Available Today: Openai’s Gpt-5.6 In Microsoft 365 Copilot

Starting today, OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family of models is available in Microsoft 365 Copilot—in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Chat and Cowork. OpenAI and Microsoft partnered together to optimize GPT-5.6 for knowledge work across Microsoft 365 apps and make it the preferred model for Microsoft 365 Copilot. In addition to serving the models natively, Microsoft will also access OpenAI models directly through the API to bring GPT-5.6 to Microsoft 365 customers.

Knowledge work is complex—multistep, ambiguous, and spread across tools and files. With stronger reasoning for agentic, multi-step work, GPT-5.6 helps Copilot take on more of that complexity more efficiently, moving faster from initial ideas to more complete work. Microsoft 365 Copilot is AI built for work, where frontier models like GPT-5.6 are an important part of a broader system designed to deliver business value—bringing together Work IQ, Microsoft 365 apps, and the enterprise-grade security, compliance, and privacy customers expect from Microsoft.

Higher-quality work across apps you use every day 

GPT-5.6 helps Copilot raise the quality of everyday work in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, moving from rough intent to stronger drafts, clearer analysis, and richer presentation drafts.  

In Word, Copilot can help turn rough ideas into more complete drafts, organize content with stronger structure and flow, and refine writing into a more polished artifact.  

In Excel, GPT-5.6 helps Copilot reason through more complex analysis and move from task to outcome with less manual assembly. 

In PowerPoint, Copilot can create richer presentation drafts with stronger slide content, better visual balance, and more flexibility across presentation styles. 

Across these apps, GPT-5.6 helps Copilot take on more of the steps between idea and finished work, while keeping knowledge workers in control of the final outcome. 

Reason through complex asks in Chat

In Copilot Chat, GPT-5.6 helps Copilot reason through more complex asks—comparing options, structuring plans, troubleshooting problems, and working through ambiguity—to turn open-ended prompts into clearer, more actionable responses. 

Get complex work done in Copilot Cowork

GPT-5.6 also strengthens agentic work in Copilot Cowork, carrying complex multi-step tasks from instruction to completed results. You describe the outcome, and Cowork plans, reasons across tools and files, and runs the work end-to-end, returning a finished deliverable, not just a draft or recommendation. With GPT-5.6, Cowork can execute efficiently and produce outputs that are more complete, polished, and usable from the start. Paired with Work IQ, grounded in the systems your business runs on, Cowork brings the right context to each step so the work reflects your files, tools, and business context. You spend less time assembling the work and more time deciding what to do with it. 

Get started today

The shift in how work gets done is real—and choosing the right model for the task at hand matters.  

GPT-5.6 is rolling out to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Chat, and Copilot Cowork. Once available, Copilot may automatically use GPT-5.6 when it's best suited for the task. Where model selection is available, users can also choose GPT-5.6 directly from the model selector. 

Availability may vary by region and tenant configuration; refer to Microsoft Learn documentation, the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and Microsoft 365 Copilot release notes for the latest rollout status. 

For more details on the model, see OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 announcement here.