How to Use Copilot in Microsoft Teams: Meetings, Chats, and Recaps

You joined a call 20 minutes late and had to ask a colleague what you missed? Came back from leave to 600 unread channel messages? Or clicked the Copilot button in a Teams meeting, got nothing useful out of it, and quietly closed the pane again?

Copilot in Microsoft Teams summarizes meetings while they happen, answers questions like “what did I miss?” or “what was decided?”, drafts follow-ups, and recaps long chats and channels. These features are available if your account has the appropriate Microsoft 365 Copilot license and transcription is enabled.

This guide covers the license and admin settings you need, the meeting and chat workflows step by step, and the privacy rules to respect, verified against Microsoft’s documentation as of publication.

Summary: Tasks Copilot in Teams can handle for you

The table previews the tasks and settings explained throughout this guide. Use it to find the workflow that matches what you want to do.

Four requirements for using Copilot in Teams

To use the work-account features in this guide, you need the right Microsoft 365 Copilot license, a meeting policy that allows Copilot, transcription for post-meeting access, and a meeting hosted by your organization.

1. To use Copilot in Teams meetings, chats, and channels, your account needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Teams Premium is an alternative license only for the intelligent recap features described below; it does not give you Copilot across Teams. Microsoft 365 Personal includes Copilot in Teams Personal, but it does not provide access to Copilot grounded in your organization’s meetings, chats, channels, emails, and files. For those features, your organization needs a qualifying business or enterprise subscription, and your admin needs to assign the applicable Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
   If you are weighing that license against a general-purpose assistant, Microsoft Copilot vs ChatGPT compares the two on ecosystem, pricing, and what each one is grounded in.
2. Your organization needs to make Copilot available for Teams meetings. If you do not see the Copilot button or the Copilot and other AI section, ask your IT admin to check your organization’s meeting policy. Once Copilot is available, the meeting organizer can open Meeting options and set Allow Copilot and Facilitator to Only during the meeting or During and after the meeting.
3. Someone with permission needs to turn on transcription if you want to use Copilot after the meeting. Copilot works live without a transcript. For post-meeting questions and Copilot’s conversation history, the organizer, a co-organizer, or an allowed presenter needs to start live transcription during the meeting. The organizer controls this permission through Who can record and transcribe in Meeting options, so a regular attendee may not be able to start it.
4. The meeting needs to be hosted by your organization. You can use Copilot only in Teams meetings created within your Microsoft 365 organization. If a client, vendor, or another external organization sends the invitation, Copilot will not be available to you, even if you have the right license. Create a new meeting from your work account and invite the external participants if you need to use Copilot.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license also gives you access to Copilot in other Microsoft 365 apps. Our team explains how to use it in these guides:

• How to use Copilot in Word → drafting, rewriting and summarizing documents
• How to use Copilot in Excel → formulas, pattern-finding, charts, and a missing Copilot button
• How to use Copilot in PowerPoint → slides from a prompt, and the review to run before you present
• How to use Copilot in Outlook → drafting emails, summarizing threads, coaching drafts, and scheduling meetings

Setup checklist

Run this once and the rest of the article works.

• Confirm you hold a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
• Ask your admin which meeting policy value applies to you.
• In Calendar, open the meeting, select Options, scroll to Copilot and other AI, and pick During and after the meeting.
• After you join the live meeting, use the meeting control bar to select More actions, then Record and transcribe, then Start transcription.
• Set Spoken language in this meeting to the language people will speak.
• Tell participants in the invitation that the meeting uses Copilot and will be transcribed.

How to use Copilot in Teams meetings

Select the Copilot icon in the meeting controls to open a private chat on the right. If Teams asks you to turn on live transcription or choose the spoken language, complete that step first.

Once the Copilot pane is ready, ask about a specific part of the discussion rather than requesting a broad summary. Microsoft suggests questions such as “Where do we disagree on this topic?” and “How did [participant] respond to this proposal?”

The next two use cases show how to apply that approach while a meeting is still running and after it ends.

