What are some Microsoft Copilot misconceptions?

Microsoft Copilot is quickly becoming a cornerstone of modern work—but it’s also surrounded by confusion, assumptions, and mixed expectations. To cut through the noise, we asked Microsoft MVPs to share the most common Microsoft Copilot misconceptions they see in real-world organizations.

Watch the highlight video for key takeaways, then explore their full insights below.

Humans need to stay in the loop – Justine Wolters

So Copilot isn’t the answer to everything. And also, what I see is that Copilot is really a driver for organizations to start with data security. But what I think is really funny is that it was already relevant years ago, but now there’s a momentum that leaders see.

Okay, but what happens with my sensitive information? So it’s funny that now, in that sense, Copilot is a driver, creates momentum for projects, like information protection, labeling, and classification. And, I think that’s a good thing.

So this is such a difficult question because everything is going so quickly. Of course, we have the agents, and I’m sure they will develop even more. But also, the whole security, now with it, will develop. So I think there will be many new features on how to secure your own data, but also to see the weaknesses within your environment, which will also be AI-stimulated. I think it will be everywhere.

The on the other hand, we also have to realize it’s not the answer for everything, and humans need to stay in the loop. So therefore, it could also be that we expect that everything is changing that fast, but that there will be some kind of a wall we need to break through before we can actually use AI, as we all have in our minds.

I’m no artist but Copilot can be – Paul Hunt

A big Microsoft Copilot misconception is it’s going to take my job. So I have a love-hate relationship with Copilot. For me, I use it in my day-to-day role. I use it quite often to catch me up on what happened overnight. In my session today, I talked about how I start my day literally in the kitchen. And I do that using the Copilot app and I’ll ask Copilot what happened overnight. I’ll ask it for specific information about events it picks up on, and it just saves me from going to my laptop, getting straight into Outlook, and stuff like that. So, for me, there’s real value there.

We have to offset that with making sure that the information it’s providing is correct. As an organization, we have a ton of what we would classify as rock data, you know, redundant, obsolete. And we need as an organization to make sure that we’re tidying this so that the information Copilot is working on is current, up to date, and relevant. So there’s still quite a bit of work, I think, in most organizations there.

So Copilot is more of a time saver for me. I mean, that ability to be able to ask Copilot what went on overnight. You know, get it to capture information for me. That’s a great bonus. I do use it from a creative perspective. I mean, like my slides today, I didn’t draw a single image. Copilot did all of them.

So for me, as a productive person trying to get ideas across to the business, or whether it’s internal events like this, being able to tell Copilot the image that I’m thinking of and have it generate that, it’s a huge time saver. I’m no artist. Copilot can be.

Copilot makes our work faster – Frane Borozan

So Copilot for me is a great time saver. I use it every day for a lot of things that I need to do at my work because it allows me to be way faster at the tasks where I need to read a lot of text, or write a new email, or draft a new document. So I’m using Copilot mostly to save a lot of my time.

So people are afraid that Copilot will take their job, but fortunately, Copilot is there to help us with our job and to make it faster. So we should not be afraid, neither of Copilot nor of anything AI.

AI is not the one-stop shop – Joery Van den Bosch

People think AI will take over their jobs, basically. AI is not the one-stop shop for everything. It needs to be trained, and the models need to be trained. So as a human being, you’re still basically in charge of what it does.

I think it will be progressive because now it is basically assisted. So you ask some things, you get the result. You still need to do the actions. It will transfer to a little bit of guidance so that you can click a button. And AI will do the action, the real action for you.

And then you have also the autonomous part. And that is for me personally, a little bit scary because I don’t want AI to do everything without, the control of a human being.

Copilot can save you a lot of time, that’s for sure, with the actions. But for me personally, I am not a coder, so I don’t write scripts, but I managed with AI and some of my own personal technical background to create a tool. Without AI it wasn’t possible to create that tool, and it sparks my creativity. So personally, I’m not that much of a creative person, but it sparked my creativity and let me think out of the box, for creating stuff.

So now, Copilot is still assisted and it’s transforming to a guided platform. So when you can push a button and let AI do the action itself. Be careful with that. For instance, I don’t want AI in charge of putting the wheels on my car. I think it needs to be checked by a human, that the wheels on that car are solid, so that they don’t fall off while I’m driving.

