Per-app reality
| App | Strong at | The ceiling users hit |
|---|---|---|
| Word | Drafting from referenced docs ('/'-mention files), rewriting, summarising long documents | Fidelity on complex formatting; very long docs summarised in passes |
| Excel | Formula help, analysis on TABLES, insights on structured ranges | The big one: it wants real tables — messy sheets with merged cells and header art defeat it; not a data-engineering engine |
| PowerPoint | Deck-from-document, redesign, summarise a deck | Brand fidelity — templates/themes matter more than prompts; it will not read your brand guide's soul |
| Outlook | Thread summary, drafting/coaching replies, catch-up | Mailbox-wide 'find every commitment I made' is Chat's job (work tab), not the message-level Copilot |
The cross-app rule: each app's Copilot grounds on that app's context (open doc, thread, workbook) plus what you explicitly reference; the everything-grounded experience is Copilot Chat's work tab (next concept). Half of 'it can't see my other file' tickets are surface confusion, not failure — teach the '/'-reference and the tab split.
Admin-relevant mechanics
- Feature flow rides the Office update channel: Current Channel sees capabilities months before Semi-Annual — mixed-channel estates get 'why does hers do that' tickets by design; align channels for pilot cohorts.
- Label/DLP behaviour is consistent in-app (labels-and-copilot): encrypted docs without extract rights give in-app Copilot nothing.
- Interaction records: in-app prompts are recorded like all others — 'private drafting' in Word is still a governed interaction (security module), worth saying in adoption comms.
What to watch (proofs)
- The channel gap: same prompt, Current vs Semi-Annual client, screenshot both — the ticket-prevention artifact for your comms.
- Excel's table dependence: one messy sheet vs the same data as a proper table, same question — THE Excel enablement demo; nothing teaches it faster.
- Per-app usage split (operations module reports) — which app Copilots are actually used tells you where enablement effort pays.
- Update-channel census: client versions across the estate (the Teams curriculum's client discipline applies) — feature-gap tickets correlate to the laggards.