Catching up when you join late

Ask about the window you missed rather than the whole meeting, so the answer stays short enough to read while the call continues.

What did I miss before I joined? Give me the main points in order, who raised each one, and anything that needs a decision from me.

Verify decisions and owners against the transcript before you act on them.

Getting decisions and action items afterwards

Once the meeting ends, Copilot lives in the meeting chat and the Recap tab, provided a transcript exists.

List the decisions we made, with the person who owns each one and the date it’s due. Then list open questions nobody answered. If a decision was suggested but not agreed, put it in a separate list.

Verify decisions and owners against the transcript before you send anything.

How to use Copilot in Teams chats and channels

Copilot’s catch-up tools extend beyond meetings. In chats and channels, Copilot can summarize the messages that accumulated while you were away.

In a chat, select Open Copilot in the top right corner. In a channel, expand the replies under a post to reach the immersive channel view, then select Open Copilot in the top right corner of that view.

Copilot has three summary limitations:

• Time range: Copilot reads the thread it was opened in and uses a 30-day window by default, unless you specify a different period.
• Content types: Copilot cannot summarize images, Loop components, or files shared in the thread.
• Channel thread length: A channel thread needs at least 1,000 characters before Copilot can produce a thread summary. This minimum does not apply to one-to-one or group chats.

Summarize the last two weeks of this thread. Tell me what was decided, what’s still open, and anything that names me or my team. Skip the scheduling back-and-forth.

Verify decisions and owners in the thread itself before you act on them.

Microsoft’s shorter suggestions work as follow-ups once the summary lands: “What did [a member of the chat] say?” and “What links were shared?”

Turn a recap into the follow-up

A recap becomes useful when you turn it into something the team can act on, such as a status email or task list. Ask Copilot to draft that follow-up from the meeting transcript and chat.

Draft a short status email to the team based on this meeting. Open with what we decided, then who owns what by when, then what’s still open. Keep it under 200 words and don’t add anything that wasn’t said.

Verify decisions and owners before you send it.

To continue editing a Copilot response, select Open in Word when the response is longer than 1,300 characters, or Open in Excel when Copilot returns a table. Meeting sensitivity and copying settings may block either export.

To send an AI recap by email, organizers, co-organizers, and presenters can select Share > Share to email in the Recap tab. Teams creates an Outlook draft with the meeting summary and follow-up tasks. Review it, then select Copilot > Coaching by Copilot to check the tone, clarity, and reader sentiment.

What to do when Microsoft Teams Copilot does not work

Choose the task that failed, then check its causes in order. Some fixes are available to you or the meeting organizer; settings controlled by your organization need an IT admin.

If Teams AI meeting notes are unavailable, for example, because it runs on a customer’s platform, the fallback sits outside Teams. Coursiv’s roundup of the best AI note takers compares eight tools across Zoom, Meet, and Teams, and the guide to using AI to take meeting notes covers the setup-to-follow-up workflow once you have picked one.

You cannot open Copilot during a meeting

Possible causes:

• Your account does not have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
• Your organization’s meeting policy does not allow Copilot.
• The organizer set Allow Copilot and Facilitator to Off.
• Another organization hosts the meeting.

How to fix it: Confirm that your account has a license, then ask the organizer to open Meeting options > Copilot and other AI and choose Only during the meeting or During and after the meeting. If that section is missing or locked, ask your IT admin to check the Copilot meeting policy. If another organization hosts the meeting, create a new meeting from your work account and invite the same participants.

You can use Copilot live but cannot access it after the meeting

Likely cause: Nobody started transcription. Under Only during the meeting, Copilot can answer from temporary speech-to-text data, but that meeting content does not remain available in Recap after the meeting ends.

How to fix it: For the next meeting, choose During and after the meeting and ask the organizer, co-organizer, or an allowed presenter to select More actions > Record and transcribe > Start transcription. If the meeting has already ended without a transcript, Copilot cannot recreate the missing meeting recap. It can still answer from messages in the meeting chat.

