# The New Microsoft 365 Copilot Interface: Chat, Cowork, Code, Workspaces and Projects

> The new Copilot puts Chat and Cowork in one box, adds a Code tab, renames Notebooks to Workspaces and adds Projects. What each does and when to use it.

- URL: https://www.danielanderson.io/articles/new-copilot-interface/
- Author: Daniel Anderson, Microsoft MVP (https://www.danielanderson.io/)
- Published: 2026-11-03
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZU3PiYfegE

## Key takeaways

- The new Microsoft 365 Copilot has two tabs, Home and Code. On Home, Chat and Cowork share one message box, with a toggle to pick which one you start in.
- Copilot Notebooks are now called Workspaces. Existing notebooks become Workspaces with their content and sharing carried across.
- A Workspace is for an ongoing piece of work you share with colleagues. A Project is for your own work that runs across several conversations and outputs over time, and Microsoft describes Projects as private to the person who creates them.
- In my tenant, the forward slash offers agents and skills in Chat but only skills in Cowork, and Cowork's model and effort level sit in the message box while Chat's model picker sits top left.
- Type /cost in a Copilot Code or Cowork session to see the credits it has used. In my demo, an app built from one prompt in Code came to 103 credits.

The new Microsoft 365 Copilot interface has two tabs, Home and Code, and puts Chat and Cowork in the same message box on Home. Copilot Notebooks have been renamed Workspaces, and Projects sit beside them in the left navigation.

I recorded the whole walkthrough in my demo tenant, logged in as a fictional user, Frankie, with a fictional customer onboarding process as the example. Microsoft is rolling these changes out in stages, so your menus may not match mine yet.

## What's in the new Copilot interface?

| | What it's for | Where you find it | I'd use it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A conversation: questions, drafts, thinking something through | Home, Chat side of the toggle | I want to talk it through, or bring an agent in |
| Cowork | Handing Copilot a task that produces something | Home, Cowork side of the toggle | I want a finished output, like a deck or a document |
| Code | Building an app from a prompt | The Code tab, top left | I need a small working tool, and the credits are worth it |
| Workspaces | An ongoing piece of work shared with colleagues | Workspaces in the left navigation | Several people need the same documents, pages and Copilot context |
| Projects | My own work across several conversations and outputs | Projects in the left navigation | I'm preparing something over days, on my own |
| Agents | A configured assistant people come back to | @mention in Chat | The same help, answers or information has to be on tap for other people |

## Chat and Cowork now share one message box

On the Home tab, the message box has a toggle with Chat on one side and Cowork on the other. The plus button still lets you add content, upload files and attach cloud files, and the forward slash still pulls in your work: people, files, meetings, emails, chats, channels and sites. Referencing your work data that way relies on a paid [Microsoft 365 Copilot licence](https://www.danielanderson.io/articles/microsoft-365-copilot-vs-copilot-chat/).

The forward slash changes with the toggle. In Chat it lists agents and skills, so you can bring an agent into the conversation. Flick to Cowork and the agents disappear: you get skills only, both the out-of-the-box ones and any custom skills you've created. Frankie had three of her own in the list, including a "write like me" skill. If you've been building Cowork work around agents, the slash menu is where you'll notice the difference first.

Cowork also keeps its controls in the message box. You can set the effort level and choose the model there, and in my tenant the list offered Auto, several GPT models and Claude's Opus, Sonnet and Fable. Chat puts its model picker in the top left corner of the screen, with Auto, quick response, think deeper and an experimental advanced reasoning option, plus Claude and GPT models. There's no effort level in Chat.

Two things I noticed in Chat. If you're not sure which model Auto picked, ask Copilot; it told me which model it was using each time I switched. And moving to the experimental reasoning model started a new chat rather than continuing the thread I was in. If you're new to delegating work to Cowork, my [Copilot Cowork tutorial](https://www.danielanderson.io/articles/copilot-cowork-tutorial/) covers how to brief it.

## What is Copilot Code, and what does it cost?

With Cowork now on Home, the toggle in the top left is just Home and Code. Code is where you build applications. My example was one prompt asking for "a simple daily focus planner for one person", with tasks, estimated minutes and a priority. Code built it and showed the output on the right, and the planner worked straight away: I changed the minutes available to 320, added a task with a 15-minute estimate and a high priority, and focused it for the day.

From there you can share or publish the app. Before you do, check what it cost. Typing /cost in the session and sending it came back with 103 credits for that one-shot build. I took that much further in [a SharePoint CRM built with Copilot Code](https://www.danielanderson.io/articles/copilot-code-sharepoint-crm/), where planning before the build mattered a lot more.

## What are Copilot Workspaces?

Workspaces is the new name for Copilot Notebooks. [Microsoft's transition note](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/copilot-notebooks-to-copilot-workspaces) says existing notebooks become Workspaces with their content and sharing carried across. I still received an invitation email headed "You're invited to the Copilot Notebook" when Frankie shared a workspace with me, so expect the old name to hang around in places for a while.

You'd use a Workspace for an ongoing piece of work where you want the relevant information in one place, then work on it with Copilot and with your colleagues. The change puts more emphasis on working together: sharing files and pages, seeing who else is working, and collaborating across documents. A Workspace can also stay private until you're ready to invite someone.

