Copilot Notebooks and Study guide now available to Copilot Chat users

Every student can relate to this feeling: a test is fast approaching, materials are spread out everywhere, and the hardest challenge is figuring out where to begin. There’s a PDF from your teacher, some slides from last week, and a Word document filled with notes. Each resource has its own importance, but the real challenge lies in transforming them into something effective: deciding what to focus on first, how everything connects, what still feels unclear, and what requires more practice.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce two exciting updates in the education sector.

Firstly, Copilot Notebooks is now available for users with Microsoft 365 Education licenses who access Copilot Chat. Copilot Notebooks serve as AI-enhanced workspaces for subjects or group projects, consolidating all relevant materials into one place for you or your study group to collaborate effortlessly. We’ve heard from many Microsoft 365 Education users that they wanted the power of Copilot Notebooks integrated into the education licenses already in use by schools, and now it’s here!

This enhancement builds on the previous broader announcement regarding Copilot Notebooks, which are now accessible to all education and enterprise users. You can now work with your own materials in Notebooks, using tools like mind maps and Study Guides, and soon you’ll be able to create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. You can read more about this in the detailed Copilot Notebooks blog post.

Copilot Notebooks will be available in both the web and desktop versions of Microsoft 365 Copilot for Education users, and you can expect this to roll out within the next two weeks. They will also be accessible in OneNote shortly after.

To get started: Visit Copilot Notebooks directly at https://aka.ms/copilotnotebooks. Find Copilot Notebooks within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app waffle.

Secondly, the Copilot Notebook Study Guide is now generally available for both education and enterprise users. This feature is an AI-powered tool within Notebooks that transforms the materials you provide into an interactive study companion. It’s organised, editable, and fully rooted in your references, so it’s ready whenever you are.

The Study Guide is found inside Copilot Notebooks. To start using this tool, head to https://aka.ms/copilotnotebooks. Look for Copilot Notebooks in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app waffle.

With this update, Copilot Notebooks are accessible to Microsoft 365 Education A1, A3, and A5 users.

For those using the Study Guide, student accounts need the appropriate Age Group in Microsoft Entra ID, and K-12 students aged 13-17 need to have Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat enabled by an IT administrator before they can access Copilot Notebooks and the Study Guide.

There’s no need for additional installations for the Study Guide. It started rolling out to both enterprise and education customers on June 11, but it may take a couple of days for it to appear in your account.

The Study Guide takes existing learning materials and helps create an array of organised study topics and activities tailored to your needs.

Simply upload PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, or Excel files. The Study Guide scans these materials, identifies key points, and produces a multi-page study guide within the notebook.

The crucial aspect is that it is based entirely on the sources you provide. It won’t pull random facts from the web. Both the summary and topic pages will cite the original materials, allowing learners to check the sources of information and go back when they want a closer look.

This approach is crucial for education. It keeps students connected to their course materials and assures educators that the students are practicing with trustworthy resources — making citation-checking a regular practice, not an afterthought.

Study Guide creates resources that encompass all stages of learning: understanding, practising, and testing.

• Summary page: Begin with a concise overview of the materials you’ve added. The summary includes an introduction, significance of the topic, key themes, a glossary, common misconceptions, and source citations.
• Topic pages: The Study Guide forms in-depth pages for major themes within your content. These work like mini-chapters, encompassing explanations, sub-topic explorations, sample problems, thought-provoking questions, short exercises, and citations throughout.

• Flashcards: The Study Guide generates interactive flashcards from the learner’s materials. Students can flip cards, use hints, and edit the set to ensure the wording aligns with their understanding of the concept.
  
• Fill in the blanks: Key terms are removed from crucial sentences, and learners choose from a list of answers to fill in the gaps. This approach proves especially useful for processes and sequences where order and relationships are important.
• Matching: The Study Guide creates matching tiles that require learners to relate concepts: terms to definitions, causes to effects, structures to functions, or concepts to examples.

• Quiz: The Study Guide features a quiz powered by Microsoft Forms, generated from the user’s materials. Learners can respond directly on the page, review results, and access explanations for multiple-choice questions. Results remain private unless the student opts to share.
  

Each of these formats is designed to shift studying from passive review to active engagement. Instead of merely re-reading or highlighting, students will actively work to recall, connect, explain, and verify.

The Study Guide currently supports 21 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English (US), Estonian, French (Canada), French (France), German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian Bokmal, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

This means students can study using the materials they are already familiar with, in the language they are learning, without the need to switch to a different platform.

Here are some effective ways you can introduce the Study Guide to your students or utilise it yourself:

• Direct learners to specific study moments. Instead of saying, “use AI to study,” a more effective approach is encouraging them to “add this week’s slides and generate flashcards before Friday’s quiz.”
• Promote active practice. Encourage using flashcards, fill-in-the-blanks, matching, and quizzes to help students actively retrieve information rather than just re-reading.
• Use citations for teaching AI literacy. The Study Guide provides source citations, facilitating natural classroom discussions about verifying sources, assessing AI-generated content, and remaining anchored to course materials.
• Keep assessment separate from practice. The quizzes are meant for self-checking and aren’t for grading; results are private unless a student wishes to share them.
• Continue developing your own AI skills.

The Study Guide prioritises privacy, safety, and learner autonomy. Its pages are private by default, stored securely in each learner’s Microsoft 365 notebook, and can be modified or deleted as needed. Prompts and outputs will not be used to train AI models, and quiz results will remain private unless shared by the learner.

Anoo Padte is the Principal Product Manager for AI in Education at Microsoft.