Microsoft introduced Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot in March, embedding agentic capabilities directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Copilot Chat — and confirming that its new long-running Cowork experience draws on Anthropic's Claude models alongside OpenAI's.
Three agents that build entire documents
The release introduced dedicated PowerPoint, Excel, and Word agents capable of producing complete decks, spreadsheets, and documents from a conversation. Notably, Microsoft made the agents available to Microsoft 365 users with or without a paid Copilot license, provided an admin enables them — licensed users get priority access and work grounding, unlicensed users get standard access with web grounding.
The multi-model moment
For years, Microsoft 365 Copilot was synonymous with OpenAI models. Wave 3 formalized a multi-model architecture: Microsoft said Cowork's long-running, multi-step work is powered in part by Anthropic's Claude, with the system routing tasks to whichever model fits best. For enterprise buyers, that reframes the Copilot purchase — you are no longer betting on a single lab's roadmap.
What to watch
April's follow-up added a Planner agent, eight new third-party connectors, and the "Hey Copilot" wake word on Windows. The direction of travel is unambiguous: Microsoft is converting Copilot from a feature into a workforce, and pricing it accordingly.