### How to create a Workspace

1. Open **Workspaces** in the left navigation and create a new one.
2. Give it a name and choose a colour.
3. Add members, if you're ready to bring people in.
4. Under **Add existing content**, use the plus button to search your files, meetings, emails, sites and Teams chats.
5. Upload files from your device, and bring in earlier Copilot chats if they're relevant.
6. Select **Create workspace**. The content appears on the right, with a new chat and a few starter prompts.

### What working in a Workspace looks like

Copilot answers from what's in the workspace, and in my demo a short prompt was enough. My four onboarding documents from Sales, Operations and Support each described the process differently, and one prompt to review the onboarding references came back with the conflicting commitments listed, each one cited to its document, and a proposed process drafted from them. It only worked from those four references, which is the narrowing of context I want for this kind of job.

The shared side showed up straight after. Frankie and I could each open the Word documents inside the workspace and edit them without leaving it, and the panel on the right showed who was in which document. When I asked Copilot to check our edits, I could scope the conversation to just the workspace or allow it to reach Work IQ and the web, and I kept it to the workspace. Because the workspace already knew the documents, the prompt didn't need to name them.

## Copilot Pages in a Workspace stay live in email

Mention someone on a Copilot Page in a workspace and they get an email with the whole page embedded in it as a live component. Edit it from the email and the change is on the page in the workspace when you switch back.

My page, New Onboarding Process, held Copilot's comparison with a Responsible person column, and Frankie and I were both mentioned in it. From Frankie's inbox I tagged myself against a row without leaving the email. Back in the browser, the tag was already there. One page, in three places: the page itself, the workspace and the inbox. You create pages from **New** in the top right of a workspace, alongside new chats and other artifacts.

## What are Copilot Projects?

A Project is for a piece of work that involves several related conversations and outputs over a period of time: preparing for a workshop, developing a proposal, producing a monthly business review. It keeps that work organised, it can carry instructions for how Copilot should approach the tasks in it, and [Microsoft's guide to projects](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/cowork/cowork-projects) says they're private to the person who creates them.

My project was preparing a 20-minute customer onboarding workshop. I created it from **Projects** in the left navigation, named it and gave it a colour, then used the three dots next to it to edit the instructions ("Use Australian English, plain language" and so on). I added the revised onboarding documents as **Project context**, so every chat and task in the project could use them.

Inside the project you get the same Chat and Cowork toggle as Home. I used Chat as a thinking partner first, asking for the three most important things Sales, Operations and Support needed to understand, and what questions or objections to prepare for. Then I switched to Cowork and started two tasks: a PowerPoint deck with a speaker run sheet in Word on Claude Opus 5.5, and a one-page participant checklist on GPT 6.1 Sol. Both ran at once inside the project.

Cowork tasks normally keep their outputs with the individual task. In the project, the **Outputs** tab held the deck, the run sheet and the checklist from two separate tasks in one place. The two tasks came to 167 and 380 credits, which /cost shows for each task.

## Projects or agents?

Projects can feel a little like agents, because both take instructions and reference material. I use a project to organise my own work, where the conversations, tasks and materials all belong to that one piece of work, and I build an agent when other people will keep coming back for the same kind of help, such as staff asking an onboarding agent what a handover needs. If you're weighing up whether you need an agent at all, I compared [a Copilot agent with Copilot in Word](https://www.danielanderson.io/articles/copilot-agent-vs-copilot-in-word/) for one common case.

## Where I'd put each piece of work

I ask two things: whose work is it, and how long will it run? Chat for anything I need now, and Cowork for a job I want handed back finished. A Project for my own work over a week or two, where I want my instructions applied every time and the outputs kept together. A Workspace once other people need to contribute, see the same documents and work with the same Copilot context.

Sharing a Workspace shows people everything in it. When I joined Frankie's workspace as myself, I could see and open everything she'd added. So before I invite anyone, I check what's in there, especially anything pulled in from my own mailbox or Teams chats, because those weren't written for the whole group. I'd also keep a Workspace private while I'm setting it up and add members once the content is right.

I'd also be careful about letting a Workspace conversation reach Work IQ and the web. For checking our own documents against each other, I keep it to the workspace, and I'd open it up only when the question needs information from outside the workspace.

On cost, Code and Cowork both draw credits, and a project with a few Cowork tasks adds up quickly. Mine came to 547 credits across two tasks. Run /cost before you publish an app or start another round of tasks.

## Frequently asked questions

**Where did Copilot Notebooks go?**
They're now called Workspaces, under Workspaces in Copilot's left navigation. When Frankie shared a workspace with me, the invitation email still said "You're invited to the Copilot Notebook", so expect both names in places for a while.

**Can I use agents in Copilot Cowork?**
Not from the forward slash in my tenant. Cowork's slash menu lists skills, both built-in and custom, while Chat's lists agents and skills. If a job needs an agent, start it in Chat and @mention the agent there.

**How do I check what a Copilot Code or Cowork task cost?**
Type /cost in the session and send it. In Code the reply read "103 credits used for this task so far" with a **View usage** link beside it. In a project, run it in each Cowork task separately; my two came back at 167 and 380.

**Are Copilot Projects shared with other people?**
Microsoft's documentation says projects are private to the individual creator. Instructions are edited from the three dots next to the project's name, and documents you add as project context are available to every chat and task in it. When several people need the same material, use a Workspace and add them as members.

**Why can't I see Projects or Workspaces in my Copilot?**
The rollout is staged, so one tenant can have these before another. If Workspaces or Projects aren't in your left navigation yet, check with whoever manages Copilot in your organisation before assuming something's switched off.