Short Version
Copilot Projects are coming to the Home view of the Microsoft Copilot app: a dedicated space for keeping related chats, Cowork tasks, files and instructions together, with Copilot answering from the project’s context first. At the same time, Notebooks becomes Workspaces in the left navigation, and existing notebooks convert automatically. Rolling out from late October 2026.
Details
Microsoft is adding two things to the Home view of the Copilot app (the view that brings Chat and Cowork together). Projects is new, and Notebooks is being renamed Workspaces.
Projects
- One place for related work: a project holds the chats, Cowork tasks (multi-step jobs you delegate to Copilot) and everything they share: files, instructions and outputs. You can create a new project, add files and context, and start chats or Cowork tasks inside it.
- Grounded in the project first: Copilot’s responses draw on the project’s own context before your wider Microsoft 365 work context (your emails, files and meetings).
- Where to find it: Projects sit in the Home navigation pane.
- Nothing is stored in the project itself: files stay in OneDrive with the same permissions, sensitivity labels and retention policies as before. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that Copilot creates are saved to your OneDrive.
- Platforms: Windows, Mac and web, in tier 1 languages. Mobile is coming later.
Workspaces
- New name: “Notebooks” becomes “Workspaces” in the left navigation. A workspace is a shared place where a team can bring together context, members and working files, and work alongside Copilot on an ongoing piece of work.
- Your notebooks carry over: existing notebooks convert into workspaces with everything you added or created. Notebooks you had shared stay shared; the rest stay private. Nothing you could do in Notebooks goes away.
- Projects or Workspaces? Projects are for your own work; Workspaces are for group work. You can use both, and Microsoft says you will be able to bring a file or other item from a project into a workspace to share it.
- Timing: the rename reaches everyone with access to Copilot Notebooks over the coming days. Which Workspaces features you get varies by licence.
Access to Cowork and Cowork-related capabilities depends on your organisation’s Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and usage-based billing set-up.
Availability
Rolling out from late October 2026.
Source, related links and references
Images: Microsoft.
Learn more: Copilot Notebooks is now Copilot Workspaces (Microsoft).
Related: The new Copilot: Home, Code, Autopilot and interface changes and Copilot Notebooks is now Copilot Workspaces.
See what else is new for Copilot.
For Admins
No admin action is mentioned for this update. Access to Cowork depends on Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and your usage-based billing configuration. Project files remain in OneDrive under existing permissions, sensitivity labels and retention policies. Existing notebooks convert to workspaces automatically with no content loss expected, and existing links should continue to work. MC1535647.
Page originally published
5th November 2026.
There are new Microsoft 365 updates almost every day. Each month, I round up the biggest ones on the What’s New in Microsoft 365 page. If you are not already a regular visitor, it is worth a bookmark.
