What's New in Copilot Cowork: Multi-Model, Browser Use, Mobile, and More

Copilot Cowork is now generally available, as of June 16, 2026. Microsoft marked the launch with a set of demos from Charles Lamanna, and they show a product that has grown well past its Frontier preview. According to Microsoft, more than half of the Fortune 500 have already tried it, with power users wiring up 150 or more skills into a single task and creating 500-plus tasks in a week.

If you only have a few minutes, here is what actually changed at general availability, in plain English.

A dedicated home in the Copilot app

Cowork now has its own tab in the Copilot app. From there you create new tasks, search across everything you have run before, and customize the experience by adding skills and plugins. It is a small change, but it signals that Cowork is a first-class part of Copilot rather than a hidden mode.

Pick your model, including GPT-5.5

The biggest day-to-day change is the expanded model picker. Alongside the Claude family of models, Copilot Cowork now offers GPT-5.5, so you can choose the right engine for each job and balance performance against cost. There is also an Auto option that picks the model for you based on the task. Routine work can run on a cheaper, faster model while you save the heavyweight model for hard problems.

Browser automation in Edge

Cowork can now use a browser in Microsoft Edge to navigate websites and submit information on your behalf. In the launch demo, Charles asks it to book a restaurant table for six, and Cowork opens the site, clicks through, and starts the reservation, pausing to hand control back when it needs something sensitive like a phone number. The point is reach: even when there is no API, skill, or plugin for a service, Cowork can often still complete the task through the browser.

Start a task on your phone, finish it in the cloud

Because Cowork runs in the cloud, you can kick off a task from the Copilot app on your phone and it keeps going after you lock the screen. Charles shows capturing customer feedback on mobile, then walking back to his desk to find the spreadsheet already built and posted to the team channel. You can track and steer the same task from either device.

Recurring, scheduled tasks

Cowork can now run on a schedule. Instead of asking it to prep your one-on-one agendas every week, you tell it once: "do this every Friday morning," and it runs on its own from then on. This is the shift Microsoft keeps emphasizing, from answers, to actions, to AI that works on your behalf in the background and even proactively.

Personal skills that learn how you work

Skills teach Cowork domain expertise, and at GA you can build your own personal ones. The demo's best example is an "email voice" skill: Charles built a skill (using Cowork itself) that captures how he writes, so drafted emails sound like him, and it gets more tailored the more he uses it. Combined with plugins like Dynamics 365, Cowork can read across your systems, take actions such as updating CRM records, and communicate in your style.

Watch the GA demo

Write the whole spec in one prompt

For bigger jobs you no longer have to babysit Cowork step by step. You can write a long prompt, almost a spec, listing every step you want (update the CRM, draft and send the emails, prepare a brief), submit it once, and let it run, sometimes for a couple of hours. Since it runs in the cloud, you can close your laptop and check progress from your phone.

Pricing moved to usage-based Copilot Credits

The other big GA change is how you pay. Cowork now bills by usage in Copilot Credits (one cent each, or less if you commit to volume) on top of a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. The cost of a job comes down to four things added together: the model it uses, the context it retrieves, the tools it calls, and the runtime. Microsoft groups jobs into light, medium, and heavy, and gives admins controls for spending limits, visibility, and efficiency. We cover the full model in our Copilot Cowork pricing guide.

The bottom line

General availability turned Copilot Cowork from a promising preview into something you can actually build workflows on: choose a model, let it use the browser, start work from your phone, schedule it to repeat, and teach it your style. The trade-off is the usage-based pricing, which rewards deliberate use. If you are just getting started, our complete guide, getting started guide, and tips collection are the fastest way in.