Copilot in SharePoint can now do the work in a site as well as answer questions about it. From the chat pane it creates Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and HTML dashboards, builds and reorganises folders, shares files, and sets up approvals, rules and Quick Steps on a library.
Every one of those used to mean knowing your way around library settings or building a Power Automate flow. I went through each feature in the July 2026 update in a demo tenant. Most did what I asked on the first go, and a couple needed a second prompt, which I’ve left in.
Can Copilot in SharePoint create Word, Excel and PowerPoint files?
Yes. From one sales spreadsheet in a library, Copilot built a new Excel workbook of six tabs, each summarising the data with charts. The same spreadsheet gave me an internal press release in Word for the leadership team, with the growth areas called out, though the first attempt produced nothing and I had to send the same prompt again.
The PowerPoint deck was the weakest of the three: five slides as asked, with a few formatting issues I’d fix by hand before anyone saw it. The interactive HTML dashboard covered revenue, quota attainment, top and bottom regions and trend over time, and its region, product, category and channel filters all worked. All four files landed in the same library as the source spreadsheet, and the whole run took about five minutes.
If dashboards are what you’re after, building live dashboards from a Microsoft List goes further, including where generated files should be saved.
Can it organise files and folders for you?
It can create a folder from a one-line prompt, and every folder and file in that demo library was built by Copilot. The more useful test was a messy marketing project library with half-used folders for drafts, approvals, meeting notes and media, where my prompt asked Copilot to review every folder and file, suggest a better structure, show me a mapping and wait for my approval before changing anything.
It proposed a numbered structure (campaign strategy and planning, creative and copy, brand and media assets, social and paid media, presentations) with a file-by-file mapping. Once approved, it created the folders and moved 27 files, but left the old folders behind, empty. Deleting those took one more prompt, and Copilot listed what it had found and asked me to confirm before removing them.
Sharing is a single prompt too. With a file selected, Copilot shared it with a colleague as view-only and sent the email.
Can it set up approvals, rules and Quick Steps on a library?
I gave Copilot an empty policies and procedures library and asked it to set it up for tracking approvals and review dates, adding whatever metadata columns it thought were needed. Before building anything, it asked whether I wanted autofill columns or regular manual columns. I chose manual. It then turned on approvals and added columns for document type (a required choice column), business area, owner, approver, lifecycle status, effective date and next review date.
For a rule to email the policy owner 30 days before a policy’s next review date, Copilot called its automation skill and created the rule from one prompt. My demo shows the rule being set up, not the email arriving 30 days later.
Asking for a button to move a document’s lifecycle status from Draft to Active produced a Quick Step. On a test document set to Draft, choosing Activate document from the actions changed the status to Active.
What does a skill add on top of all this?
A skill is a set of instructions saved as a SKILL.md file that Copilot loads when a request matches it. Typing /skills in the chat lists the site skills and the built-in skills available on the site you’re in. I cover the basics in personal skills in Copilot in SharePoint.
Once Copilot can act on lists and libraries, a skill lets you repeat the same piece of work the same way every time. In the follow-up video above, Copilot read the schema of an existing project list and wrote a site skill that provisions an identical list whenever someone says “create a new project”. Run for a project called Copilot Agent in a Day, it produced the new list in about five seconds, filled it with 25 sample tasks, added the project to the portfolio list and picked up the next project ID (PRJ021 after PRJ020).
Decide what Copilot is allowed to change before your team starts asking
Copilot in SharePoint acts with your permissions. If you can move, delete or share a file, so can Copilot when you ask it to. On a site where permissions were never tidied up, a chat prompt makes the access people already have a lot quicker to use.
My first job on any site where people will use these features is checking who has Edit access, because Edit is what lets someone reorganise a library or share files through a prompt. By default, anyone with Edit permission on a site can also create a site skill, and anyone with View permission can run one. If skills on that site are going to drive real processes, break permission inheritance on the Agent Assets library so only the process owners can change them.
I’d also keep the approval step from my folder test in every prompt that moves or deletes things. Asking for a mapping first cost me one extra message, and it’s what gives you the chance to catch a file heading to the wrong place before 27 of them move.
Make the autofill versus manual columns choice on purpose when Copilot asks, because it decides who keeps the metadata current. Folders were the quick win in my demo, but if you’re restructuring a library for Copilot to work with, columns usually serve you better. SharePoint folders vs metadata covers why, and the free Copilot-ready library checklist walks through the setup.
For Microsoft’s view of what Copilot in SharePoint is built for, I talked it through with Zach Rosenfield from the SharePoint product team in the real purpose of Copilot in SharePoint.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a licence to use Copilot in SharePoint? Yes. It needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and from 16 June 2026 it was on by default for licensed users. Since general availability from 30 September 2026, some capabilities sit inside the licence and others use usage-based billing through Copilot Credits.
Where are site skills stored? In the site’s Agent Assets library, under Skills, with one folder per skill holding its SKILL.md file. The library is created automatically when the first site skill is made. Personal skills are stored in your own OneDrive instead.
Can I hide the Copilot button from people who visit my site? Yes. Site owners can choose whether the Copilot button shows for site visitors, site by site, so you can keep it for the people who maintain the site.
Does Copilot in SharePoint use the approvals feature already built into SharePoint? Yes. It turns on SharePoint’s built-in approval tracking for the list or library, the same feature you’d enable by hand, so there’s no separate Power Automate approval flow to build or maintain.
