Claude vs Copilot for a company on Microsoft 365
Claude vs Copilot, compared job by job for a company whose files and email already live in Microsoft 365.
Which Copilot this page compares
This page compares Claude with Microsoft Copilot, the assistant inside Microsoft 365 for work accounts. Microsoft renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot. Some licenses and screens still use the old name during the transition, according to Microsoft’s privacy documentation.
GitHub Copilot is a separate product, which GitHub describes as an AI coding agent. This page leaves GitHub Copilot out.
Anthropic’s assistant, Claude, runs on the web, in desktop and mobile apps, and inside Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Both vendors sell company plans with admin controls.
Where Copilot works
Microsoft sells Copilot at two levels, according to Microsoft’s Copilot overview.
- Copilot Chat comes with eligible Microsoft 365 licenses. Answers come mostly from the web. Company content goes in only when you attach the content, or when the content is open in Outlook or Teams.
- The full Copilot license is an add-on for each user. With the license, Copilot answers from Microsoft Graph, which holds the emails, chats, meetings, and documents that each person has permission to open.
Inside the Office apps, Microsoft lists jobs like these:
- In Outlook, Copilot drafts emails and summarizes threads.
- In Teams, Copilot summarizes and transcribes meetings, and captures action items.
- In Excel, Copilot analyzes data and creates formulas and charts.
- In Word, Copilot drafts, rewrites, and summarizes documents.
Copilot Cowork carries out tasks across Microsoft 365 on a person’s behalf. Cowork is billed by use and needs the full Copilot license. Every Copilot answer stays within what the person asking is allowed to open.
Where Claude works
Claude works in chats and projects in the Claude apps, and inside four Office apps. On every paid Claude plan, Claude for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word is available. Claude for Outlook is in beta, according to Anthropic’s Microsoft 365 page.
- In Word, Claude edits with tracked changes and replies to comment threads.
- In Excel, Claude answers questions about any cell and updates assumptions without breaking formulas.
- In PowerPoint, Claude builds slides in your template.
- In Outlook, Claude sorts the inbox and drafts replies that wait for you to send.
Anthropic says that nothing goes out or gets saved until you approve the change.
For long documents, Claude uses projects. A project is a workspace with a separate chat history and knowledge base, where you upload the documents that one job depends on. One chat takes a PDF of up to 1,000 pages. In a PDF of 100 pages or fewer, Claude also reads the charts and images. Past 100 pages, Claude reads only the text, according to Anthropic’s upload guide.
The Microsoft 365 connector lets Claude search SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams from a chat. If an admin turns on write tools, Claude can also send email, manage calendar events, update files, and post in Teams. On Team and Enterprise, the Claude owner enables the connector, and a Microsoft Entra Global Administrator grants a one-time consent.
Claude reaches Microsoft 365 only when a question needs Microsoft 365 data, and reaches only what the person can already see. For the setup on your own account, see How to use Claude at work.
Learn Copilot or Claude on your own work
Bring the job that takes the most hours in your week, and do that job with AI in a working session on your own files.
Sign up for a working sessionFix folder permissions first
Copilot shows each person what that person’s permissions already open. Microsoft’s privacy documentation says that Copilot surfaces only the company data that a person has at least view permission for.
That rule protects you only if the permissions are right. Picture a costing workbook that someone shared with the whole company years ago. Nobody goes looking for the workbook, so nobody sees the margins. Once Copilot searches on each person’s behalf, a question about pricing can bring that workbook up for anyone who can open the file.
Microsoft calls the problem oversharing. Fixing oversharing is the first step of Microsoft’s deployment blueprint for Copilot. The setup guide that goes with the blueprint comes down to these steps:
- Find the SharePoint sites and files that are overshared, ownerless, inactive, or hold sensitive data.
- While you fix those sites, turn on Restricted Content Discovery to keep sensitive sites out of Copilot answers.
- Remove company-wide sharing links, and remove users and groups that a site does not need.
- Fix broken permission inheritance on libraries and folders, and give every site a named owner.
SharePoint Advanced Management, the tool for most of these steps, comes with the Copilot license, according to the blueprint.
The same cleanup protects you on Claude. The Microsoft 365 connector reaches only what each person can already see, so a folder that is overshared for Copilot is overshared for Claude too. In a plant or a warehouse, check pay and HR files first, then costing workbooks, customer price lists, and bids.
