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Our university license of Microsoft 365 includes Copilot Chat at no additional cost, giving you access to a web-based AI assistant that can answer questions, help draft content, and analyze uploaded files. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot experience integrates directly into Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and other apps and can use your WesternU work data such as emails, meetings, and files. This full version requires a paid add-on license and is not currently part of our Microsoft licensing. At this time, the paid version is not available to the WesternU community as we continue to evaluate licensing options, security considerations, and overall readiness.
Comparison
| Feature |
Copilot Chat |
Microsoft 365 Copilot |
| Cost |
Free - Included with our Microsoft licensing |
Paid - An additional monthly cost. Not available to the WesternU at this time. |
| Integration with Microsoft 365 apps |
Limited – mainly via uploaded or pasted content |
Full integration inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams |
| Meeting summaries & notes (Teams) |
❌ No built-in access (only if you provide transcripts/content) |
✅ Yes – transcribe, summarize, highlight actions |
| Analyze uploaded files |
✅ Yes – summarize and draft from uploaded files |
✅ Yes – plus richer in-app capabilities with live documents |
| Document summarization & generation |
Limited – based on what you upload or paste |
Full – summarize, edit, and generate directly within apps |
| Answer questions with organizational data |
❌ No – no automatic access to emails/files/meetings |
✅ Yes – via Microsoft Graph (emails, files, chats, meetings) |
| Data analysis & visualization |
❌ Very limited/manual |
✅ Yes – Excel insights, charts, pivot tables |
| Email management |
❌ No |
✅ Yes – draft, summarize, organize in Outlook |
| Task automation |
❌ No |
✅ Yes – automate tasks across apps and data |
| Presentation creation |
❌ No |
✅ Yes – generate and refine in PowerPoint |
| Enterprise data protection |
✅ Yes |
✅ Yes (with additional admin controls) |
| Access to Microsoft 365 data (email, calendar, OneDrive, SharePoint) |
❌ No |
✅ Yes – via Microsoft Graph |