Microsoft Copilot training for NZ teams.

What Microsoft Copilot training covers

Microsoft Copilot training is hands-on practice for people who already have Copilot, done in Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams on their own files. The product was called Microsoft 365 Copilot until a recent rename, and admin screens still show both names.

Copilot answers from your Microsoft 365 data, which changes what training must cover. An unused licence wastes money; a licence that surfaces the wrong file costs more. So we start with settings and permissions, then move to real work. Our general AI training for business teams covers other tools.

Who it is for

• Teams that have bought licences through the Copilot Business add-on or a “with Copilot” bundle and are seeing patchy use.
• Pilot groups deciding whether to license more people, who need a fair test rather than a demo.
• Mixed tenants, where a few people are licensed and everyone else uses free Copilot Chat. The two groups need different rules.
• IT and operations leads who must answer “can Copilot see that?”

If you have not chosen a tool yet, start with our Microsoft Copilot guide and the Copilot versus ChatGPT comparison.

Session options, settings first

Options are combined to fit the team; settings come first.

Settings record

What Copilot can see, keep and search, with the owner of each setting.

Permission findings

Over-shared sites and folders found during the session, for your admin to fix.

Exercise pack

Role tasks built from your real files, with personal details removed where needed.

Prompt library

The prompts that passed checking, saved for the team (see building a reusable prompt library).

Adoption baseline

Timed target tasks and the usage figures to compare against later.

The settings we check first

As stated in Microsoft’s documentation on 20 October 2026:

• Training: Microsoft says prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren’t used to train foundation models. Optional feedback may be used to improve Copilot, and admins can manage feedback.
• What it can see: only data each user has at least view permission to, including Teams shared channels with outside people.
• Retention: prompts and responses are stored as Copilot activity history with your other Microsoft 365 content. Admins set retention in Microsoft Purview; users can delete their own history from the My Account portal.
• Web search: the “Allow web search in Copilot” policy turns it on or off by user group. If it is not configured, web search is available. Generated Bing queries fall outside Microsoft’s Data Protection Addendum, with Microsoft acting as controller.
• Connectors and agents: Copilot connectors (formerly Graph connectors) bring in outside data, and admins choose which agents are allowed under Integrated apps.
• Other models: admins decide whether Anthropic or OpenAI models power some Copilot experiences. Anthropic models are excluded from Microsoft’s in-country processing commitments.

A sample exercise: a client update in Word from three sources

For project and account managers. Microsoft’s Word module confirms Copilot can draft from multiple referenced sources such as files, emails and meetings.

1. Pick real work due this week. A client update that draws on the scope document, the latest email thread and last week’s Teams meeting.
2. Open each source yourself. If you cannot open it, Copilot cannot use it. If you can open something you should not, tell your admin.
3. Draft in Word. Reference the three sources and run the prompt below.
4. Trace every fact. Check each date, amount and commitment against its source. Mark anything wrong or invented.
5. Score it. Record errors found and minutes to make it sendable. A wrong amount fails the draft.
6. Keep or discard. Prompts that pass go into the team library; prompts that fail get rewritten together.

Using only the scope document, the email thread and the Teams meeting I referenced, draft a one-page update for [client name].

Sections: work completed since the last update, decisions made, open questions for the client, and next steps with owners and dates.

Use dates, amounts and commitments exactly as they appear in the sources and name the source after each one. If the sources disagree, show both versions and flag it for me. If something is not in the sources, write [NOT IN SOURCES]. Write in New Zealand English.

How Copilot adoption is measured after training

People should leave using Copilot on named tasks, tracing facts before anything is sent, and knowing what the settings allow. Measure it. The Copilot usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, available to the AI Administrator role, shows how many users accessed Copilot, usage trends, which apps they used and the top agents. That is activity, not value. Our lesson on measuring adoption after training adds timed samples at 30, 60 and 90 days, so you can decide at renewal which licences earn their cost.

Where Copilot falls short

• Data outside Microsoft 365. Xero, ServiceM8 or a CRM stay invisible without a connector or agent; that is Copilot Studio territory.
• Old versions. Grounding finds a superseded price list as readily as the current one.
• Hidden web queries. Exact web search queries show in Copilot Chat, but not in the Copilot pane in Word or PowerPoint.
• Confident errors. Microsoft says responses “aren’t guaranteed to be 100% factual”. Our lesson on checking AI answers against sources is the habit that catches them.
• Mixed licensing. Copilot Chat users get mainly web-grounded answers and pay metered rates for custom agents.

How this differs from Microsoft’s free Copilot training

Microsoft’s own material is good and free, and we point people to it. The MS-4018 learning path, updated 14 October 2026, has seven modules on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and Copilot Chat, including Writing Coach, Draft Instructions in Outlook, the Facilitator agent in Teams and Edit with Copilot in Excel. The Microsoft Adoption site adds a Prompt Gallery and a champion playbook. When it opened its NZ cloud region in December 2024, Microsoft also committed to train 100,000 New Zealanders in AI and digital skills over two years.

What a generic course cannot do is work inside your tenant, with your permissions, files, rules and numbers. Use Microsoft’s path for the buttons and ours for the work. Our comparison of workshops and self-paced courses explains when each fits.

New Zealand notes: privacy, data location and licence prices

• Privacy Act 2020. Microsoft processes Copilot data for you, so under section 11 you stay responsible for it, including security under IPP 5. For web queries Microsoft acts as controller, so staff keep client names out of prompts that may search the web. Compiling details about a person from the web is indirect collection, and since 1 May 2026 IPP 3A may require you to tell them.
• Data location. Microsoft 365 can store data at rest in New Zealand, and the Advanced Data Residency add-on extends that to Copilot interaction data, provided you buy it for every paid licence in the tenant. Processing is another matter. Microsoft only says non-EU queries may be handled in the US, the EU or other regions, and its in-country processing roadmap, last updated 3 April 2026, lists Australia but leaves New Zealand off.
• Prices. As listed on Microsoft’s NZ pricing page on 20 October 2026, the Copilot Business add-on is NZ$34.00 a user a month on an annual subscription and NZ$40.80 on a monthly one, both excluding tax. A year on annual terms is NZ$408.00 per user against NZ$489.60 monthly, before GST. Use the NZ page, not converted US prices.

Written by the Levy Street team in Wellington. Last updated 19 October 2026.