable models require data retention by the provider, which Cowork flags with a banner. Check this with your data-protection officer before allowing them.
Licensing and cost in Malaysia
You need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, listed by Microsoft at US$30 per user per month on annual billing (US$31.50 monthly), plus usage-based billing in Copilot Credits at US$0.01 per credit pay-as-you-go. Model responses, tool calls, images and browser tasks all use credits. Access to Cowork is granted through a spending policy, so an admin decides who gets it and how much they can spend. Cowork is available only where Anthropic models are supported, and Malaysia is on that list. For a ringgit view of credits and licences, see our Copilot credits and pricing guide.
What admins should decide before switching it on
- Who gets it first. Start with a pilot group of 10 to 20 people with clear use cases, through a spending policy with a modest limit.
- Browser use on or off. Off by default. Enable it for the pilot group once your web filtering and DLP rules are confirmed.
- Which models are allowed. Decide on Anthropic models and Fable’s data-retention requirement explicitly, not by accident.
- How you will watch usage. The Cowork usage report and per-group spending limits stop a single enthusiast from burning the month’s credits.
Also note the address change: Microsoft is redirecting m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft, with the last users moving in early October. If your firewall allow-list is strict, make sure *.cloud.microsoft is allowed. Building your own agents rather than using Cowork? That is Copilot Studio territory, covered in our Copilot Studio agents guide.
Two hands-on days on Copilot in Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, Cowork tasks and automations, and Copilot Studio agents, using your own work.
Next public class: 5–6 November 2026 at Worq TTDI · seats available
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