Copilot is only as good as what you ask it. These are prompts (the requests you type into Copilot) for the work a small business does every week: email, meetings, quotes, numbers, documents, marketing and hiring. Copy one, change the details in [brackets], and paste it into Copilot.
How to use these prompts
- Sign in with your work account. That keeps your business information protected.
- Free or paid. Each prompt says Free if it works in the free Copilot Chat, or Paid seat if it needs Copilot Business. Free prompts work on whatever you paste in or attach with the + button.
- Follow up. The first answer is a draft. Reply with “shorter”, “friendlier” or “add a line about [X]” until it’s right.
- Check facts and numbers before anything goes to a customer.
Want to write your own? How to get real work out of Microsoft Copilotexplains the four parts of a good prompt.
Email
Catch up on your inbox
Summarize the emails I received since [yesterday at 5 PM]. Group them into: needs my reply today, waiting on someone else, and FYI. For each one that needs a reply, tell me in one line what they want.
Free in Copilot Chat in Outlook.
Reply to a difficult email
Draft a reply to this email. The customer is unhappy that [the job ran two days late]. Apologize once, explain [that a part arrived late], confirm [the new finish date], and offer [a 10% discount on the next visit]. Keep it under 120 words, warm but not over the top.
Free. Paste the email in, or open it in Outlook first.
Turn a long thread into one answer
Read this email thread and tell me: what has been agreed, what is still open, and who is waiting on whom. Then draft a short email to everyone that confirms the agreed points and asks about the open ones.
Free in Outlook.
Meetings
Recap and action items
From this meeting, list every decision we made and every action item with the person responsible and the due date. Then draft a follow-up email to the attendees with that list.
Paid seat for Teams meetings that were recorded or transcribed. Free if you paste in your own notes instead.
Get ready for a meeting
I’m meeting [customer name] on [Thursday]. Summarize our emails, meetings and files with them from the last [three months]: what we’ve done for them, anything they complained about, and anything we promised. Finish with three questions I should ask.
Paid seat, because it searches your email and files on its own.
Write the agenda
Write a 30-minute agenda for our [weekly team meeting]. Topics: [new job schedule, the late invoice from our supplier, holiday coverage]. Give each topic a time and the question we need to answer.
Free.
Customers and quotes
Draft a quote or proposal
Draft a proposal for [customer name] for [the job]. Use only the prices in [/Price List] and copy the terms from [/Standard Terms] word for word. Where a price isn’t on the list, write [PRICE NEEDED] instead of guessing. End with a short list of what I should check before sending.
Paid seat to pick your files by typing /. Free if you attach the price list and terms with the + button.
Answer a common question the same way every time
Write a friendly reply I can reuse when customers ask [how long a typical job takes and what affects the price]. Base it on the information below. Keep it under 150 words and end by inviting them to book a visit. [Paste your notes here.]
Free. Save the answer in Outlook as a template once you like it.
Follow up on a quote
Write a short, polite follow-up to [customer name] about the quote we sent on [date] for [the job]. Don’t be pushy. Offer to answer questions or adjust the scope, and mention that our schedule is filling up for [next month].
Free.
Numbers and Excel
Ask your spreadsheet a question
Using this sheet of [jobs from the last 12 months], show me the average profit by [job type] and by [month]. Point out anything that changed a lot between the first and second half of the year.
Paid seat for Copilot inside Excel. Free if you upload the file to Copilot Chat.
Find the customers who owe you
From this list of invoices, show me every customer with an unpaid invoice older than 30 days, how much they owe and how late it is, sorted from the most overdue. Then draft a polite reminder email I can send to each one.
Free if you upload the export from your accounting software.
Explain the numbers in plain English
I’m not a numbers person. Explain this [profit and loss report] in plain English: are we doing better or worse than last [quarter], what are the three biggest costs, and what should I ask my bookkeeper about?
Free with the report attached. Copilot explains; your bookkeeper or accountant still has the final word.