Copilot misses part of the meeting or returns incomplete action items

Likely causes: Copilot or transcription started after the discussion began, the selected spoken language did not match the language people used, or the team implied a decision without stating it clearly.

How to fix it: Start transcription at the beginning of the meeting and set Spoken language in this meeting correctly. Ask Copilot to separate confirmed decisions from suggestions and open questions. Then check each decision, owner, and deadline against the transcript.

You cannot summarize a chat or channel thread

Possible causes: Copilot is open in the wrong conversation, the messages fall outside its default 30-day window, or the information sits in an image, Loop component, or shared file that Copilot cannot include in a thread summary. A channel thread also needs at least 1,000 characters of text before Summarize thread becomes available.

How to fix it: Open Copilot in the chat or channel thread you want to summarize and name the date range in your prompt. For a channel thread under 1,000 characters, read the short thread directly. Open images, Loop components, and shared files separately because the thread summary will skip them. If Open Copilot is missing from chats and channels, ask your IT admin to confirm your license and Copilot access.

You cannot export or email the follow-up

Likely causes: Open in Word appears only for responses longer than 1,300 characters, while Open in Excel appears only for tables. A meeting sensitivity label or the Turn off copying and forwarding option can block both exports. Only organizers, co-organizers, and presenters can start an AI recap email from Teams.

How to fix it: Ask Copilot for the format you need, then use the export option that appears. If meeting protections block export, do not try to bypass them; ask the organizer or IT admin whether the restriction is intentional. To email the AI recap, an eligible meeting role can select Recap > Share > Share to email and review the Outlook draft before sending it.

Privacy and etiquette

Microsoft states that Copilot in Teams does not share your data with third parties or use it to train the model. During a meeting, each licensed participant’s prompts are visible only to that participant. When transcription is on, however, Microsoft stores prompts and Copilot responses as interaction data. Your organization can apply retention policies to that data and search it through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery. Microsoft says these retention and eDiscovery features are not supported for Copilot interactions in Teams meetings when transcription is off.

Microsoft Teams alerts every participant when meeting transcription starts. In PSTN (public switched telephone network) calls, everyone hears an announcement when recording begins. Notification and consent are different things, though, and the gap between them is where the awkwardness lives.

That gap has been measured, though the data covers AI notetakers as a category rather than Copilot specifically. In a survey of 500 employed US adults fielded on 8 July 2026, 33.4% said an AI notetaker had been present in their work meetings. Among those 167 people, only 34.7% said they were always asked for permission first.

Recording a conversation for transcription can trigger federal and state wiretap laws. Federal law generally allows it when one party consents, while some states set a stricter standard. For example, California law generally requires every party’s consent before someone records a confidential communication. Which rule applies depends on where the participants are, so follow your organization’s policy and ask your legal or compliance team about unusual cases.

Four habits cover most situations:

• Say it in the invitation. A line as simple as “This meeting uses Microsoft Copilot. A transcript will be generated.” is enough.
• Say it again at the start when external guests are on the call.
• Restrict access when the content is sensitive. The organizer can limit who reaches Copilot and the transcript.
• Keep confidential material out of meetings you have not cleared for transcription.

Start with your next recurring meeting

What stops most people is not the prompts. It is that the setup reads like an IT project, so the meeting starts and the pane stays closed again.

Pick one recurring meeting this week. Set its Copilot option to During and after the meeting and add the Copilot and transcription notice to the invitation. At the start of the meeting, follow your organization’s consent process before you start transcription. When the meeting ends, ask prompt card 2, confirm the decisions, owners and dates against the transcript, then send the follow-up. That loop tells you whether the recap is good enough for your meetings.

Keep two boundaries in place every time you use this workflow. Treat the recap as a draft until a person confirms it, and follow your organization’s consent process instead of treating the Teams notification as consent.

If you want the guided version across your whole workday rather than one app, Coursiv’s AI Certificate Program covers practical AI workflows in short daily lessons with practice built in, and ends with a certificate of completion.

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