4 min readNew DelhiMar 10, 2026 11:17 AM IST
Microsoft on Monday, March 9, announced that it is integrating Anthropic’s Claude Cowork with its Office 365 software, allowing users to offload work-related tasks to AI agents that can autonomously work across documents, emails, and other office tools.
Copilot Cowork will turn user requests into a plan and execute it across their apps and files. Unlike using Cowork directly, Copilot Cowork’s actions will be grounded in users’ work data while operating within Microsoft 365’s security and governance frameworks, Microsoft said.
Users will also be able to interrupt Copilot Cowork mid-task to steer its actions and provide additional instructions. Copilot Cowork has currently been released in limited research preview and will be more broadly available as part of Microsoft’s Frontier programme by end of March, 2026. It is one of many upgrades coming to the latest Wave 3 version of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
The Windows maker on Monday also announced a new subscription bundle for businesses that combines its Office 365 software with its Copilot AI chatbot for the first time starting in May this year – alongside a new AI agent dashboard, new chat features, and more.
Announcing Copilot Cowork, a new way to complete tasks and get work done in M365.
When you hand off a task to Cowork, it turns your request into a plan and executes it across your apps and files, grounded in your work data and operating within M365’s security and governance… pic.twitter.com/UT2Z50J7F7
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) March 9, 2026
Notably, Microsoft’s partnership with Anthropic comes days after the AI startup behind Claude was designated as a ‘supply-chain’ risk by the US government following a wave of controversy over the military use of its AI products and tools. Anthropic has subsequently challenged the move in court.
For its part, Microsoft clarified last week that Anthropic’s offerings will continue to be embedded in its products for clients other than the US Department of Defence. The Copilot Cowork integration also signals that Microsoft is working more closely with Anthropic, even as the big tech company’s long-standing ties to OpenAI reportedly show signs of strain.
“Your work is not limited by one brand of models. Copilot hosts the best innovation from across the industry and chooses the right model for the job regardless of who built it. This is a pattern of work that will only become more powerful as new models and ways of working emerge,” Microsoft said in its announcement blog post.
What can Copilot Cowork do?
Within Microsoft 365, Claude Cowork will draw on signals across Outlook, Teams, Excel, and other bundled software so that “it can act with the same understanding you bring to your job,” the company said.
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Users can describe the outcome they want and Copilto Cowork will turn that input into a plan. It will then autonomously go about executing the plan in the background and ask user approval at specific checkpoints so that they can review actions and make changes before they are applied.
Some of the example use cases outlined by Microsoft include rescheduling meetings, generating pitch decks and related documents, using deep research to analyse a company, creating a product launch plan with competitive intel and assets, etc. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft said that Copilot Cowork will be subjected to existing 365 policies and controls. “Cowork runs in a protected, sandboxed cloud environment, so tasks can keep progressing safely as you move across devices,” the company said.