Documents and policies
Turn notes into a finished document
Turn my notes below into a one-page [scope of work]. Use these headings: summary, what’s included, what’s not included, schedule and payment terms. Keep it plain and short. [Paste your notes here.]
Free.
Write a how-to for your team
Write a step-by-step checklist for [opening the shop in the morning], based on my notes below. Number the steps, keep each one to a single line, and add a “who to call if something’s wrong” section at the end. [Paste your notes here.]
Free. Save it in SharePoint so Copilot (and your team) can find it later.
Summarize a contract
Summarize this contract in plain English in under a page: who it’s with, what we must do, what they must do, the price and payment terms, how long it lasts, how it renews and how to cancel. List anything unusual or one-sided I should ask about.
Free with the contract attached. It’s a reading aid, not legal advice.
Marketing
A week of social media posts
Write five short social media posts for [our business], one per weekday, about [the jobs below]. Sound friendly and local, not salesy. Each post should be under 60 words with one call to action. [Describe the jobs or paste notes here.]
Free.
Ask for a review
Write a short text message and a short email asking a happy customer to leave us a Google review after [finishing their job]. Thank them by name, keep it personal, and include [our review link].
Free.
Improve a page on your website
Here is the text of our [services] page. Rewrite it so a customer understands in ten seconds what we do, who it’s for and how to get a price. Keep it under 200 words and keep our facts exactly as they are. [Paste the page text here.]
Free.
Hiring and your team
Write a job ad
Write a job ad for a [part-time office assistant]. Hours: [20 a week]. Pay: [range]. Must-haves: [list]. Make it friendly and clear about what the day looks like, and avoid words that put people off applying, like “rockstar” or “ninja”.
Free.
Interview questions
Suggest eight interview questions for this job ad, two for each must-have, and tell me what a good answer sounds like for each. [Paste the job ad here.]
Free. Let Copilot help with questions, but make hiring decisions yourself.
Answer a policy question
Using our employee handbook, how many paid sick days does a full-time employee get, and how do they request one? Quote the section you used.
Paid seat to find the handbook on its own. Free if you attach it.
Planning your week
What matters this week
Look at my calendar and emails for this week. What are the three most important things I need to get done, what deadlines are coming up, and is there anything I’ve promised someone that I haven’t done yet?
Paid seat, because it reads across your calendar, email and Teams chats.
Break a big job into steps
I need to [move our files from Dropbox into SharePoint] by [the end of next month]. Break it into weekly steps, say who should do each one in a business of [6 people], and list what could go wrong.
Free.
Save the prompts that work
Keep a shared “prompt library” document in SharePoint with the prompts your team uses most. When the same long prompt runs every day, that’s a sign it could become a Copilot agent that does the job without the copy and paste. See how to build a Copilot agent.
Not sure which plan you need for these? See what Microsoft Copilot costs, orwhether the paid seat is worth it.
Common questions
Do these Copilot prompts work in the free version?
Most of them do. Free Copilot Chat works with anything you paste in or upload, and with your own inbox and calendar in Outlook. Prompts that search your company files on their own, recap Teams meetings or work inside Word and Excel need the paid Copilot Business seat. Each prompt here says which it needs.
Where do I type a Copilot prompt?
In the Copilot app or at copilot.cloud.microsoft, signed in with your work account. With a paid seat you can also open Copilot inside Outlook, Teams, Word and Excel and type the prompt there, so it works on the email, meeting or file in front of you.
Is it safe to put business information in a Copilot prompt?
Yes, when you are signed in with your Microsoft 365 work account. Your prompts get Microsoft’s enterprise data protection and are not used to train its AI models. Don’t paste business information into a personal Copilot account or a free outside AI tool.
What makes a Copilot prompt work well?
Say what you want, why you want it, which files or emails to use, and how you want the answer laid out. The prompts below follow that pattern. Change the details in brackets to your own.
