Copilot Features You're Probably Missing Every Day

1. /document — stop finding the file, you can reference it

Typing /document in Copilot Chat lets you point directly at an existing file.

No need to paste a URL in the prompt or describe it in hopes Copilot's search finds the right one. If you've ever typed something like "using the Q3 planning doc I shared last week" and gotten a response based on the wrong file — or no file at all — this is the fix.

Caution: This only helps if the file's actually accessible to Copilot in your org's setup. Confirm where your team's files live before you build a habit around this, since permissions and file location vary by org.

2. Custom instructions and personalization — set once, stop repeating yourself

Buried in Copilot's settings is a place to set standing instructions that apply to every chat going forward.

Customize your tone, format preferences, context about your role, or anything else you'd otherwise type at the start of every single conversation.

What this looks like in a real workday:

• Setting "I'm a Program Manager who needs concise, action-oriented summaries" once, instead of every time

• Standard formatting or disclaimer language you always want included, without pasting it in manually

Caution: This is a source of truth you may forget you set. If a response feels off months from now, custom instructions will likely be the cause. Make sure to consistently revisit these settings.

3. Brand Kits — on-brand output without specifying it every time

Copilot supports linking an official brand kit, and once it's connected, anything you generate — a PowerPoint, a Word Doc — pulls from it automatically: colors, type, logo placement, without you specifying any of it in the prompt.

What this looks like in a real workday:

• Generating a stakeholder deck that already matches your org's visual identity, no manual reformatting after

• Skipping the "now go apply our brand template" step that usually follows any AI-generated first draft

Caution: Someone has to set the brand kit up correctly first. This saves time as long as the kit is good itself. If your org's brand kit is out of date, this will reproduce an out-of-date deck.

4. Notebooks now takes Markdown, text, and RTF files as references

Copilot Notebooks reference uploads used to mean Office files.

It now also accepts Markdown (.md), plain text (.txt), and rich text (.rtf) files.

This is huge because now you can upload your coworkers' or favorite creators' skills! Ever watched a video where a creator has a skill you could only use in Claude or Chat? Copilot now has this too!

The clearest use case: if you or your team have written instruction sets or skill files in Markdown — the format a lot of AI tooling uses for reusable prompts and standing instructions — you can now upload those directly into a Notebook as reference material, instead of converting them into a Word doc first just so Copilot will accept the file.

What this looks like in a real workday:

• Uploading a .md instruction file alongside your regular reference docs in the same Notebook

• Bringing in plain-text notes or an .rtf file without a conversion step first

Caution: This is new enough that file type support is still expanding — if a specific format doesn't work yet, that's a rollout gap, not necessarily a setup mistake on your end.