Guide
ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot: which should you use at work?
Neither is simply better. The useful question is which one fits the task in front of you, and which one your organisation has approved.
Start with what you are allowed to use
If your employer licenses Microsoft 365 Copilot, it works inside Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and can draw on your work files and email, within the permissions you already have. That is its biggest advantage, and the reason many organisations approve it before anything else.
ChatGPT is a separate product. Used on a business plan your employer has set up, it is a work tool; used on a personal account, it runs on consumer terms, so only green information belongs in it.
Where each tends to fit
- Summarising a long email thread or a Teams meeting you missed: Copilot, because the material is already there.
- Drafting in Word from your own documents: Copilot in Word.
- Thinking through a problem, brainstorming, or drafting something from scratch: either works; ChatGPT is often quicker to get going.
- Working with a file you can share safely, or a public data set: either, on an approved account.
The skills transfer
Good prompting, checking answers and keeping sensitive information out work the same way in both. Learn them once and switching tools becomes a matter of finding the buttons. Which Copilot you have also matters: the free Copilot Chat and the licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot can do different things, and the Copilot lessons explain how to tell.