How each one handles company data
The table compares Microsoft Copilot with the Claude Team and Enterprise plans, from each vendor’s own documentation.
| Question | Microsoft Copilot | Claude Team and Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Is company data used to train the models? | No. Prompts, responses, and data from Microsoft Graph are not used to train the foundation models. | Not by default. A conversation sent with the thumbs up or down button is the exception, and owners can turn those buttons off. |
| Where are conversations stored? | With your other Microsoft 365 content. For a tenant set up in Canada, Microsoft commits to store Copilot interactions at rest in Canada. | In the US. |
| Where does the model run? | In the closest data centres, and in other regions at times of high demand. Microsoft expects processing in Canada in 2027. | By default, in the US, Europe, Asia, or Australia. Usage-based Enterprise plans can keep processing in the United States. |
| Who controls retention? | Admins set retention policies in Microsoft Purview, and each person can delete their Copilot activity history. | Each person deletes chats, and a deleted chat leaves Anthropic’s systems within 30 days. Enterprise adds custom retention periods. |
Sources: Microsoft’s privacy documentation, the Product Terms data residency page, and Microsoft’s in-country processing post, updated April 3, 2026. For Claude: Anthropic’s training article, server location article, and retention article.
For a Canadian company, storage sets the two apart. Microsoft keeps a Canadian tenant’s Copilot data at rest in Canada, and Anthropic stores Claude data in the US. For records that have to stay in Canada, see private AI for business.
How each one charges
Both vendors charge for each person who uses the product, and both bill some heavy or advanced use on top.
- Copilot Chat comes with eligible Microsoft 365 licenses.
- The full Copilot license is an add-on for each user on an eligible Microsoft 365 plan, and Microsoft 365 E7 includes Copilot. Copilot Business, the add-on for companies with up to 300 users, takes an annual commitment, according to Microsoft’s licensing page.
- Microsoft 365 plans with Copilot built in, such as Business Premium with Copilot, are priced per user on an annual subscription. Microsoft’s Copilot pricing page says that advanced work you hand off is billed by use.
- Claude Team charges per seat each month, billed monthly or yearly, with Standard and Premium seats. Claude Enterprise charges a seat fee plus usage at API rates, according to Anthropic’s pricing page.
For the Claude plans in detail, see Claude for business: Team and Enterprise plans.
Which product fits which job
The table shows where each product does common office jobs, from each vendor’s documentation.
| Job | Microsoft Copilot | Claude |
|---|---|---|
| Recap a meeting and list the actions | Inside Teams, summarizes and transcribes meetings, and captures action items | Reads Teams chats and channels that you take part in, through the connector |
| Sort the inbox and draft replies | Inside Outlook, drafts emails and summarizes threads | Inside Outlook, in beta, sorts the inbox and drafts replies that wait for you to send |
| Read a long contract or specification | Inside Word, summarizes the document that you have open | In a project, keeps the document with your instructions, and takes a PDF of up to 1,000 pages in one chat |
| Work on an ERP export in Excel | Inside Excel, analyzes data and creates formulas and charts | Inside Excel, answers questions about any cell and builds models from scratch |
| Find a document across SharePoint | With the full license, searches Microsoft 365 through Copilot Search | Searches SharePoint and OneDrive through the connector when you ask |
Copilot suits work that starts and ends inside one Microsoft app, on content that already sits in Microsoft 365. A Claude project suits a job that comes back every week with the same files and instructions, such as supplier quotes or a contract review.
When a company runs both
Copilot can run on Claude. Microsoft offers Anthropic’s models in Copilot, Researcher, and Copilot Studio, according to Microsoft’s page on Anthropic models. The models are on by default for most commercial customers outside the EU, EFTA, and the UK. In features such as Researcher, each person can choose Claude.
Microsoft’s terms cover most of that use, with Anthropic as a Microsoft subprocessor. Microsoft excludes Anthropic models from in-country processing commitments. A company that counts on processing in Canada should check who can use Anthropic models in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
A company runs both when the two answer different needs. For example, Copilot handles meetings and email, and Claude holds long documents in projects. Two products mean two admin consoles to set up and two accounts to close when someone leaves. Write one AI policy that covers both, and fix SharePoint permissions once, since the two assistants search the same files.
To compare Claude with ChatGPT instead, see Claude vs ChatGPT for business. For a company workspace that weighs ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot together, see AI workspace for business.
How ThriveAI helps
ThriveAI teaches owners and managers to use AI on their own work, whether the company runs Copilot, Claude, or both. Training runs on the attendee’s own tasks and documents. ThriveAI offers the training by video call, as a video course, or in person at the plant or office, in French or English.
Derik Lawlis leads every ThriveAI project. Derik plans and quotes each engagement separately, around the jobs chosen and the people who take part. For leadership teams, see AI training for executives.