Productivity AutomationReplaces Human Labor
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 22, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
Copilot Cowork is a new AI feature announced in March 2026 that goes beyond answering questions — it carries out multi-step work tasks on its own, in the background, across Microsoft 365 apps. A user describes what they want done, and the AI creates a plan and executes it automatically, checking in with the user at key points.
Details
Announced March 9, 2026 and currently in a limited Research Preview. Cowork uses Work IQ — a system that draws signals from Outlook, Teams, Excel, and SharePoint — to understand context before acting. Notably, Cowork is powered in part by Anthropic's Claude AI model, alongside Microsoft's existing OpenAI integration, reflecting a move toward multi-model AI architecture. Unlike Microsoft 365 Copilot's chat-based interface, Cowork is designed to run autonomously with human checkpoints rather than requiring constant user instruction.
Products affected
Microsoft 365 CopilotOutlookTeamsExcelSharePointOneDriveWordPowerPoint
Sources & Evidence
Company Disclosure
Other practices by Microsoft
OtherProject InnerEye is a Microsoft Research initiative that uses AI to analyze 3D medical scans — primarily CT scans used for cancer radiotherapy planning — and automatically highlight the areas that need treatment. Peer-reviewed research found it can complete this task up to 13 times faster than a clinician doing it manually, while staying within the range of human expert accuracy.OtherSeeing AI is a free Microsoft app for people who are blind or have low vision. It uses the phone's camera and AI to narrate the world around the user — reading text out loud, identifying products by barcode, describing scenes, and recognizing faces. It launched on iOS in 2017 and became available on Android in December 2023, supporting 18 languages.OtherWindows Recall is an AI feature for Windows 11 that continuously takes screenshots of everything on a user's screen and stores them locally, so the user can later search their own history by typing questions like "find that recipe I was looking at last week." Announced in May 2024, it faced immediate criticism from security and privacy experts and was delayed multiple times before a limited release.
Have evidence about Microsoft's AI practices? Submit a report.
Report a Sighting →