Status November 2026
Since this post, Microsoft has opened up Copilot Notebooks considerably: since summer 2026 they are also available to people without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence who use Copilot Chat. Sharing with Microsoft 365 groups, on the other hand, is not possible yet. I have updated the sections below accordingly. For a second look at notebooks with OneNote, see the post Copilot Notebooks in Microsoft 365: how to use the AI notebook.
Information about a project ends up scattered: a few documents in OneDrive, meeting notes in Teams, a Word draft on the desktop, links in chats. Copilot Notebooks bundle exactly this content in one place and give you an AI alongside it that can answer questions about it.
What exactly are Copilot Notebooks?
Copilot Notebooks are an AI-powered workspace in Microsoft 365. Think of a digital project folder with extended capabilities. Unlike a classic OneDrive folder, you can ask the notebook questions that Copilot answers based on the content you have stored there.
According to Microsoft, Copilot only uses the references you have added to the notebook, not your entire OneDrive, your email or the web. The exception is web addresses that you add yourself as references. If you add a whole SharePoint folder or site, Copilot picks up to 300 relevant files from it.
Quick thought: what does Copilot rely on when you ask a notebook a question?
What do you need for it?
- A Microsoft 365 Copilot licence or access to Copilot Chat. Since summer 2026, notebooks have also been available to people without a Copilot licence, according to announcement MC1384425.
- A SharePoint or OneDrive service plan on your account, otherwise you cannot create notebooks.
- Notebooks are stored in a personal storage area in SharePoint and count towards your organisation’s storage quota.
For more on what a full licence brings, see the post on unused Copilot licences.
How to create your first Copilot Notebook
Step 1: Navigation
Open the Copilot app at m365.cloud.microsoft and choose Notebooks in the left pane. If it is not listed, you find Notebooks via the app launcher. For more room to work, open the view in OneNote at onenote.cloud.microsoft/copilotnotebooks. It is the same notebook in two places.
Step 2: New notebook
Choose All notebooks, then New notebook and give it a meaningful name.
Step 3: Add content
Add content under Add content to References. Copilot suggests suitable files, meetings, emails and sites. You can also search for something specific, upload files, pick them from OneDrive or drag and drop them in. According to Microsoft, these work among others:
- Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel sheets
- PDFs
- Copilot Pages, Loop files and OneNote pages
- Web addresses
If you want to be sure Copilot considers a particular file, add it directly rather than only as part of a whole folder.
Step 4: Work with the notebook
Ask Copilot questions in the chat area, for example:
- «Create a summary of the most important requirements»
- «Which open points were mentioned in the last meeting?»
- «Write a draft based on these materials»
The features that bring you the most value
Audio overview
Copilot creates an audio overview of the notebook’s content that you can listen to, for example on the way to a meeting.
Mind map and infographic
Copilot presents the topics of your notebook as a mind map or infographic. That way you quickly see how the content fits together.
Capture on the go
Since spring 2026, the OneNote app for iPhone lets you capture speech, photos and text directly into a Copilot Notebook (Microsoft’s guide).
Share with your team
You can share a notebook with colleagues. According to Microsoft, everyone you invite has editing access, there is no read-only option. Groups, including Microsoft 365 groups, cannot be added as members. Important: anyone who can see the notebook may also get access to the files in it. So check which references it contains before you share it.
Exercise
Into the notebook or better not?
What Copilot Notebooks cannot do
The quality of the answers depends heavily on the documents you store. Outdated, incomplete or poorly structured files have a direct impact on the answers. According to Microsoft, Copilot may only use a subset of the references when creating content, so not every answer cites every source. In the consumer plans Microsoft 365 Personal, Family and Premium, some features such as capture and mind maps are also missing.
Quick check
Three questions to take away
My conclusion: Notebooks are my new standard tool
Copilot Notebooks solve an everyday problem: the chaos of scattered information. My tip: take a project that is already running, create a notebook with three to five current documents and ask the first questions. Try it now.