Copilot Cowork
A Copilot Cowork training for work that has to be finished.
Three online modules on top of the eight core ones, about tasks an agent carries out on its own. What it delivers, what it costs in credits, and how you check work you didn't watch happen.
What changed in 2026
01 · Why now
Copilot no longer hands back a draft for you to finish. Increasingly it delivers a result for you to judge. That's a different kind of work, and it asks for a different skill.
The shift came in three steps. First, Agent Mode became generally available in Word, Excel and PowerPoint in April 2026. At Build in June it became the default experience in Microsoft 365 Copilot, not something you switch on, but simply what's there. And on 16 June, Copilot Cowork became generally available worldwide: tasks that span multiple steps, touch multiple files and keep running while you're offline.
In practice that means you no longer ask for a paragraph but for a finished piece of work. An agent reads the source files, does the analysis, writes the memo and prepares the attachment. That's a gain, until you wonder what was decided in step two. You didn't see it, there's no intermediate version to fall back on, and the end result looks exactly as convincing as ever.
There's a second thing most trainings leave out: this costs money per task. Cowork bills in Copilot Credits, per use. An agent that spends half an hour going in circles on a badly framed task isn't just pointless, it's more expensive than the five minutes it would have cost you. In practice that weighs more heavily than people expect.
Why this extension
An agent moves the work from producing to checking, and that's exactly the skill where most teams still have gains to make. Which is why this track builds on the core modules, where that checking skill is laid down.
Three modules on top of the eight
02 · The track
±60 min
Tasks that come back finished
The difference between a question and an assignment. What an agent needs in order to run on its own: the intended result, the sources, the limits, and what to do when it gets stuck. Using tasks from your own week.
±45 min
What it costs and when it pays off
Copilot Credits in plain language. How to judge before starting whether a task is worth it, where consumption climbs fast, and which tasks you're better off doing yourself because they take less time than explaining them.
±75 min
Checking what you didn't see
The longest module, and not by accident. Judging multi-step work without the intermediate steps: where you sample, which assumptions you retrieve, and which kind of result you refuse on principle to pass on unchecked.
Why a room is still needed
03 · Online and in person
You learn the skill online, at your own pace, alongside your work. What you don't learn online is a decision you have to take together.
All three modules are online, and that's a deliberate choice rather than a saving. You practise agentic working on your own tasks, spread over weeks, with the failures in between. A classroom morning would compress that into one moment when nobody has a real task to hand.
But there's one conversation that doesn't work online, and that's the conversation about limits. Which processes you hand over and which you don't. Who pays for the credits and what happens when a department burns through them. What an agent may touch on its own and where a human has to sit in between. Those aren't skill questions, they're policy questions, and they only get answered when the people who own them are in a room at the same time.
For that there's a half-day decision session for managers, IT and procurement together. Not a training with exercises, but a decision session with an outcome on paper. Our advice is to hold it before you open Cowork up widely, after that it becomes clearing up rather than agreeing.
And Microsoft Scout?
04 · Looking ahead
Scout has been announced and is impressive, but is available to almost no Dutch organisation yet. As soon as that changes, this track grows with it, at no extra cost for anyone who already has it.
So there's no need to wait. The skill Scout will ask for is the same one Cowork asks for now: judging what you didn't watch happen. Anyone doing the track now is ready for it.
What it costs
05 · The price
€39
Per participant
On top of an existing package, with the same term. Three modules, the follow-up measurement on agentic working, and the track grows as Microsoft adds to it. Not sold separately: without the core modules the foundation is missing.
Per session
The decision session, half a day
For managers, IT and procurement together, at the same rate as our other classroom sessions. Once, with an outcome on paper: which processes, which budget, which limit. After that the conversation doesn't have to be repeated per department.
Questions about this track
06 · Short answer
What exactly is Copilot Cowork?
An agentic layer on top of Microsoft 365 that plans, carries out and delivers a task rather than handing back a draft. The work continues in a secure environment while you do something else, even with your laptop closed. It has been generally available worldwide since 16 June 2026 and is billed per use in Copilot Credits.
Why is this an extension rather than a standalone course?
Because you can't judge an agent if you can't judge its individual steps. The eight core modules teach exactly that. Anyone entering without them gets back multi-step output they can't check at any point, which is more dangerous than not using an agent at all.
What does it cost?
€39 per participant, on top of an existing package. The track isn't sold separately, because it doesn't work without the core modules. The decision session for managers, IT and procurement is budgeted per session, at the same rate as our other classroom sessions.
How many Copilot Credits does a task cost?
That depends on how many steps a task takes and how long it runs, so there's no figure we can honestly quote here. What we do is teach you to do the sum: how to judge before starting whether a task is worth it, and how to notice an agent is circling rather than working.
Is Microsoft Scout included in this?
Not yet, and that isn't our choice. Scout was announced on 2 June 2026 as Microsoft's first Autopilot agent but is still in private preview: through the Frontier programme, with a GitHub Copilot licence, at selected customers and with no published price. As soon as it becomes more widely available we'll extend the track, at no extra cost for anyone who already has it.
Do we need to configure anything in our environment?
Not for the modules: they sit with us and are about skill, not settings. We do recommend running the decision session before you open Cowork up widely, because the questions it raises, who pays for the credits, which processes you hand over, are better answered once than per department.
Read on
- The eight core modules
What this track builds on: eight modules in short blocks, with the ability to judge output at its core.
- Advanced training: Copilot Agents
Six hours for frontrunners building their own agent for a recurring process.
- Compare Copilot training
What the market offers and what you should really be comparing on.
Core first, then this
If a package is already running, this track is a line in the renewal. If nothing is running yet, start with a demo, then you'll see straight away where your group's ability to judge output stands.