Skills are coming to Copilot Chat.
MC1493223 says users will be able to create, upload and share skills (task-specific instructions, optionally with supporting files or scripts), and Copilot will invoke them automatically when a request looks relevant. Admins can deploy, install or block skills and plugins from the Microsoft 365 admin center, and review every user-created skill in the Tools view. Rollout starts this month and should complete by mid-November, with Information Barriers tenants following in November.
This is a fantastic upgrade for Copilot Chat. 2026 has really been the year of AI Skills in Microsoft 365, yet the main interface point for AI has been left out of the party while that capability arrived across Cowork, PowerPoint, Excel, and Agent Builder. This will go further to enable users to have consistent, repeatable experiences across Microsoft's AI tooling, taking Copilot sessions from prompt-response to true end-to-end process steps.
But there are two factors related to other announcements that we should look out for having an impact here:
[Addressed by Abram Jackson in the comments] The first is how this fits with Cowork. In September, MC1465772 announced that Chat would start recommending Cowork when a request looks like a better fit for it, with the prompt prefilled. Skills created in Chat also work in Cowork, and admin-deployed plugins land in both. So when a request matches a skill, which experience ends up handling it? Does having a skill make that Cowork recommendation more likely and is it truly a recommendation or a gate you cannot pass with Copilot Chat?
[Also addressed by Abram in the comments] The second is billing, which the announcement doesn't mention. That implies skills in Chat stay within the Microsoft 365 Copilot license, but Copilot in SharePoint shows why it needs mentioning. Its GA (MC1479277) kept everyday capabilities in the license and moved work "at greater scale" to usage-based billing. And from October 19, MC1476200 means new Copilot Business purchases automatically get a spending policy covering future eligible services, up to 4,000 credits per user per month. If a skill's files and scripts take a Chat request beyond its normal scope, does that stay in the license, or quietly start consuming credits? The obvious answer is that the bill would come with a Cowork session, not with Chat, but it would be helpful to have that outlined explicitly in the docs.
Has anyone seen skills arrive in their tenant yet? And if Microsoft has addressed billing somewhere I've missed, I'd like to see it.
First posted on Linkedin on 10/09/2026 → View Linkedin Post Here