So you should take that into account, before you do it. But just try it out and you’ll see where it goes, and it will be fine, I promise you that.

I’m definitely using it for boosting my creativity – Marijn Somers

That Copilot is going to take over your job. I think that’s definitely a Microsoft Copilot misconception. Every time I play with Copilot, I still believe that there’s some room for improvement. Although, I have to say, with the new Knowledge Agent, it got me pretty scared about my job.

I think it can be whatever you use it for. I’m definitely using it for boosting my creativity. I’m writing some bland text. Now, make this more popping for my LinkedIn posts or my YouTube content, or whatever. But if you want it to be more of a timesaver, I think it can definitely do whatever you want it to do.

Just try Copilot. Just give yourself the task to try it every day, 3 or 5 times, and even if you’re skeptical, because I’m also skeptical about a lot of things. Just try it out, and then at least you have a more nuanced view on being skeptical about anything.

I definitely see Copilot being more ingrained into all the applications. So that, for example, in Word, it doesn’t just give me a text, or in PowerPoint, it doesn’t give me a presentation, but it can do much more. For example, with the Knowledge Agent that just rolled out in SharePoint. I mean, it just creates the metadata, creates the views. You can ask it questions about everything it does, everything that a person normally does around the site. So I believe that we will see much more of those capabilities, where it actually can do all the bits and bobs that people normally want to do with all these apps.

They think Copilot is magic – Steve Dalby

They think Copilot is magic. My personal use of Copilot is it’s easier to get the information. So if I need to know where this bottle of whiskey was created, I don’t have to do a Google search and scroll through a bunch of information. Then I can get an answer from Copilot. But of course, you need to be able to trust that answer, which is fine.

And in terms of research, just the same as if you’re having a conversation with a person, if you treat your AI or Copilot the same way and build up to the answer that you’re looking for, or make sure the information has been played, you’re going to get a lot more information than if you are just sitting around googling and making notes. So I think there’s a lot of power yet to be done in terms of research and in terms of support of the individual.

Copilot does not operate based on data from outside the organization – Spencer Harbar

Probably the biggest Microsoft Copilot misconception is that it is going to expose information to the internet. And also that it operates based on data from outside the organization.

I see Copilot as more of a time saver. At this point, in terms of helping people manage their day-to-day productivity challenges, I don’t really see it as a creativity booster. Maybe that’s something that will improve over time.

My advice is you really just got to try it. Try and avoid just focusing on things the vendor suggests it’s used for, you know, try and find other things that it might be useful for that are not the sort of the standard things that people talk about. It’s like any technology, you got to try it. See, it might not be right for everybody. You know, different people are going to use it in a different way. So, yeah, sort of be more open minded, basically, and give it a shot.

It’s quite easy to predict that there’ll be a much greater security capability, and confidence provided by the platform. We’re also almost inevitably going to see more extensibility capabilities to improve what developers can do with it as well.

People think it will solve all their problems – Oktay Sari

I think the biggest Microsoft Copilot misconception is that people think it will solve all their problems. It will help you save time doing your day-to-day work, and it can also help you get creative with ideas.

People need to check the results – Tomislav Lulic

A Microsoft Copilot misconception is that people expect Copilot will think instead of them. And, so they forgot one important thing in artificial intelligence. They need to check the results. And, from time to time, these results are very strange.

Copilot for creativity? I’m doubtful, but, yes, it’s a time saver. Especially if you are working in my company. We are working with lots of documents, with lots of presentations, and a really large amount of data. And it helps you collect information. And one special part is Copilot in Teams. So when you have a meeting, it’s much easier to follow the after-meeting action.

Would you like to hear more?

It was awesome hearing what Microsoft MVPs had to say about Microsoft Copilot misconceptions. You can also check out other MVP videos about:

• Will Copilot agents increase the adoption of Microsoft Copilot?
• What is the most underrated feature of Microsoft Copilot?
• What have we learned about Copilot so far?
• What does Microsoft 365 Governance mean to you?

Thank you to all the Microsoft MVPs for their expert insights!